Art that physically repels & mentally confronts

Hanging on the wall above a diverse plethora of sculptures in the Gatov Gallery is a short video playing on a flat-screen T.V.  It begins by showing a still-shot of black apartment-building windows, lazily covered by dirty white curtains.

“What is that sound?” viewers wonder as the noise of a girl panting gets louder and more frantic. The video then shows quick glimpses of a girl’s face as she attempts to jump into the camera’s frame. The panting turns into piercing sounds of struggle. Then, the video repeats.

The art exhibition titled #sculptured contains a cluster of creations, each of which resemble conventional sculptures. However, the painful noise and confusing visual coming from senior sculpture major Juliet Johnson’s artwork are intentionally puzzling.

Johnson primarily focuses on more traditional forms of art, like painting and sculptures. When she was diagnosed with tendonitis in her right wrist and both biceps, she began to create art that required less physical strength.  Johnson said tendonitis affects her muscles in her upper back and shoulders as well as her hands, where the muscles become so tight they pull on the tendons.

“At the time I created this piece, I was dealing with this injury making it really difficult to do anything physical,” Johnson said. “It was a struggle of sustaining myself and staying afloat.”

At first, Johnson only connected her debilitating injuries to her artwork because of what she has gone through.  On the gallery’s opening night however, she saw audience members purposely avoiding her piece. She witnessed one person become so uncomfortable “[the audience member] actually touched the art” to lower the volume.

“I think if you make something that can physically repel somebody, you’ve either done something really interesting or really terrible,” Johnson said. “Hopefully mine is the former.”

She thinks her artwork makes people feel uncomfortable because of the “porn-ish,” confrontational sounds of physical exertion.

“We’re trained not to touch art,” Johnson said, “It’s interesting that someone really needed to do that.”

Senior psychology major Lauren Glasgow stood baffled in front of the screen and watched the video over and over.

“At first, I thought the video was sort of humorous,” Glasgow said.

But as the moaning sounds became more intense, and as the girl’s helpless look upon her face appeared in the camera frame, Glasgow began feeling uneasy.

“I got this feeling I used to experience when I was younger—the feeling of trying over and over so hard to just be acknowledged,” Glasgow said.

While the feeling is uncomfortable for some attendees, Johnson said she enjoys how her art has been interpreted.

“It’s hard to talk about my art when I feel like all the things it does bring up are totally valid,” Johnson said. “So it’s hard to say what I see in it because all the options I think are interesting.”

Johnson’s artwork will be displayed until Thursday in the Fine Arts building in the Gatov West Gallery.