The Art Gallery at Glendale Community College presents The 2016 Invitational Student Exhibition, displaying different forms of artwork created by students.
There were several applicants, but only a few were chosen to be part of the exhibition, all coming from the different art classes available at GCC. The contrasting styles of art in the exhibition include abstract expressionism, color field, mosaic, photography, pottery, handcraft and paintings.

The overall theme of the exhibition demonstrates culture, diversity and soulful artworks, each carrying a personal meaning and an original title.

There is an eye-catching piece consisting of little houses that are almost identical — like a perfect little town inside of a glass box. This was created by Maureen Dondanville and is titled “House as a Home.”

“What inspired me to create this was a longing for a time of more personalized dwellings, and a more authentic individualism, the everyday …” Dondanville said. She elaborates on how her piece reminds her of her home in Echo Park, where houses with no yard look similar to each other.

As she stares at her own artwork in the exhibition, she says: “I would hope people feel the beauty of the intimate handmade item as it relates to a larger, more brutal reality … that the hope of inspiration will always triumph.”

Dondanville said that she created the houses from slabs of porcelain clay. She was able to use various high fire glazes on them that she created herself including a secret recipe. Each house is signed on the bottom with her initials.

Another artwork in the exhibition is an oil painting titled “Starbucks Girl” by Arsen Petrosyan. The painting shows a dark coffee shop, and the woman in the painting looks similar to the starbucks logo. She has a tired look on her face as she sits with a coffee in her hand.

“For this painting, I took one of my favorite artist’s work and combined both past and present,” Petrosyan said. “The girl who works at starbucks is having her lunch with her coffee and she is exhausted and in a bad mood.”

“I hope that some people see this, and realize how tough it is for minimum wage workers because of the lack of respect customers and their bosses give them,” he added.

Petrosyan explains how because of his personal experience, he wishes for people to give more respect to workers, and was able to express himself through this painting to provide an insight on how workers feel after having a disrespectful customer.

His painting hangs below his a self-portrait, also done in oil paint. He painted both of the pieces in his art class last year and was excited when they got accepted to be in the exhibition.

Robert Ortiz, a student at GCC said “I love art in general, and I am always curious to see what this college shows and the fact that these pieces were created by students just makes it even more beautiful and interesting, I might just take up an art class at GCC now because of this.”

The gallery is located in the Library foyer and is open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, until June 8.