Atlantic Center for the Arts – 27th Annual University Student Exhibition

We are pleased to announce the artists selected for Atlantic Center for the Arts 27th Annual University Student Exhibition.

Nasser Almulhim, University of West Florida
Kennedy Bailey, University of South Florida
Taylor Finke, University of South Florida
Edison Peñafiel, Florida International University

James Hyde, ACA Master Artist in 2007 was this year’s juror. For more information, visit http://www.jameshyde.com/pages/exhibitions.php
To read the Mr. Hyde’s juror statement click here

Atlantic Center for the Arts – 27th Annual University Student Exhibition
Exhibition dates: May 21 – August 13, 2016
Opening Reception, Friday, May 20 from 5 to 7 PM

Atlantic Center for the Arts is dedicated to artistic excellence. By providing a retreat-like setting as part of the Artists-in-Residence program, ACA gives talented artists an opportunity to submerge themselves in intellectual and creative exchange and to push the limits of their creative borders.

Through the annual University Student Exhibition, Atlantic Center honors the outstanding work being produced by state university art students, and recognizes their dedication to the pursuit of excellence.

The selection process for this exhibition begins with individual art departments. Department chairs are asked to nominate up to three full-time, degree-seeking students, in any medium or style; 23 students were nominated for this year’s exhibition and four were selected by Juror James Hyde. The quality of work submitted indicates that the departments provide the intellectual and creative direction necessary for students to push their limits; resulting in work that is unique in its singleness of vision. By identifying and promoting these emerging artist, Atlantic Center hopes to focus statewide attention on the high level of creative and experimental work being produced at the college level throughout Florida’s state university system.

Nasser Almulhim Artist’s Statement

Nasser Almulhim

My imaginary collage artwork is influenced by the energy of nature and my personal emotions. My artwork expresses the emotional states and cultural differences through forms within structures or zones of abstraction. Coming from a different ethnicity and background helps my work to capture the state of today’s world by using various media and materials to create a work that could help bring some unity and peace into our soul and world. There are overarching globalist themes in my work, which deals with the emotions, connectedness, unity and compassion. In my work I use simple recyclable materials such as paper, cardboard and acrylic paint to support the idea of nothing can go to waste if it useful. Through my experimental work with abstraction and geometry, I realize that ideas are very significant in my work. I start with a small-scale experimental idea, then I apply this idea into bigger scale. I am fascinated by the mystery of a three-dimensional and two-dimensional space. In my work I try to present some meaningful ideas that could help us emotionally to get over the negativities. By using simple materials that I find around me, I give the viewers a reason to wonder and consider different points of perspectives and awareness of today’s world through my artwork.
For more information, visit http://webgram.co/nasajm (Instagram post viewer)

Kennedy Bailey Artist’s Statement

Kennedy Bailey

My process of painting involves taking recognizable imagery and moving it into abstraction. Borrowed from the Nouveau Rèalisme group of artists, the manifesto of my work is the idea of seeing the world as an image, allowing me to take parts of it to use and manipulate into my own work. Each piece extracted from the world is interwoven to create a visual statement of movement, through the use of colors and shapes that push and pull, drawing the viewer in. Flooded with ideas and images, I impulsively must paint them before I forget, due to a short-term memory deficit. I am not attached to the end result of a painting. I live in the moment and I grab my ideas, thrusting them into my paintings. As the ideas morph into an image, I move on to the next series of ideas, catching them quickly before they disappear and are forgotten. These thoughts and images create multiple layers of visual information, each layer equally important to the works composition. My favorite painting is always the one I am working on.
For more information, visit https://kennedybailey.com/

Taylor Finke Artist’s Statement

Taylor Finke

I am a woman raised by women. In my work, I retrace and reconstruct my family history—about which I know very little—through fabricated images, family photographs, and found documents with a focus on my female relatives. The images I make reference the somewhat traditional versions of femininity and womanhood that I was taught by my mother and grandmother while often also challenging them and creating feelings of tension. I investigate my past as well as my present relationship with my mother, and how these things have affected my own understandings of womanhood, motherhood, femininity, and relationships.

The images, often created using family heirlooms in my mother’s home, serve as an attempt to reconstruct my personal history and to act as a record of the past while also documenting the present. The work combines still lifes drawn from memories that reference themes of femininity and domesticity with altered family photographs. I utilize found documents that, in particular, have some significant relationship to my own personal history. These images and documents come together to construct a visual family history that functions not simply as documentation, but rather as a piecing together of things that I know, things that I think I know, and things that might remain a mystery to me. For more information, visit http://www.taylorfinke.com/

Edison Peñafiel Artist’s Statement

Edison Peñafiel

My work functions as a vehicle to question social injustice along with expressing ideas about displacement, and the worldwide migrant crisis caused by economic, political and religious instability. My practice consists of combining techniques that include photography, audio, video, drawing, painting, collage, sculpture, and found objects to create the visuals. This combination of mediums materialize as a multimedia installation which display a surreal or an augmented reality. The work borrows the aesthetic of movements such as Expressionism, German Expressionism Films, Russian Constructivism, and Deconstructivism, allowing me to create expressive characters, surreal settings, deconstructed structures and sharp edge architecture. As for the concept, I creates metaphors influenced by ironic sayings, and excerpts from songs or poems that evoke and remind of the absurdity of current global events. For more information, visit http://edisonpenafiel.com/