Arts in Action: Portraits of Cedarville University’s studio painters

By Ella Lurtz

A 10-minute walk from the heart of Cedarville University’s campus, students of all majors trek to the Carnegie Center for the Visual Arts for painting foundations class. Half a dozen portraits begin to take shape on a row of canvases as students blend colorful layers of oil paint. Aaron Gosser, associate professor of studio art, makes his rounds through the studio, checking their work and giving tips to improve their technique.

An artist himself, teaching other students to do what he loves has been a dream job for Gosser. Over his 20 years as a Cedarville professor, his favorite part of teaching art is seeing students develop their own voice as an artist.

“By the time they graduate four years later, they’ve got a body of work that looks like their own,” Gosser said. “They’ve got some specific concerns and concepts, some dialogues that repeat … Each one sort of ends in a very unique place. Their work doesn’t look like each other. It doesn’t look like mine either. I love that.”

Kate Zadnik, a junior studio art major, has combined subjects that interest her with her own life experience to develop her artistic voice. Before switching to a studio art major, Zadnik spent her freshman year studying psychology and history. 

While Zadnik decided not to pursue psychology or history as a career, she still enjoys pursuing these interests by studying art. She appreciates how art reflects the values of society throughout history. 

“It brought such a personal, relational aspect,” Zadnik said. “It really inserted humanity and human experience into history. I feel like art breathes life into the past in a way.”

Another highlight of studying studio art for Zadnik is seeing her classmates’ artwork and learning to better understand people by interpreting the deeper meaning behind their work. Art appeals to her love of psychology as a means of emotional expression.                 

“For me, art is a way to express something that is not physically, verbally possible,” Zadnik said.

While Gosser’s painting foundations class includes a few studio art majors like Zadnik, many of the students are not studio art majors. Corr Alley, a junior graphic design student, is taking painting foundations as part of his studio art minor. He switched from a computer science major to graphic design because he wanted a creative career.

“It’s just fun to mess with color and stuff,” Alley said.
”I feel like it brightens life. It’s just fun creating stuff.”

Whether or not a student is majoring in studio art, art classes like painting foundations are open to anyone who wants to use their artistic gifts, learn new techniques and worship God with what they create. Art brings irreplaceable value to humanity as a deep, emotional way to communicate life experiences.

“I tell my students that the superpower of art is its subjectivity,” Gosser said. “I can engage with a painting and get something from it, and you can engage with the same painting and get something entirely different. I love that about art.”

While the subjectivity of art makes some Christians nervous, Gosser argues that the subjectivity builds a bridge for Christians to express their faith to a broken world. Through different chapters of his life, Gosser has integrated faith in his art and used it as a way to process important life events and his walk with God.

“Painting is a way to wrestle with what you’re thinking about, what you’re feeling about, facing your life,” he said.

Like Gosser, art students have learned the importance of integrating faith in art, especially in how much effort they give. From learning to match colors, to painting self portraits, they strive to worship God by doing every project to the best of their ability.

“I feel like my faith drives me to want to make sure that all my work is done well,” Alley said.

“I’ve learned a lot about taking this opportunity as worship and working as hard as we can to the glory of God,” Zadnik said.​​ “It’s little things, but I want to do it all as well as I can as an offering.”​​

Ella Lurtz is a junior broadcasting, digital media, and journalism student with a creative writing minor. She loves telling stories, laughing with friends and wake surfing.