Identities — in some way or another — were the concepts behind the work of 10 Wichita State students.

In the latest installment of WSU’s Shiftspace gallery, students used different media such as photography, drawing and digital art. The gallery opened Friday and will remain open until March 19. SHIFTSPACE is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

SHIFTSPACE, located downtown at 416 S. Commerce St., hosts work from undergraduate, bachelor’s of fine arts senior exhibitions and master’s of fine arts thesis exhibitions, along with other community, regional and interdisciplinary artists and events.  

John and Connie Ernatt, artists and owners of Diver Studio served as jurors in the latest installment titled “Current 8.” The Ernatts were chosen to judge the show which included going to a student show hosted at McKnight Art Center in order to select artists for the exhibit.

“Although there wasn’t a set theme to the show, everyone’s work did involve people and seemed to be making some sort of reference to identity,” said Dale Small, one of the featured artists. “I’m not sure if this was done on purpose, or if our work just ended up meshing well to create this gallery.”

Even with the 10 different artists having 10 different concepts and medias, each work integrated people in some way.

For Autumn Noire, the concepts of mental illness and sexuality are part of her constant thoughts.

“Both of my works are black and white self-portrait drawings,” Noire said. “One has watercolor pencils layered on it and the other is layered with a silk screen, both of which cover the face.”

In her drawing with the watercolors, Noire represents asexuality, which she identifies as. Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction, which is something one in 100 adults identifies as, according to a CNN study.

The other piece with the silk screen represents depression and post-traumatic stress.

“I created work based around these topics because they seem to be things people don’t want to talk about, and I want to start that conversation,” Noire said. “Both are so important and are marginalized, especially asexuality.”

As Noire’s work touches on subjects such as personality, self-awareness and identity, she and Small, and some of the other artists, can relate on the reasons for creating their work.

“I’m really interested in the way we define ourselves as people,” Small said. “The way we define ourselves has changed over time with technology. All media changes our identities and how our identities grow.”

Through his work of photography and digital art, Small combines a total of four images, two that are corrupted files and two that are not, in order to achieve his finished product. Small corrupts the image code by typing one true and one false statement into the code, which when saved, will be gone forever. After using this technique, he then combined all four photos in a way which represents the subject.

“In my self-portrait, I have compartmentalized the four photos because I tend to do that with my everyday life,” he said. “I try to find a likeness that shows how the person is or how they live.”

Through his work, Small said he finds interest in the way we define ourselves as people. Through physical, mental and digital identity, everyone is able to determine who they may or may not be, he said.

“It’s nice to have different ideas that can come together in one collaborative gallery,” Noire said. “This way, we are able to talk about each others’ work and see what is being produced.”