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Grad student gains exposure in international art exhibition

Miami graduate student Casey Vogt will have his artwork exhibited in New York, Los Angeles or Europe. He also received a $1,000 prize.
Miami graduate student Casey Vogt will have his artwork exhibited in New York, Los Angeles or Europe. He also received a $1,000 prize.

Ty Gilligan

Miami graduate student Casey Vogt will have his artwork exhibited in New York, Los Angeles or Europe. He also received a $1,000 prize.

House paint and photocopies as fine art?

Miami graduate student Casey Vogt is doing just that.

Vogt, a two-time participant in the Miami Young Painters Competition and recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, was chosen to showcase his art in the MFANow Art Competition, an international arts organization sponsoring arts-related events for graduate students enrolled in fine arts programs.

"This is a new level," Vogt said. "This is the best show I have ever gotten into."

This year MFA will host an international painting competition, culminating in exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles and a European city that has yet to be announced.

Vogt said he was one of the 20 winners out of 316 entries, and he will appear in one of the three shows in the summer, although he is unsure which city at the moment.

Vogt said the show is a great opportunity for international exposure, in addition to the $1,000 prize he received.

"The big goal of the show is to get graduate students to mingle with major gallery owners with the hope of representation in a major gallery," he said. "So when we graduate we can become professional artists."

Judy Chicago, adviser to the MFANow Competition, hopes that the competition will encourage creativity worldwide.

"Hopefully, MFANow can provide an environment that nurtures young talent and offers a helping hand to those young people whose work reflects an honest effort to express their views in a way that can speak to an international community," Chicago said.

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Vogt said he is still dumbfounded at his recent invitation to be in the exhibition.

"I was in shock for a day," he said.

Vogt's entry, which consisted of a series of five paintings, deals with the topic of big pharmaceutical companies.

"I juxtaposed images of pills against images of cowboys to show how life use to be and how life is becoming," Vogt said. "It's talking about how big pharmaceuticals have taken over everything as we know it."

In the work, Vogt paints with house paint and includes images of cowboys in black-and-white photocopies.

"The art world can be really snobby and I don't like that," he said. "I subvert the intellectual artist's notion is by using cheap, common materials, and use them to make something really beautiful. It's not divine, its everyday stuff."

According to Vogt, each of the paintings took around three weeks, or about 150-170 hours, to complete.

"They take a while and they're time consuming, but it's a labor of love," Vogt said.

Vogt will be showcasing his works in his thesis show from March 14-19 at the Hiestand galleries as a part of the Master's Thesis Shows for graduate students, where there will be two exhibitions a week all throughout March.

Vogt encourages everyone to attend the shows.

"My goal is to get non-art majors to the shows and see how cool it can be and how different it is," Vogt said.

Vogt's success could be attributed to his unique style and the materials he utilizes in his artwork.

"If you work hard you can make something beautiful," he said.