Various art students at Weber State University were featured at the “Art In Italy” gallery on campus. This exhibit highlighted the artistic creations of WSU art students who attended a study abroad trip in Italy.

The gallery was held on Sept. 27 in the Shepherd Union, where students gathered to experience art and share stories in this mixed media art exhibit.

The gallery featured various exhibits including paintings, sculptures, fashion illustrations, sketches and digital art.

The gallery displayed students’ work and showed many different messages from their work.

Each of the students had their unique pieces that reflected their time in Italy and their passions.

Cienna Moffit, a WSU student, created a digital painting and photography collage based on art and Italian architecture in Venice, Padua and Rome.

Makayla Geddes, a WSU student, created an acrylic painting inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” The piece symbolizes fertility and death, according to Geddes.

“This piece is about the acceptance of my condition, the sense of loss and sadness over Roe vs. Wade as well as hope for the future,” Geddes said.

WSU student Megan Montoya created a hanging wire sculpture with wire titled “Seagulls Eat Pigeon at Piazza San Marco” to capture their emotions of experiencing Venice.

The gallery had an oil pastel painting displayed by Caleb Garrett titled, “The Calf.”

“This work is an accumulation of my study abroad experience; influenced by the frescoes and many oil paintings inside of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Italy,” Garrett said.

Additionally, Addie Harmon created an acrylic painting based on an “introspective search for self love.”

“I learned I wanted to go into art during COVID. I had a lot of time to myself, and I learned I liked to make commissioned pieces and to draw a lot,” Ami Dillingham, a WSU student, said.

Dillingham shared sketches from during the trip in Italy and created digital art based on stories she had from the trip. Dillingham created an album cover titled “My Italian Boyfriend” inspired by one of her most memorable experiences.

Dillingham said she was walking around with a box of pizza while restaurant owners were trying to invite her into their restaurants.

“This man walked up and tried to get us to go to his restaurant,” Dillingham said. “At the time, I already had enough pizza, but I offered to share the pizza I had with him. He must have thought I was so funny and told me he loved me and blew me a kiss. So that’s my Italian boyfriend.”

The students recommended study abroad programs to see what different parts of the world are doing in the students’ field of study.

“I really loved Italy,” Dillingham said. “One of my favorite things was the access I had to art. In Ogden, we are working on increasing the art scene, but in Italy, it was everywhere.”

The Shepherd Union art gallery will continue to host art exhibitions throughout the semester. The next feature will begin on Oct. 7 with artwork by WSU and University of Utah Students.