HED: AUDREY USHENKO

HED2: An Authentic Miracle

Its late in the day.
The natural light that normally floods the long hallway connecting Walb Student
Union to the Gates Sports Center is fading, and IPFW Professor of Drawing and
Painting Audrey Ushenko is hunched close to her canvas.
With deft strokes of her brush, she fills in the details of a cheekbone, a gesture,
and a thousand-yard stare.
Ushenko is trying to capture something genuine.
(Pull Quote)
Virtually everybody I see, I would like to depict.
Audrey Ushenko
Ushenko describes her work as being about the individual. Shes interested in
the stories and hidden universes behind the eyes of those she passes by.
Even in muralsincluding those created on behalf of IPFW, featuring plenty of
recognizable faces from around campusUshenko takes care to individualize
her subjects within a crowd.
For her, the subject speaks loudest when in public.
SUBHED: Public Art
Many artists labor over their works in private. Not Ushenko.
She can often be found in public spaces on campus or in the community, her
works-in-progress on display for everyone to see.
This public workspace affords her opportunities to be in the spaces shes
depicting on canvas, but also provides the curious passerby the chance to
speak with her and ask questions about her work.


I realized that most of the worlds great art was done in public places, not in
proud isolation, she says. Particularly children spend an incredible amount of
time watching. And so, I felt as if I was doing something useful.
SUBHED: Art as Service
(Pull Quote)
Its a window into the way different mental disciplines think.
Audrey Ushenko
Ushenko rejects the common stereotype of the artist working in proud
isolation, locked away in a studio far from the public eye. Instead, she believes
art can beand often iscreated in service of something else entirely.
And in fact, she says, art is not just easel painting and sculpture. Its not only
carved stylizing, but the design of motors. Art has many manifolds and it has a
million different forms according to its function.
Ushenko flatly rejects the common idea that art is an act of self-expression.
Instead, she says, it is a search for truthjust like any other mental discipline
taught in the halls and classrooms on campusthat becomes self-expression in
the act of being learned.
Photo Cutlines:
Audrey Ushenko1: IPFW Professor of Drawing and Painting Audrey Ushenko
discusses her inspirations.
Audrey Ushenko2: Ushenko works on a new mural in a public space on
campus.
Audrey Ushenko3: Ushenko shares her art philosophies with a student.