Kimmy Guo has created 12 unique slices of elaborate, fancy layer cake. But there were no recipes or baking involved.
Her design piece entitled Confection Menu was on display April 14 at the year-end show for Selkirk College digital arts students at Nelson’s Tenth Street Campus. It’s the piece Guo said she is most proud of because when she began the program she only drew human figures.
So cake was a stretch.
“My teacher wanted to push me further, asked me to draw other things,” she said.
Guo says that at home in Taiwan she began studying interior design, but this did not last long.
“I did not like interior design at all. So I went here to pursue an illustration career. I feel Canada is a diverse culture and I can express more my ideas here.”
Guo is one of 40 first- and second-year students who displayed their work at the weekend exhibit, which featured a range of disciplines including fine art, illustration, digital design, multidimensional design, photography, motion graphics, video, web design and animation.
Nichola Lytle teaches production design in the program and coordinated the staff and students in setting up the year-end show. She estimates that 400-to-500 people attended the two-day event.
“When the students enter the program they are just finding their voice, and then by year two they have discovered their voice,” she said.
To share their work with a live audience, and chat with them about it, is a new experience for the students.
“It just brings everything to a real level for them, for when they go out into the world and start their careers.”
Lytle said she is proud of the event and the students because “so many of them are so ridiculously talented.”
Aidan Croskrey of Montana said he has always been passionate about digital arts but couldn’t decide what he wanted to do.
“I came up here with a wide range of what I was interested in, and then once I was in the program I narrowed down on cinematography and a bit of photography as well. I love both of those, I love capturing movement.”
One of his pieces in the exhibit is a video collaboration, partly using animation, with student Suze Mercado.
“It was so exciting, it gave me full creative licence,” Mercado said, “and it went in a weird direction in a way that I am proud of. This is the start of a career for me. I want to get into making animation and film.”
Croskrey said he learned a lot about storytelling from film instructor Amy Bohigian.
“I had been into filming action sports with my friends,” he said, “but she taught a lot about how to create a story, how to lead you through a story.”
Liz Barahona studied agriculture in Honduras, but her childhood dream was to study art in another country.
“That is the dream that I am doing right now,” she said. “I am showing my daughters that it is something that they can do, to believe in their dreams and if they work hard, they can do it.”
One of her favourite works is her untitled painting of a baby surrounded by fish and water.
“I like the movement of the fish, and I like the light in the top. I like the colours. I am very proud of it.”
She said the title of her illustration Scared But Brave was borrowed, but the words mean a lot to her.
“I did it thinking of my daughter because she is a bit nervous about things but in the end she does them.”
Barahona says she has enjoyed the fact that there are students from different countries in the program.
“You can look at your classmates’ styles and learn from them, and enjoy their art.”
READ MORE: Selkirk College digital arts grads connect community to creativity
bill.metcalfe@nelsonstar.com
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