By Lucas Pennington, student news writer
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky.— Campbellsville University senior art students, Cherese Bates and Alexis Crawford, both of Louisville, Ky., will be presenting their work to the public with their senior art exhibit until April 1.
The exhibit will be on display at the Pence-Chowning Art Gallery, 205 University Drive, Campbellsville, Ky. Hours are: Mondays from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. and from noon to 6 p.m.; Tuesdays from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.; Wednesdays from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursdays from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. and Fridays from 9 a.m. until noon and from 1 p.m. until 6 p.m.
Everyone is invited to the free exhibit.
Bates will show paintings, collages, and pencil and charcoal drawings. Crawford’s exhibit consists of sculpture, ceramics, graphic design and printmaking. She will be holding a reception for her artwork on Friday, March 28 from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Bates was born in Milwaukee, Wis., but was raised in Louisville. She graduated from Ballard High School in 2010 and will be graduating from Campbellsville University in the fall of 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in art.
Bates has been a part of many art exhibits in the past couple of years. She participated in the Greencastle Business Fair art exhibit on Nov. 6, 2011. She also participated in the Pedals Flower Shop Senior Jewelry Show, which was located at Campbellsville University, on July 5, 2012, and in the Portland Christian School Christmas Bazaar art exhibit on Oct. 22, 2012.
Bates said, “As I was growing up I would always remember drawing sketches of dresses and drawing in middle school.” She went on to say, “I enjoyed it greatly but didn’t think I wanted to major in it in college. When I was a freshman in college, I was more into science and my major was Biology. I had a mindset of becoming a pharmacist.”
Four years later she is about to graduate with her art degree and says the most important thing she has learned is “it’s better to create artwork that comes from your heart that has meaning behind it.”
The type of work that Bates will have displayed includes paintings, collages, pencil drawings and charcoal drawings.
Crawford, also a native of Louisville, graduated from Eastern High School in 2010 and will graduate in May 2014 from Campbellsville University with a bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design.
Crawford has also participated in art exhibits in the past. She participated in the 2012 Annual Student Juried Show at CU. She also had artwork displayed at the ITD Gallery in Novisad, Serbia, where she got the first place award for best desktop calendar exhibited.
Crawford said, “Around my senior year of high school I became very interested in the knowledge of the ancients – specifically the Mayans, Egyptians, Hindus, and Asians. The ways they choose to depict ideas visually without a standard language was intriguing to me.”
Crawford also said, “My mission as an artist is to manifest the abilities of the ancient to create long-standing monuments and ideas into modern world applications.”
In Crawford’s exhibit you will be able to “see imagery from all across the world.” She said, “I explore cultures of Asia, India, and Africa finding similarities that I then expand.”
She also said, “With these images I hope to convey the concept that throughout time and across the globe we all are no so different after all and the human experience is universal.”
Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with more than 3,600 students offering 63 undergraduate options, 17 master’s degrees, five postgraduate areas and eight pre-professional programs. The website for complete information is campbellsville.edu.