Love, happiness, sadness, anger—these are not only the stages of a break-up but also some of the expressions intricately portrayed in the figurines playfully arrayed throughout the “So Many Me’s” student gallery.
California State University, Long Beach ceramic arts student Kathy Yoon exposed her innermost self to gallery visitors in her exhibit. The gallery is a self-portrait of Yoon as she conveys sentiments and past experiences through 3-D figurines she best describes as “characters.”
“They are all representations of me, so they’re not the same but they’re not all different either,” Yoon said. “The different gestures and the positions they’re in, they’re all representing either a moment in my life or an emotion during that time.”
With button eyes, stitched mouths and crooked smiles, the characters possessed a similar appearance to one another but each bared a unique emotional weight.
Although Yoon’s gallery artwork is a representation of herself, she said that emotions are a universal one-size-fits-all characteristic and hopes that everyone will be able to identify with one of her ‘me’s.’
“I want [the audience] to get an idea of who I am or who I could be within my work,” Yoon said. “I want them to possibly relate to one or two pieces. Everyone has felt sad or happy at any point, so I hope every person connected with one piece like, ‘Oh yeah that’s how I’m feeling right now.’”
Gallery visitor and freshman psychology major Katelyn Nguyen said that she connected with one character in particular.
“I really liked the figure that was holding a heart balloon,” Nguyen said. “It very much reminds me of young love. Although you might keep your crush a secret, everyone knows something’s up with you. Almost as if you have cupid following you around everywhere.”
When asked to offer advice to other incoming art students with reservations such as financial concerns surrounding an art career, Yoon was not short of answer.
“… instead of thinking too much about it, if you really love what you do and your process of making your artwork, it kind of disregards the whole financial aspect,” said Yoon. “ You [have to] love what you do. The people that might make the most money but don’t like what they do, their life is so mundane.”
Sophomore psychology major Brenda Coronado shared her opinion on the matter.
“Coming to these galleries and seeing all this art and watching the reactions it brings out of people, it kind of makes money simply irrelevant,” Coronado said. “The artist seems really happy, and I’m sure I too will be with my major because I love psychology.”
Yoon went on to further advise any doubters: “I’ve come across more artists that are not making that much money but really, really love what they do. My advice for students who are kind of on the fence about whether they want to do art is that they got to keep in check [whether they] really want to do this, to take the risk.”
The CSULB School of Art displays student galleries in Fine Arts building 2-4, with new exhibits each week. Yoon’s “So Many Me’s” exhibit can be experienced from noon to 5 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday, and from noon to 7 p.m. on Wednesday.