Fanshawe art students mix splashes of colour with everyday images in new paint exhibit

Isha Bhargava · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 16, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

A radical of Fine Arts students astatine Fanshawe College's School of Design are the faces down a caller art exhibition connected show successful downtown London, this month. 

The grounds called "The Beholder" astatine the TAP Centre for Creativity, features paintings by 17 second-year students who drew inspiration from the London library, wherever they selected assorted images successful books to make their paintings. 

Bold splashes of colour, paired with symbolic imagery that's unsocial to each student, purpose to seizure viewers and gully their eyes to the relationship between chaos, power and intentionality, said Billy Burt Young, a prof who organized the exhibit.

"[The exhibit's name] is ambiguous capable that it could mean a fig of things and the spectator themselves is the astir important constituent of the show," helium said. "Without the viewer, the creation truly ceases to exist."

Student Jocelyn Fournier filled her canvas with a bright-coloured blend of fruits, architecture and technology. While the 3 themes seemed similar an unusual combination, Fournier was impressed with the mode it each came together, she said. 

"Our extremity present was to truly enactment with projection and masking techniques with a debased colour palette. I went for a much bluish and pinkish colour palette," said Fournier. 

"I'm drawn to more quality sourced imagery and I wanted to premix it with immoderate much method elements similar buildings and clocks and I wanted to premix it each unneurotic with the mystical and get a consciousness of however these things could interact."

Her inspiration came from a publication astir fruits from the Philippines and clocks manufactured successful Ontario, particularly 1 made successful her hometown of Stratford, said Fournier. 

Delaney Mitchell's task showcases the other and takes a look astatine topics like death, consciousness and religion. The situation for her was pairing brighter colours with a darker illustration of CT scans, said Mitchell. 

"What we were trying to bash is task [images] from the books and marque our ain creation from it, portion reusing aged creation that mightiness beryllium forgotten," she said. 

"I'm truly funny successful however accent affects the brain and what radical mightiness deliberation happens aft they die, specified arsenic successful Christianity and Paganism, and I wanted to incorporated antithetic aspects of that conscionable to absorption a lens connected thing we each deliberation astir arsenic people."

Mitchell said her paintings person received peculiar attraction from a radical of children who were intrigued by the concept. 

Linus Klassen's portion titled "Incurring a Great Wrath" was inspired by a publication astir mushrooms grown successful North America. He combined it with divinity and architecture to make disorder and a visceral effect from those viewing "the gross stuff," helium said.

"I'm precise intrigued by the abject and the disgusting, I deliberation it truly brings retired a absorption successful immoderate people," said Klassen. "They benignant of spell 'Oh my gosh' and I emotion to get that absorption from people, truthful that's what I truly focused on."

For galore of the students, including Klassen, this grounds is the archetypal clip their artwork is being displayed in public. Although the acquisition has been nervewracking for Klassen, he's proud of the effect his enactment has been receiving, helium said 

Burt Young hopes audiences tin bask the vibrant amusement and that it inspires different young artists to find imagery that speaks to them and repurpose it according to their idiosyncratic styles, helium said. 

The grounds runs from Tuesdays to Saturdays betwixt noon and 5 p.m. until March 22.