Review: Proof of Process
This originally appeared in the April 25 and 26 edition of the Courier in Russellville, AR
I arrived at the Norman Hall Gallery on Tuesday morning expecting to see the fine art senior show, but realized I’d missed that exhibition by a few days. Instead, the current exhibition is for the graduating cohort of graphic design students, a show titled “Proof of Process.”
Honestly, I was nervous at the change. I work in web design. I am a person with eyes and ears in our current moment. I’m familiar with the fraught nature of digital arts. Living amid the proliferation of commercially available large language models (LLMs), I was afraid the student’s work would bear the tell-tell traces of “AI slop.”
That feels unfair of me to say, I get that. Very middle-aged woman readying her finger to shake at the kids. There have been so many hand-wringing articles about how the youth are all zombie-phone-addicts that can’t read, but I should have known better than to expect the worst. Besides, I know that this reliance on LLMs isn’t exclusive to young people. I’m a (former) software developer and writer! Both industries that have been cratered by the likes of Claude and ChatGPT and those were choices made by the generations above my own.
Anyways, I was worried, but I went in anyways. I had already said I was going to write about the show. Luckily for me, and for you reading this, my fears were unfounded, and I don’t need to spend the rest of this space wagging my finger and intoning about the bankrupting of the American creative spirit and soul by Silicon Valley. I’ll save it for another time.
Since the exhibition was curated by and is exhibiting graphic design students, the show includes the practical side of graphic design. There are mock products for coffee shops, house painting supplies, shampoo bottles, and other three-dimensional product examples. The fake labels and packages, wrapped around real candles, bottles, and boxes, reminded me of the pervasiveness of design choices all around us. Going in and out of grocery stores and gas stations it can feel like what we see is inevitable. Constantly inundated with images and brands, it’s easy to forget that they were all choices made by a designer, or likely a corporate board, and that they were made for a reason, to elicit feelings or associations, to make me think and feel a certain way.
Artist Xing Zhang’s products included an entire suite of designs for a fabricated coffeeshop, “midday coffee”. Zhang’s designs used comforting, easygoing colors and cheerful looking figures both animal and human, utilizing blank space and an abundance of cuteness. The package design for pastry bags were complete with plastic croissants and rolls stuffed into them. The impact was cheerful and upbeat, conjuring a sunny coffee spot with friendly baristas.
Artist Sady Long also turned their eyes to coffee. Long displayed a digital print and a chalk pastel on paper to explore coffee in different ways. Coffee for Two sets the scene with digitally illustrated lattes on a table and Happiness in a Cup, the chalk pastel, lingers in the details, a close-up swirl of milk, foam, and bubbles. The juxtaposition and the difference in media invite closer examination, asking the viewer to linger.
Long was not the only student to show in different, non-digital media. It was easy to see the effect and influence of Professor Neil Harrington’s printmaking classes as multiple students included linocuts.
Linocuts are a departure from strictly digital arts. These prints are made first by cutting an image into a linoleum tile. This linoleum tile then has paint or ink applied to create the print. It requires the physical cutting away of the surface to create the relief and texture that the ink or paint will stick to. With each print, a linoleum block wears down. The relief will eventually wear out, a print block only capable of so many prints before it no longer works. Print making in this medium exists along the spectrum of one-off, hand done unique creations of drawings and paintings—the fine arts—and the, at least technically, infinitely reproducible work of digital art.
Luetisha “Lue” Poindexter had the same image produced as a digital print and as a linocut as part of their display. Poindexter’s works, both titled Charge! feature stark black and white imagery of pointing arrows—like a video game cheat code—and a monster on the move across an undulating landscape. The digital work is small, and the linoleum print is much larger.
After viewing the show, I had the opportunity to speak briefly with some of the students. I asked Poindexter why they chose to include both a digital and physical reproduction of the same artwork. Poindexter said she “already loved” digital making when she arrived, but through her classes learned to love other forms as well, especially printmaking. Having both highlighted that shift for her.
As a viewer, having both images emphasized the difference between mediums even with the same designs and concepts. The presence of the artist’s tools, the artist’s knife, remains tangible in a way the digital art’s process doesn’t show.
While the show focuses mainly on the final year of the undergraduates’ time in college, Elonna McPeters had one project from an early class, a sophomore level introduction to graphic design software. The poster is a promotional for “The Visitors” and features an implicating figure pointing at the audience. The poster Elonna designed in 2022 doesn’t feel out of place with her more current work.
I asked McPeters why she chose that work for the show. She said, “The piece has the same elements that still interest me in my work today.” She paused before adding, “And I still think it’s a strong piece.”
Kasten Searles, the department head and professor of graphic design, did not hesitate in agreeing with her. Searles added that when McPeter’s first asked to include a piece from the sophomore level class, she had initially been unsure.
“And then I remembered it and said, oh yeah. That one can go in,” she said.
All of McPeters’ work is dynamic and exciting, pairing bright color choices with equally bold typography. It is obvious that while McPeters’ became a more advanced artist during her time at Tech, she came with her own set of skills to the program. There is a clarity in her design and desires that her work displays, from that first piece in 2022 to the new work.
The students had the same sets of classes and assignments, but what they did with them and what they produced depended on who they were. Each student’s work exhibits their personal process, coming from the same place and ending with different styles, mediums, and points of interest. The students in the show worked together to title, design, promote, and plan the show, including the overall layout of the gallery space. They described working democratically and by committee to make decisions. For them, the idea of “Proof of Process” is their moving through college, the proof being the outcome, the show and, ultimately, their degrees.
This idea of process and its proof interests me. For artists that work with galleries or museums or hope to receive grant or institutional funding (should it ever become available again), talking about process becomes a huge part of the job. With ever increasing use of LLMs and the unclear acceptability of that in literature and art, these discussions of process will likely become more important.
But, for me, the process is also the part where the magic happens, where ideas are transformed through intentional labor into something tangible. When I tell others that I’m a writer they often invite me to write their stories for them. Most people believe they have at least one great book idea in them, but most people don’t write a book. It is when someone makes something out of their ideas that they become an artist. What gets made is something they can be proud of but becomes incidental to the real joy. It will be quickly forgotten in favor of the next idea. It is the making that excites most artists.
“Proof of Process” opened on April 20 and will be on view at the Norman Hall Gallery through May 1. The gallery is free and open to the public from 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.
