WATCH: Check out these student paintings that reflect pandemic isolation

• Art exhibition on display at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art
• It allowed UBCO students to express themselves after the pandemic
• Its the result of students being able to gather for the first time in-person to paint and collaborate

During the pandemic, it was difficult for art classes that rely on communication, collaboration, and mentoring, to have the same educational impact as they normally would.

That’s why, when the first in-person classes were allowed back at UBCO, instructor David James Doody wanted his Introduction to Painting students to express themselves collaboratively by reflecting on their experience with isolation during the pandemic.

“The exercise for the exhibition, ‘Homescapes,’ or ‘home escape,’ was based on a kind of a self reflection of, as a painter, looking at life in isolation,” Doody told Kelowna10.

The result of that work is currently on display at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art. It’s composed of students in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program (BFA), detailing the interior landscape of one’s own space.

Doody wanted the students to learn from each other, picking up different tricks and painting techniques that they may not have learned if it wasn’t for an in-person experience.

“It was the first time in a year-and-a-half that all the students were able to meet in-person, and have a classic studio class,” Doody said.

He said it was an opportunity to share all kinds of experiences within the class, both challenging and positive.

“It was all reflective. So when we were starting to look at these pictures and talk about isolation, we were now back together, so we were sharing them in a group dynamic,” Doody said.

He added the positive feedback that the exhibition has achieved has been fantastic.

“People come in [and] they’re like, ‘oh my god, this is such a great show of paintings. I just love them,” he said.

Doody also noted the amount of work that the students put into their paintings.

“That energy that people are feeling reflected in the canvas, is the care that those students put into their work because they had an opportunity to explore the positives in reflection of isolation,” he said.

Not only did the painting project help the students understand their experience with isolation, but it also was an opportunity for Doody to talk about his experience as an artist in isolation.

“To have that opportunity to share with my students, in a classroom dynamic, it felt like it was also really cathartic and really beneficial for my own personal experience,” he said.

The ‘Homescape’ student exhibition will be on view until April 2.