Meredith Kroll started the portrait of her boyfriend when their relationship seemed perfect. She completed the underpainting just before they broke up after a four-year relationship.
"I didn't want to put that painting in the show," she said, "I didn't even want to finish it because I didn't want to see his face." She was required to show a piece and it was the only piece finished in time.
Kroll's work is part of a new exhibit of The University of Memphis' advanced undergraduate painters in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program.
The exhibit, in Gallery 203 on the second floor of the Communication and Fine Arts building, opened on Friday and runs through November 26. The show includes nine artists and 16 paintings by the artists. The painters' styles all differ and the experience of showing their work prepares them for their future work.
U of M senior Carolyn Bomar organized the exhibit with the help of graduate student and gallery director Virginia Overton.
"The gallery is a laboratory for the students to prepare to show their work in the future," said Overton. "They must keep within a budget, learn about setting up, deal with the paper work that needs doing and all the rigmarole that showing an exhibit entails."
The artists learned what procedures are necessary to open an exhibit and also how it feels to have your work examined by the public.
"You don't realize how much work there is until you do it," said senior painter, Michelle Wilson. "It was gratifying in the sense that you feel you accomplished something, but it makes you feel kind of vulnerable when people can walk in and see your work."
Wilson is showing "Tourists" and "Two Months After" in the exhibit. Her pieces resemble watercolor painting but are precisely painted with oil on paper. "I used to paint more realistic like a photo, but I've always liked a washy look," she said. "These are my first two on paper, but I want to work with this for a while. It leaves me freer and it's easier to get the washy quality I like on paper."
The current exhibition has no official title, but the artists did have some ideas.
"We jokingly called it Advanced Painting," said senior Bryant Swanson, who found the title humorous because of its pretension. Bryant is showing "Self 1980" and "Sara" in the gallery. The two pieces are similar in style and both are oil on panel.
"They're the first two panels I've done in a while," he said. "The paint works different on panel and every brush stroke shows." The two pieces combine translucent figures and prominent color. The figures come straight from his drawings and the combination has become "more and more my style." The hollowed figures represent the fickle nature of past memory, Bryant said.
Carolyn Bomar helped designing the layout of the show. In addition to learning the more tedious work of creating an exhibit, there are aesthetic sides to presenting art.
"I just pay attention to the little details," she said. "There's a certain look you want in a gallery." Hanging the paintings according to the lighting and the juxtaposition of the work is important, Bomar said. "Putting two certain pieces next to each other can ruin the presentation of the art."
Bomar is showing her piece "Stain" in the exhibit. The work started with electro-microscopic images, but she is more interested in the process of her paintings. The piece was minimalized from a biological image until there was no recognizable image, she said.
"It's experimentation. It's a mark left by something and in this case, it's the mark of an image," Bomar said.
Gallery 203 is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The gallery shows four to five exhibits a semester.
