Several spectators wandered around art pieces that were balanced, laid and hung around the white walls and bare cement floor of the Fine Arts Building Gallery on Nov. 3 for the opening of the sculpture exhibit “O Veni, Vidi.”
“Julius Caesar came, saw and conquered, but we just came and saw,” said Jennifer Lauren Smith, one of three graduate students whose artwork was displayed at the exhibition.
One of the first pieces of work to catch the viewer’s attention at “O Veni Vidi” was Smith’s piece, “Confections.” The tall, dark-colored, rectangular prism sitting against one of the corners of the room was meant to represent a Catholic confessional.
“It’s a place for people to speak and blindly listen,” Smith said. “I like to work a lot with language.”
In the middle of the same wall sat a tiny movie projector on a small 3-foot-tall white podium, showing some vintage-looking stock footage of people looking out across a field at a mountain.
“It’s sort of cheesy and low budget, but I liked the projector,” said Hannah Walsh, an artist in the sculpture and extended media program whose work was also displayed. “Even though it’s kind of crappy, you get good, warm lighting out of it.”
Ashley Lyon’s, “The Measure And The Sense” included an unfired, clay sculpture of a full-scale infant lying on the floor near a large photograph of the Hood Canal Bridge in Washington State.
“The picture I took is from a special place where I lived before I came to VCU,” Lyon said. “This type of work is sort of new to me since getting here,” she added.
Outside the FAB Gallery, groups of art students and friends gathered around a table of cookies and refreshments and discussed the show, past artwork, artists, upcoming galleries and ideas. After the exhibit, the gallery emptied and students went to class to critique each other’s work.
‘O Veni Vidi’ will be on display in the Fine Arts Building Gallery, at 1000 W. Broad St., until Friday, Nov. 6 from 9-5 p.m.