News Archives - 2009

Experience India through art

Emily Merhar wants you to see, smell, hear, and touch India. The senior studio art major from Eden Prairie studied in India last semester and will be sharing her story through a multi-media art show on Friday, Feb. 27 at 5:30 p.m. in the Christensen Center student gallery.

"My goal was to give everyone an experience of India through my artwork," Merhar said. In addition to showing her printmaking and painting work, she will share food, drink, and music of India with the community and will wear traditional Indian clothing.

Merhar spent four months in Dehli studying about India through its architecture, dance, and traditional folk art painting style. She worked side by side with Indian artists as they painted, creating a triptych that focused on her experiences while living in Dehli.

"Through the paintings, people will experience India. I feel like you can sense it," she said. Merhar is also creating a scrapbook with notes and comments about the work because the art contains a great deal of symbolism. "You can't just see the art and know all of it," she said.

Through her senior art show, Merhar also wants to communicate, especially to art students, that they can study art in any country. "I thought that art majors needed to go to Europe to study art, but you can go elsewhere."

Merhar said the show is also a way for her to process what she did and learned in India. "It was a life-changing experience, being in a third world country and experiencing poverty but living with upper-class family," she said. "Study abroad pushed me and challenged me to find my limits."

Auspicious Articles of Art Articulating will be in the Christensen Center Student Art Gallery through Mar. 9.

Want to study abroad next year?

Apply by Monday, Mar. 2! Get more information and application materials here.