Art exhibit investigates everyday objects through unique lens

The Student Union Art Gallery is exhibiting the two-person display “Secret Lives of the Inanimate,” which features the works of alumni Rachel Simpson and Andrea Vail through Nov. 26.

“Secret Lives of the Inanimate” investigates the world through a unique lens by focusing on moments of interaction between objects and their environment. Pieces in the exhibit include a combination of altered found objects and photographic transfers that explore the interesting and odd in everyday objects.

Simpson said her works seek to explore “objects in the world and how they got there.”

Vail will show works from her most recent series “Preposterous Notions.” She described her work as a reanimation of “decommissioned domestic goods to find charm in the mundane.”

The works shown in this exhibit “ask us to stop and consider objects we interact with in a new light,” stated Liz Walton, art gallery coordinator. She hopes visitors to the exhibit will “see a new way to reanimate or create.”

Simpson received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in photography and a minor in art history from UNC Charlotte in 2010. Vail graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2003 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in visual art and fibers.