Excellence in Art: Student artists honored at Juried Art Student Show

by Commuter Staff · May 9, 2018

Sin Melendez after receiving the President’s Purchase Award for her mixed media piece, “Virgo”, which will go into the permanent collection here at LBCC.

“Whenever the spring semester rolls around, I get so excited. I get to see the fantastic work of student artists,” said Anne Magratten, gallery mentor.

Art students, faculty, and guests gathered to partake in the Juried Art Student Show award ceremony on Friday, May 4. The gallery features art from current or recent LBCC students with a wide range of style, mediums, and content.

Local artists, art groups, school officials, and faculty awarded students with different types of prizes. The President’s Purchase Award is an award in which the president of LBCC chooses one piece to purchase and keep in LBCC’s permanent collection, and is used for artistic resource. President Greg Hamann couldn’t pick just one this year, so he chose two. Sin Melendez (“Virgo”) and Angela Scott (“Untitled”) were honored with the award this year.

“One of the things I find is I always learn something when I do this. It challenges my definition of art when choosing a piece. You enrich our lives,” said Hamann.

People viewing the gallery during the weeks prior to the event had the opportunity to partake by voting on which piece they liked best for the People’s Choice Award. This was awarded to Michael Bosch for “Frat House”. It’s a painting which featured bold, red, greek-style letters spelling out “RAPE” on a monochromatic Corvallis frat house.

The event wrapped up with Magratten announcing the Student Gallery Coordinators for next year. Michael Bosch will be spending a second year as a Student Gallery Coordinator and James-Harley Parr will be taking Sin Melendez’s place to work alongside Bosch.