At the end of each semester, the Department of Art and Art History at UTSA host an art exhibition to showcase the artworks of the soon-to-be graduating Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) students. The Spring 2017 BFA Exhibition will be held on UTSA’s Main Campus inside the Main Art Gallery located in room 2.03.04 of the Arts Building. The exhibition will be free and open to the public, in fact, all art exhibitions hosted within this gallery year round are free and open to the public. The Spring 2017 BFA Exhibition will open on May 3 until May 12 from 2-4 p.m. The closing reception is a wonderful opportunity to meet the artists and discuss their artworks in an intimate setting.
The emerging artists spend the duration of the Spring semester preparing their artist statements and final artworks to be showcased within this exhaustively sought after final exhibition. All of the artists focus on different art mediums, techniques and subject matters; these different approaches to art will be evident within this exhibition, so every attendee is sure to find an artist/artwork they will truly admire. The artists work their entire college career to perfect their craft and to eventually showcase their final work at this exhibition.
Morgan Weber is a fine arts major whose focus in painting and drawing, but she recently has become enamored with sculpting. Weber primarily uses the realistic subject matter of nature and animals as a metaphor for human figures and ideas. She draws inspiration from the natural world, but instead of simply illustrating animals in their natural state, she places the figures in unnatural and human-like poses.
When asked which work she was most proud of, Morgan instantly referred to a painting she created for her father. This watercolor painting and ink drawing is inspired by her father’s favorite activity (which she shares with him): hunting.
“As a farm child of rural Texas I owe everything in my life to nature and the earth itself. I was born from it, raised on it, and will one day return to it in the end,” Weber said. Her childhood and upbringing has influenced her work, and she has used her skills to bring joy to the person she feels the closest to: her father.
Weber’s piece for the BFA Exhibition will be a sculpture. Her final sculpture will be a seated throne entirely composed of hunting trophies: animal bones and antlers. “I wish to bridge the gap between life and death while bringing beauty to the grotesque decay of the materials used from the natural world, which will engage the viewers while blurring the lines between alive and dead,” said Weber. More images of her work can be viewed on her website at morganweber.squarespace.com.
