The Retort

Inside Tiffany’s Head

Thu February 4th, 2010 by Lou Donaldson For The Retort

In the Student Gallery on the first floor the liberal arts building of MSU Billings is the senior show by Tiffany Sheely. The show is comprised of a media ranging from acrylic painting, to digital media and paper composition. While each of the pieces is visually appealing and “good” in their own respects, it was still a little disheartening not to see any of her lithograph prints on display.

The acrylics have a feel of being either scenes from a comic strip or book illustrations. With that said the viewer can easily grasp the feeling and the emotion of the pieces. Bad Art Day features an artist suffering from “artist block,” the frustration is plainly visible upon her face as she rips up the piece she was working on while torn up bits a of paper are scattered upon the floor along with her pencil, paint and brush.

Waiting For Spring upon initial viewing brings to mind the children’s rhyme about Simple Simon; “Simple Simon went a-fishing to catch a whale, but all the water he had got was in his mother's pail.” With the half smirk on the face of this would be fisherman and the questioning look upon the fish’s face; one has to smile when viewing this piece. It is only after the play between these two main points is conveyed that the eye drifts to the window through which the snow covered landscape that is “outside” can be seen.

One of the digital pieces is entitled Old McDonald Concept Art, this is a nicely executed piece, from the shape of the imagery to the gradient color overlays used; it shows a wonderful ability with the tools and techniques of digital media. With that said old McDonald kind of has the feeling and somewhat the look of being like the creepy and rather grungy disheveled gap-toothed red neck, though thankfully in Tiffany’s image he has had a shower and is wearing clean clothes.

Of all the pieces in Tiffany’s senior show the best is most likely the paper composition entitled Seattle. The mastery of technique displayed in the construction of this piece is awe inspiring. Each color and piece in this composition is individually done, cut from the stock material and assembled on the background piece. When thinking about the many long and aggravating hours that went into this piece it becomes rather daunting, this however, only adds to the captivating ability that this piece holds. The whimsy of this piece also has an effect on the viewer, one almost wants to climb into the piece and be a part of the scene before them. The Space Needle, a Seattle landmark can be seen jamming out on Silvertone guitar, while a power pole dances with the music and the buildings in the back, one of which is wearing a pair of shades, groove along.

All in all it’s not a bad show and worth the trip to the gallery to take a look.