Public Art

Common Thread Painting

The IUPUI Campus Center recently held its first annual Art Competition in 2011 with Herron School of Art and Design's third year painting class. A jury of campus center employees selected painting major Marianna Bell's work Common Thread as the winner. The work is now displayed, along with a brief description, on the fourth floor of the Campus Center between the entrances of the Yale Pratt Meeting Room (CE 405).

The idea for the competition was an outgrowth of last year's Spirit of Philanthropy event, which resulted in an original work coming to the Campus Center for permanent display. Working through the Basile Center for Art, Design and Public life at Herron, the Campus Center developed the competition to showcase Herron students' talent and engage the larger campus community through art.

Eleven students from Assistant professor Robert Horvath's painting course submitted works to the competition based on the theme Campus Community, inspired by the following statement:

The IUPUI campus community is one of support and inclusion. It encompasses an active spirit of student life and academia. The IUPUI Campus Center sits at the center of that community as a gathering space, a space that welcomes students, faculty and staff to connect, collaborate and coexist.

Marianna Bell said of her work, "I chose to represent what I believe community to be through the use of abstract elements....It's hard to grasp the complex web of connections that we make with people. These connections offer us information, resources, shared ideas, and emotional support that are vital for our human existence. This framework is made strong by our shared responsibility to other people and our connections to them. All things are interconnected. Thus we are but one thread within the web of life, whatever we do, effects ourselves and all the people around us whether we are aware of it or not."

Comments

Dan Maxwell, Director of the Campus Center

The Campus Center is the perfect space for the campus community to come together and this newest edition to our public art collection is a compliment to that daily activity.

Common Thread by Mariana Bell