Southeast Student creates art exhibition, leaves interpretation for audience to decide

It is common for artists to reveal their pieces in a show with a theme accompanying the art. Southeast student Christian Ondr wanted viewers to create their own interpretation of his exhibition at Catapult Creative House.

Ondr is a fourth-year student at Southeast studying arts with a minor in graphic communications and marketing management. He said he uses art as another avenue to grow his skills in graphic design.

After being on display since early February, Ondr held his closing reception Friday, March 6, for his art show soloExhibiton1. This display included five pieces of art that used materials such as plaster, resin, matboard and chewing gum.

Ondr explained he came up with the name of soloExhibiton1 because he did not have a true theme for his collection. The title includes lower case, upper case, no spaces and one number which is commonly found in technology formats, called camelcase. He said he wanted to be sure that when a person hears the name of his exhibition, there would be no true indication of what they may see when they view the art.

“I felt that [the title] was kind of minimalist like the rest of the show, it’s all very black and white, it’s all very simplified,” Ondr said. “It doesn't necessarily put any ideas into your head, so it allows you to kind of walk in here with no preconceived notions of what it is going to be.”

Ondr said his inspiration comes from American-French painter Marcell Duschamp, who put regular objects, such as urinals, on display and called them art.

One of the pieces titled, “Yuck” caught many of the attendees’ attention for its simple yet interesting content. The accompanying description read, “Chewing gum on backmat,”and the piece featured a variety of colored gum that was chewed and framed to be on display.

At the reception, Ondr created a sixth piece to accompany his other art and used his audience to help finish it. With a variety of gum to choose from, the audience was encouraged to take a piece, chew it and place it on the provided plexiglass. The piece was titled, “sandwich.”

Ondr says growing up around creative people influenced him to take as many art classes as he could through high school. He said he has since had a passion for art, which has not left him as he has gotten older.

Christian’s father, Todd Ondr, said Christian has always loved art and has talked to him about his exhibition. He said even though he heard a lot about it, it was nice to finally see it in person.

“It’s an expression of himself, it is modern art and it’s a very good representation of who he is,” Todd Ondr said.

Ondr said he did not do this exhibition as part of any class but on his own to gain more experience.