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‘Look/See’ to spotlight work of Herron School of Art and Design graduate students

Apr 24, 2019

Description of the following video:

[Words appear in lower-left corner: IUPUI presents]

[Video: Andrea Jandernoa, a master’s student in the Herron School of Art and Design, works in her art studio on a new art piece. She is sitting at a table, weaving foil. Emily Sondgerath, also master’s student at Herron, holds her sculpture while she appears to be discussing it. The piece is a 3D sculpture of a pair of lungs. Later, a sculpture attached to the wall at a Herron studio is shown.]

Elizabeth Jorgensen, another master’s student in the Herron School of Art and Design, speaks in voiceover: The Look/See Exhibit is an end-of-year exhibition.

[Video: A closeup view of Sondgerath’s lung piece.]

Sondgerath speaks in voiceover: The second-year students get to make an art piece that correlates with their thesis.

[Video: Sondgerath appears on camera.]

[Words appear: Emily Sondgerath, Master’s student at the Herron School of Art and Design]

Sondgerath speaks: They’re all unique. We all created totally different theses …

[Video: A closeup view of art pieces in a Herron studio.]

Sondgerath speaks in voiceover: … but how we have kind of worked together through …

[Video: Sondgerath appears on camera.]

Sondgerath speaks: … the past couple years.

[Video: Jandernoa is seen in her studio. She is sitting at a table, weaving foil.]

Jandernoa speaks in voiceover: For my thesis exhibition, I am working primarily …

[Video: Jandernoa appears on camera.]

[Words appear: Andrea Jandernoa, Master’s student at the Herron School of Art and Design]

Jandernoa speaks: … with sugar and putting it into different forms,

[Video: A closeup of Jandernoa’s hands. She is using a tool to help her weave gold foil. Later, her completed sculpture is shown, hanging from the ceiling. It is a large piece, made completely of woven wires. Different angles of the sculpture are shown.]

Jandernoa speaks in voiceover: … in order to create a conversation about what it means to be diabetic, what it means to have a chronic illness. This piece is called “Foiled.” It is all hand-netted wire. So, I have taken …

[Jandernoa appears on camera.]

Jandernoa speaks: … fine-gauge wire and used some old netting practices, and …

[Video: Jandernoa is in her studio. She is using a tool to help her weave gold foil. Closeups of her hands weaving, and the tools she is using, are shown.]

Jandernoa speaks in voiceover: … created the net. And then after the net is created, I cook sugar up to the hard-crack stage, pour it over the net, and it kind of clings to …

[Video: Jandernoa appears on camera. She is looking at her sculpture as she is discussing it.]

Jandernoa speaks: … the different parts of the wire.

[Video: Jorgensen’s wall sculptures are shown.]

Jorgensen speaks in voiceover: My body of work is all about memory …

[Video: Jorgensen appears on camera.]

[Words appear: Andrea Jandernoa, Master’s student at the Herron School of Art and Design]

Jorgensen speaks: … and I am using found objects assemblage …

[Video: Artwork by Jorgensen is shown, including a sculpture made from an old jewelry box, a painting of a nude male and a sculpture mounted to the wall.]

Jorgensen speaks in voiceover: … sculpture work to tell the story. I use a lot of domestic items hoping that …

[Video: Jorgensen appears on camera.]

Jorgensen speaks: … my viewer is sitting there …

[Video: Jorgensen appears on camera. She is looking at one of her sculptures and pointing to it.]

[Jorgensen speaks in voiceover: … looking at the items, will be triggered also from maybe their own memories.]

[Screen goes to black]

[IU trident appears]

[Words appear: IUPUI]

[Words appear: Fulfilling the promise]

[Words appear: iupui.edu]

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

At the Herron School of Art and Design at IUPUI, the graduate theses for MFA students aren’t typed in a bound volume or laid out on a PowerPoint for a professor’s private review. They’re hung on walls, placed on tables or otherwise displayed for anyone to observe and enjoy.

That’s the magic of “Look/See,” Herron’s ninth annual year-end celebration featuring a graduate thesis exhibition of work by students completing their master’s degrees in art therapy, visual art and visual communication design. “Look/See,” which also showcases select undergraduate student work, will be from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 2, in Eskenazi Hall.

In advance of “Look/See,” IU Communications caught up with three M.A. and MFA candidates to get a sneak preview of their creations.

Counseling through art

In the growing field of art therapy, a mental health profession, a piece of art is often a bridge to communication.

“It’s a unique therapeutic relationship between the client and the therapist,” Emily Sondgerath explained. “So you are doing counseling, but you’re using art materials.”

Sondgerath is an art therapy M.A. candidate who has been interning at Riley Hospital for Children, working with pediatric stem cell nurses in the areas of bereavement and burnout. The stem cell transplant unit has the highest rate of mortality at the hospital.

“It’s a really cool atmosphere because they’re like a small family, but because of that, with the high mortality rate, they experience a lot of bereavement,” she said. “I’ve been researching, and then I interviewed them to see what they felt was the best way to support them.”

Art therapy is proving to be a useful method of support, and Sondgerath created a piece of art displaying a heart with different elements such as rocks in the center, which represent the heaviness of grief and death. The piece will be on display along with visual reflections of theses from six other art therapy M.A. students.

A conversation with sugar

Andrea Jandernoa’s piece winds and twists in midair, seemingly taking on a life of its own.

At first glance, the wire base of her art, titled “Foiled,” is obvious – but what about the material coating the wire? It’s sugar.

“For my thesis exhibition, I have been working primarily with sugar and putting it into different forms with other materials, like wire, to create a conversation about what it means to be diabetic,” said Jandernoa, a visual art MFA candidate. “It’s about how you experience things like unpredictability and uncertainty.”

Perhaps no one has bought as much sugar lately from supermarkets without making food out of it than Jandernoa, who worked through many recipes and cooking methods to create the right kind of consistent material that would cling to the wire.

“Part of why I found this really interesting is because typically nets are something that can hold and catch and secure,” she said. “But because the net is so malleable with the wire that it’s created from, and the sugar is so hard, it’s actually really quite fragile, and anytime it moves, it has the potential to knock the different sugar pieces off.”

She will be moving the work carefully to install it for display in the 2019 Graduate Thesis Exhibition, opening the evening of “Look/See.”

Elizabeth Jorgensen portrait
Elizabeth Jorgensen specializes in sculpture and will have several pieces at the “Look/See” graduate exhibition.Photo by Liz Kaye, Indiana University

Re-creating memories

Visiting Elizabeth Jorgensen’s workspace at the Eskenazi Fine Arts Center requires some careful walking, so as not to be poked by sharp objects protruding from the wall.

The MFA visual art student specializes in sculpture and will have several pieces to show in the graduate exhibition.

“My body of work kind of evolved with the first year, when I realized I wanted to work on memory,” Jorgensen said. “I’m using found-object assemblage sculpture work to tell the story. The basis of my story is about having amnesia about childhood experiences, so I’m using photography to kind of inform my sculptures.

“I’m looking at the subject matter, and I’m in a lot of the photographs. I’m deciding my emotion that I’m feeling when I’m looking at them, and then I’m translating that into my sculptures.”

She recently displayed some of the works at a show in northern Indiana, and the reactions and questions from attendees gave her new perspectives.

“One person said it looked like a lot of collage work to him, and I remembered as a child how that was one of the things my mother had taught me – pretty much my first art form,” she said. “Since I never really thought of that, it was interesting that someone else picked it up.”

In-kind support for “Look/See” is provided by Sun King Brewing. Light refreshments will be available. Parking is free in the Sports Complex Garage adjacent to Eskenazi Hall or on levels 5 and 6 of the Riverwalk Garage, courtesy of The Great Frame Up Indianapolis, with validation from the Herron galleries.

The Galleries at Herron, located in Eskenazi Hall on the IUPUI campus, are free and open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays.

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