On Nov. 10, the Julio Fine Arts Gallery presented “This Harmless but Horrible Sensation,” an exhibit by Beth Yashnyk, a visual artist who focuses on sculptures and animations while also expressing different methods of gender and parts of the body. 

Yashnyk showed where much of her inspiration has come from over the years. Much of her ideas for her work come from childhood cartoons such as “Cow and Chicken” and “Unreal Monsters.”

Yashnyk said, “I really enjoyed drawing the Unreal Monsters specifically and then creating my own monsters through art. My mom is also an artist and a hardcore feminist, and she would help me make my drawings into little puppets”. 

Yashnyk does not hide the fact that watching cartoons for inspiration is not a common practice but it’s what works for her. She understands that people and their bodies can be misunderstood so this exhibit focuses on decontextualizing the body parts altogether.

“These cartoons really inspired me in ways in which I began to examine the narrative structure of our body parts and the ways in which those could be used not only to tell a story but to express our identities.”

This exhibit shows many body parts rearranged and stretched in many different ways, especially focusing on the hands. While looking at the art, there should be no specific gender in mind.

“I began to examine the body several years ago as the main subject matter of my work. I became really interested at first in these pictures of hands. Thinking of the hands as one of the few sexual objects that are non-gendered that we all use.”

When given a chance to ask questions after the exhibit explanation, the question of how she stayed motivated as an artist was asked. Working tirelessly trying to create new sculptures and ideas can be very tiring so it was interesting to hear what makes her want to keep going. 

Yashnyk treats creating art like a 9-to-5 job. She is always reading or using her sketchbook. Her goal is to draw a new piece every day to keep her mind and drawing muscles going.

“I typically like to have multiple projects going on at once in my studio so that I don’t have to work on something that I don’t particularly feel like doing on that day. I try to have multiple outlets to keep me going and sometimes my studio time might just consist of reading fiction and nonfiction or a theory that I am interested in.“

If you are interested in art or want to visit a future exhibit don’t hesitate to visit the Julio Fine Arts Gallery on Loyola’s campus. 

Featured Image Courtesy of Howard Wicker