Graduating seniors showcase their personality with diverse set of art work

Three graduating seniors from the Juanita and Ralph Harvey School of Visual Arts will have an opening reception for their BFA Exhibitions on May 3 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Jef Castillo, Casi Oechsner and Kelsey Ticknor will be in the Foyer Gallery of the Fain Fine Arts Building to showcase and discuss their compilation of submitted work with those in attendance. The exhibition will run through July 26.

Admission to the reception is free, and the annual Juried Student Exhibitions will also be on display in the Main Gallery.

Jef Castillo

Castillo, a senior graphic design, started his studies at Midland College, earning an associates degree in art in 1996.

During his time at MSU, Castillo became a member of the Eta Epsilon chapter of the Kappa Pi International Honorary Art Fraternity in 2012.

He showcased his work from 2011-2013 in the Juried Student Exhibition, and also participated in the 2012 Kappa Pi Exhibition.

For Castillo’s exhibition, he chose to create a variety of images indicative of his interests, which include science fiction cinema and American history.

Castillo said the focus he took in his art included good versus evil, the hero against the villain and light vanquishing darkness.

“My personal dilemma is to decide which side to be on,” Castillo said. “My parents taught me to take the high road, but the hero’s role is not always my first choice. With time, the line between right and wrong is increasingly blurred.”

These ideals are expressed best in his “49 Shades of Gray” series, a set of three graphite and charcoal drawings from three different time periods. One example of this is his drawing “Abraham” which melds Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth together.

According to Castillo, he assigned a gray-scale value to each square of a grid system to allude to the ambiguity of moral choices.

“When you are close enough to see the individual squares, you can see the apparent differences,” Castillo said. “However, when viewed from a distance, the individual components merge together to reveal the portrayed character. Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth are both presented on equal ground without a hierarchy of importance.”

Castillo continues this melding of colors and images to create a full picture in another art piece, “Boba Fett,” a tribute to the bounty hunter from the Star Wars franchise.

For the four-color ink process rendering, Castillo used one color at a time to produce half-tone dots across a clear plastic wet-media film, applying yellow dots first, then followed by magenta, cyan and finally black. When viewed at a distance, all four colors merge to create the full picture.

“I have learned as an artist, I prefer purposeful ambiguity,” Castillo said. “We are taught throughout history not all critical issues are black and white. Life, too, can have its shades of gray.”

Casi Oechsner

Oechsner, a senior photography and graphic design, is a native of Wichita Falls, graduating from S.H. Rider High School in 2008.

Oechsner has been a member of Kappa Pi from 2012 to 2013.

Four of her pieces were published in the 2011 issue of Voices magazine, and she self-published a book, Look Bothways – a collection of photographs ranging in topic from Oechsner’s personal travels (she participated in the 2012 British Studies Program) to people participating in a gay-pride rally.

“Photography is my way of discovering, isolating and capturing what I find visually fascinating and emotionally moving,” Oechsner said.

Oechsner will present her series “Identity” at the senior exhibition. According to Oechsner, “Identity” explores two opposite positions on beauty – natural and artificial.

The work of Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled” series, as well as the self-expression of pop artists Ke$ha and Lady Gaga, inspired Oechsner to look at the way women view themselves and how they try to hide or cover their true selves.

“A synthetic look can function like a mask,” Oechsner said. “It has the potential to demoralize and encourage a distorted feminine ideal. I believe some try to achieve unrealistic appearances. I think these drastic changes reveal their insecurities.”

For “Identity,” Oechsner used her female friends as models, capturing a regular mug shot of them, followed by another mug shot with physical alterations made to the subject. One example of this is in the pairing of “Lizzy” and “Rainer Trill,” in which one of her friends adorns a purple-colored up-do and a matching floral arrangement around her left eye.

“My friend Lizzy is one of the models,” Oechsner said. “Her diptych captures her honesty in one part, and her secret personality in the other, ‘Rainer Trill.’ With her alter-ego exposed, she displays her feathery palette.”

With “Identity,” Oechsner looks to answer the question ‘What does it mean to be feminine?’ and is using the process of discovering who she is and wants to be in response.

Kelsey Ticknor

Ticknor, a senior in graphic design and photography, graduated from Plano High School in 2009 and began attending MSU the same year.

Ticknor made the Dean’s List twice (December 2010 and December 2012), the President’s Honor Roll in May 2012, and the Wichita Falls Art Association Scholarship twice (November 2011 and January 2012).

She joined Kappa Pi in August 2011, and has served as treasurer since 2012. As a part of Kappa Pi, she has had her artwork in the 2011 and 2012 Kappa Pi Exhibitions, she also participated in the Annual Student Exhibitions, winning the Graphic Design Award in 2011 and 2012, The Juanita Harvey Excellence in the Arts Award in 2011, and the 2D Design Award in 2010.

Three of her pieces were printed in the 2012 issue of Voices magazine, and she served as an intern at Gil Ad Group in Wichita Falls from January to May 2012.

Ticknor’s exhibition of large archival pigmented prints plays with light and its movement in dark environments.

“I was introduced to the technique of light painting at the Lizard Lounge in Dallas,” Ticknor said in her artist statement. “Cameras were capturing the movement of glow sticks in a nocturnal environment, creating a mind-blowing, colorful symphony. I caught a glimpse of a digital image and was instantly fascinated.”

Inspired by the work of graffiti artist Jason Page, and photojournalist Gjon Mili’s documentation of Pablo Picasso drawing in the air with a light bulb, Ticknor said she discovered how to create these time-based photographs when testing the boundaries of her camera settings. She decided to use her senior exhibition to document “the entire fluorescent pathway.”

According to Ticknor, her pieces “Skittles on Speed,” “Feel the Prism” and “Acid Rain” were all created by setting her camera to manual and the shutter speed varying from two to 10 seconds. She then photographed the continuous activity of people illuminated from head to toe in neon in a dark room.

“The result suggest hallucinogenic, chaotic swirls that appear otherworldly and intangible.”