Minnesota State may have spawned the next Frank Miller. Artist and graphic novelist Jill Frederickson, also known as Jilly Foo, presented her artwork along with two graphic novels "Demon Eater" and "The Planet Closest to Heaven" at the first Senior Art Show Grand Opening this year held in the Conkling Art Gallery Tuesday night.
"Demon Eater" is about a demon that eats other demons in order to get stronger and survive, she said.
"It's kind of like a dog-eat-dog world where you have to struggle to survive; it's kind of like how the art world is where you have to either kiss up or struggle and work really hard to make it."
"The Planet Closest to Heaven" is comics about a brother and sister who are just entering points in their lives where they have to learn how to survive on their own.
"It's basically brother and sister, and a little evil monster trying to survive," Frederickson said.
She also mentioned that she first became interested in comics when a couple of her high school friends showed her some web comics online. "I looked at a few of them and said 'I could do that,' and then I just slowly got into it. It was just a hobby that I started in the beginning of college. It was really hard at first just struggling to get my art to look decent enough but as I kept on going it kept on getting easier and easier, it just became this little obsession, I love it."
Frederickson also cited Disney movies, Japanese Manga and anime as influences for her work.
"Comics are starting to get really popular now with 'Spiderman' and '300,'" she added. "People should really get into them, they come in many different genres, they're not all TNA kind of things, and definitely check out Manga, it's not all samurais and things like that."
Frederickson's comics are available online for download and for print at www.lulu.com/jillyfoobooks.
Senior art student Ben Olthafer also had notable work at the grand opening. Olthafer's work included several pieces on canvas, as well as a tree simply titled "Growth" constructed of various pieces of green and brown fabrics and tapestries hanging from one corner of the gallery.
Olthafer constructed the base at home and created the rest within the studio. "Growth" serves as an installation piece to be included with the rest of his work, he said. "It is the tree that connects all of my pieces together," he said. "It's also the growth that I take as an individual and as an artist. I grow from experience to experience, layer upon layer, much like Earth and the trees, kind of the natural states of this world." Olthafer said that he does not have any plans for the installation after the gallery showing, but would love to see it used in some way.
The piece that he is most proud of, however, is "Exploration of Life at Hand," done with sharpie on canvas stretched over chicken wire consisting of five separate pieces of canvas. "It's a journey through one point going through the rest of the world, or one life's exploration that starts with the person on one canvas and as it progresses you're starting your journey and coming across different things just kind of launches off into the rest of the world."
Kelli Gilbert has several pieces of graphic art work on display at the Conkling. She redesigned her high school's newsletter, which originally was just plain and green, she said. Gilbert then redesigned the Osage logo using a maple leaf since they are the "City of Maples," added Gilbert.
She was also asked to redesign a book cover and several pages from that book. "I just went to Barnes & Noble and picked a random book that I would never do, and found 'Toilets of the World,'" said Gilbert.
Melissa More has several pieces of work dealing with typography on display. One photograph features the word "ramp" with the letter 'p' turned upside-down. More said that this was an example of typography that she found downtown in the ramp that she thought was interesting. The photograph is one piece in a series of found typography.
Also on display by More is a series featuring letters from the 'Times New Roman' font. She said she was "taking times new roman which is the most commonly used and trying to show it in a different way by making these patterns." More aspires to be a designer and work for a company that creates logos and branding.
These pieces and work from many other artists will be on display in the Conkling Art Gallery located between Armstrong and Nelson Hall until Nov. 21.
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