On the fourth floor of Garland Hall, graduate students are conducting research on the suspension of time and gravity. However, the students are painters, not physicists.

Work by Astri Snodgrass and Anna Katherine Phipps will be on display in the Sella-Granata Gallery until March 14. The show, “Suspension,” features nine pieces from Snodgrass’ thesis and seven pieces of Phipps’ work.

“Research in this degree is so much more than reading and writing,” Snodgrass said. “It’s like it’s making, it’s talking with other artists.”

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The exhibition fulfills a requirement for Snodgrass, a second-year student in the MA program. Snodgrass said she knew the space favored a two-person show and asked Phipps to participate based on similarities in their work. Phipps is a first-year student in the MA program.

Matt Mitros is a ceramics professor and member of the faculty committee for the gallery, along with Chris Jordan and Sarah Marshall. He said that this exhibition fits with the mission of the Sella-Granata Gallery within the department.

“The gallery is more informal, more educational than Sarah Moody,” Mitros said.

Through her time in the master’s program, Snodgrass has shifted away from her background in oil paints on canvas and panel. This exhibition contains watercolor, ink, gouache, graphite, marker and alcohol on paper.

In addition to the work of other artists and advice from professors, Snodgrass said much of her research has come from outside the arts. Elements of language and her research into the difference between “space” and “place” have influenced her work.

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Phipps said she researches differently than Snodgrass. She is enrolled in a dance class this semester. She said she can see the dance studio in Clark Hall from her studio space in Garland and vice versa, and that experience informs her process.

“I’m definitely reading and just being exposed to new experiences,” Phipps said. “Dance performances, music performances, it’s not always just the reading and such. I arrived with rules for myself. As the semester has gone on I’ve broken these rules I’ve set up for myself.”

Phipps began the semester working with an object in space and hard edges. As time went on, the softer qualities in Snodgrass’s work changed the way Phipps worked, just as Phipps’s perspective influenced Snodgrass.

“I thought that would be interesting in terms of what two different artists are doing with the same types of materials,” Snodgrass said.

Phipps said although outside sources inform the work, in the end it belongs to the artist alone.

“There’s a lot of back and forth. You have to have a filter on to decide what you are willing to take in,” Phipps said. “It’s very much an experiment. Serious play, as I like to call it.”

The gallery is located in Garland Hall. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday. The exhibit is open now, and the reception will be March 7 from 6 to 8 p.m.

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