'Jean Artist' adorns campus with another installation
Iridescent cubes stacked on their points.
- November 8, 2010 3:45pm
From a distance, it looks like a modern creation of delicately balanced metal cubes; up close it shows it's true, recycled components.
"World Reflection," a 13- by five-foot installation to the east of the Student Services Center door, is the work of Ali Sharifi, the student artist who gave the campus the "Jean Men" on the lawn outside the University Bookstore and "Peace," an iridescent woman holding flowers on the Art & Education Building lawn, last spring.
Like all of his installations, Sharifi works with recycled materials. In this case, recycled cardboard boxes covered with a recycled black garbage bag, and lots of recycled hard-drive disks.
Sharifi, who is double majoring in art and criminal justice, draws his inspiration from everywhere.
"I see, feel and experience, but my biggest influences are my family and teachers," he says.
"I didn't set out to be an environmental artist or to create artwork relating to social commentary, but as my portfolio developed and people started to review my work, the descriptions started to emerge and I began to notice a pattern I hadn't intended but am now please with," said Sharifi.
He likes each viewer to make their own interpretation of his work.
"Hopefully it can speak for itself and whatever it says to the viewer – it's the right message . . . . Each person takes something a little different from the same picture or installation and I'm happy with that," says Sharifi.
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