Simpson College hosted an art exhibition featuring students who submitted their own art, along with pieces from students in graphic design III.
The graphic design III exhibition had the theme of human ingenuity over AI in art. The student exhibition included photography, digital illustration, paintings and multimedia mediums.
Junior Leelia Rudicil, a graphic design III student, was one who had her art displayed at the exhibit. She had many pieces of art shown in varying mediums, but one stood out to her as the most impactful.
Rudicil created a photo collage of singer and songwriter Tyler the Creator. She said this piece impacted her the most as she is the creator for the art installations for the Hinterland Music Festival, and this was her first piece for the event.
“I really struggled with that one too, because it was my first assignment and they pretty much gave me free reign to do whatever I want,” Rudicil said.
She also spoke on what art meant to her.
“I would say it’s where I find a lot of my purpose which is strange because I have always, I do all kinds of art. I do a lot of photography, a lot of illustration, and I’ve been doing that for as long as I can remember,” Rudicil said.
She claimed in the past she has tried to avoid art because she’s never considered it as a career path. Rudicil also claimed to be a perfectionist, which makes the art process less enjoyable. Despite this, though, she always finds herself going back to it because it is a part of who she is.
Rudicil claimed photography to be her favorite medium. In high school, her dad gave her a film camera, which is when she began to consider a potential career path.
“What I really like is picking out things that most people don’t see and then making them beautiful, a lot of the details that people miss,” she said.
Rudicil chose “See You Again” by Tyler The Creator as the song to be played when viewing her piece.
Senior Noah Placiente had art of athletes in motion. Placiente used Adobe Illustrator to create the pieces he showed at the exhibit.
“I timed it once and just went 17 hours straight, and for more recent ones I’ve been getting far more in depth with stuff so I was taking about 40 to 80 hours on certain things,” Placiente said. “I just did one for the Iowa Wild crash mascot where he’s holding a plush and I think the plush itself took about 30 hours.”
Placiente said the creative process can be frustrating, but in the end it always works out. He claimed trusting in his work is the main aspect of creation.
Placiente chose “Swing Lynn” by Harmless as the song to be played when viewing his art.
Other students featured in the exhibition are Vincent Martin, Emma Brown, Makayla Paulsen, Naomi Graves, Darian Konrad and the rest of the graphic design III students. The student exhibition will be on display in the Howard Art Gallery until March 12.
