Tonight is College Night at the North Carolina Museum of Art, which features free access to the Porsche by Design: Seducing Speed exhibit and offers live music and free food. The night is also highlighted by another unique exhibit that showcases the talents of two N.C. State students.
Accelerate! is an exhibition consisting of student-created works of art, selected over the summer by NCMA educators and curators and features contributions from 18 students and 16 universities, including N.C. State.
“While Porsche by Design is focused strictly on automobiles, these students chose to express the concepts of speed and acceleration through a wide range of objects, ideas, and genres of art,” Michelle Harrell, coordinator of teen and college programs at the NCMA, said in a press release.
Allison Press, a junior in the bachelor of graphic design major, was one of 12 artists selected in the juried two-dimensional artists category.
“It’s a really fantastic opportunity,” Press said.
This is a rare chance for young artists to showcase their work, she said.
“There aren’t really many entry-level opportunities that are on such a grand stage,” Press said.
Jaime Andrews, a graduate student in art and design with an animation concentration, was one of the six college students in the juried video artists category of the exhibit.
She said she was very excited about college night.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Andrews said.
Andrews said art has always been part of her life and her mother would take her to the NCMA when she was young.
“It’s just nice to go back there and reminisce,” Andrews said.
Andrews said she originally heard about the exhibit because she was already on the college board at the museum, but decided to contribute her own work as well.
“Once I heard they had a juried exhibition, I decided to come up with my own,” Andrews said.
Andrews said College Night and the Porsche exhibit are great because they get people to the museum that might not normally attend. She said that art was very important.
“Art is such an integral part of society, I can’t imagine being without it,” Andrews said.
Press has been interested in art since childhood, and first heard about the exhibit from the N.C. State College of Design Facebook page before she was even a student at NCSU. Previously, she was a student at UNC-Chapel Hill.
She said she decided to transfer to N.C. State because the design program that she was enrolled in at UNC-CH was more centered towards journalism, which was not what she wanted to do.
“It was definitely worth it. I love it here,” Press said.
Press and Andrews both hope to continue to apply their majors after they graduate. Press said she wanted to work as a designer for a big nonprofit when she graduated, and Andrews said she hopes to start her own production company.
The Accelerate! exhibit will be open until Jan. 20, 2014.
