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St. Peter’s College display open at the Humboldt and District Gallery

HUMBOLDT — St. Peter's College Fine Arts Department Exhibition is holding their 15th annual show, with 37 frames on display at the Humboldt and District Gallery – and even more pieces sharing a frame.
St. Peters Art Show
Due to the pandemic, this year’s show will be a bit different with more collages and a lack of live models to use in the art. Photo by Jessica R. Durling

HUMBOLDT — St. Peter's College Fine Arts Department Exhibition is holding their 15th annual show, with 37 frames on display at the Humboldt and District Gallery – and even more pieces sharing a frame.

All works come from artists at the college taught by Grant McConnel and Clint Hunker.

Due to the pandemic, some of the students were learning at home through video demonstrations and powerpoints, while others were in-class with appropriate measures and distancing.

“It turned out to be a really strong exhibition,” McConnel said.

“The students this year were great as far as learning how to compose to the principles of design, and elements – they really got that down, I think, in excess of what has happened previous years probably because of the delivery method.”

Each year the department typically submits about 30 pieces. Present at this year’s show are collage, landscape, seascape, abstract and portrait work.

As a result of the pandemic, McConnel said there are more collages and less expressive live production art with live models.

“It was impossible to do that and do it safely, so we just didn’t,” he said. “In terms of composing and in terms of understanding design elements and things students have done really well.”

In addition, through the pandemic, the artists were given more time to work at home, which McConnel said was used to produce some “pretty fine work”.

“It’s definitely more pieces than other years, and you can see different art mediums as well,” said Yoojin Park, the gallery’s cultural programmer.

“The big difference from other years is I can say I see more ideas, I see more of the thinking process in depth. That’s a big thing I noticed this year.”

McConnel said the themes he wants audience members to take out of the show is the creativity.

“That’s the kind of thing you should be looking for in an art exhibition, and I think that’s what you see in spades this year,” he said. “However restricted the circumstances being, the students have found a way to really get creative with that and stimulate interest.”

The show is on display at the Humboldt and District Gallery from March 2 to March 24.