The Washburn University art department hosted Tyler Quintin’s senior art exhibition entitled “Only Human” in the John R. Adams Gallery beginning at 6:30 p.m. The gallery will be on display Feb. 2 – 19. Fellow students, faculty and members of the community gathered to witness Quintin’s hard work.

Quintin is a senior working toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts in general studio arts. His gallery featured different media, such as drawings, photography, printmaking, ceramic and sculpture. He enjoys exploring human ideas like human psychology and human emotions.

Freshman music major Callie McAskill has worked with Quintin in the past as a former art student. She explains that he has a deep focus on representing himself through his work.

“He has taken his work to a new level with finding a way to implement it with himself more. He is making more of connection with himself now, which I think is nice.”

Quintin titled his show “Only Human” for a few reasons. He explains that it was a lesson that he had to learn for himself.

“I tackled way too many things during the semester and I think the piece ‘Something Had to Give’ was really my wake up call,” Quintin said.

Quintin explains that he was in a position where he was rushing to get everything done. His piece “Something Had to Give” is what he calls a happy accident. He explains that he did not let the piece dry enough, he tried to fire it, and then it blew up.

“I tried to create a series of work where I was focusing on stress,” Quintin said.

Quintin photographed himself and then photoshopped images of remains from the blown up piece cracking over the body. The pieces were from the work “Something Had to Give.” He was inspired by how stress manifests itself physically such as around the neck and in the shoulders. He titled each piece in the series a temperature that was the starting temperature when he started to have problems in the kiln.

“At 450 degrees I started hearing little explosions, and when it hit 577 I heard the final big explosion,” Quintin said. “It sounded like it was raining rocks inside the kiln.”

Quintin explains the centerpiece for his show is the snow leopard entitled “Autonomy.”

“It is special to me because it was a collaboration between me and my best friend,” Quintin said.

The piece “Autonomy” has over 500 hours put into it because he created the entire piece out of clay, fired it and then they spent hours individually gluing plastic straws one at a time. Quintin explains that it was titled “Autonomy” because they were trying to figure as artists what they had in common other than art.

“We both want to pursue our careers in ways that we are allowed complete freedom in our work and the autonomy of our work,” Quintin said. “That’s why the piece has a stance that is in mid-suspension. It has the ability to jump off the pedestal and be more than just a display.”