The Exhibition

My mentor, Matthew Shortridge, always says, "My mentor, Lisa Scheer, always says, 'Being an artist is about finding what you're obsessed with and obsessing over it'". 

While attending the Jiayi Young exhibition, these words rang throughout my consciousness with great fervor. This crazy world we call home is full of spectacular specimens to be studied. While some artists find their obsessions in emotional and personal internal turmoil, others send their tendrils out into enormities beyond. With her background in data and science, it only makes sense that Jiayi Young finds what she is obsessed with within her fields of study. 

While taking my first perusal around the Wriston Art Gallery, I discovered difficulties within myself in connecting with her work on a personal level. As an emotionally driven artist, I kept trying to find the tragedy within her work. Where is the torture? Little by little, I discovered that perhaps I was attempting to make the exhibit into something it wasn't, and I began to experience the work differently. 

As Young began to speak about her work, her obsession poked its beautiful head out. There are few things I enjoy more than listening to the obsessed obsess. No matter the subject, if you are enthralled, it is my great privilege to be enthralled in it with you. I want to see what you see. Why is this fascinating to you? Jiayi Young expanded the boundaries of what I thought I could be obsessed with, for there is very little that can't be made into a human story. 

Even a little rock can be made into an enormous boulder. Clicks from social media data can sound human. The countless photos displayed on the wall documented human obsession and creation. The whole room was a microcosmic alter to modern life. Endless data, social media corruption, space, and technology. The exhibit walked the line between scientific study and art, as Young herself does. I began to think the separation of the two is an unnecessary distinction. 

I've recently been defining art as "human output". We consume through our senses, digest through emotions, and what we put out after we mull over our lives in our minds is art. The great gift of man. What you render is a reflection of what you are thinking about. Science and art are both products of the human intellect. I'm not insinuating that the two are synonymous, but the societal implication of their opposition is intriguing. I'm guilty of this silly assumption, for when I walked through her exhibit, a childish voice in my head whispered, “This doesn't feel like an art exhibit”. That voice is immature because it was a display of human output and obsession. 

Scientists are obsessing, artists are obsessing, everybody who is doing anything interesting is obsessing! Whenever I think about my mentor, Matthew Shortridge, quoting his mentor, Lisa Scheer, I always ask myself, “What am I obsessed with?”. This question always makes me hungry. I crave obsession, I look for it everywhere, like a child with a sweet tooth on an easter egg hunt. Give me obsession or give me jelly beans.