Senior Chloe Gard, film and media arts major and photography minor, is the photographer of “You,” the new photo gallery hanging up on the second floor of the LaRita Boren Campus Center. The gallery was installed in August and will remain for the 2024-25 academic year.
“You” is a collection of 30 black and white portraits of Taylor University students. The photographed students represent different classes, majors, residence halls, ethnicities and backgrounds. Captured in the same light and stripped of color, the portraits aim to highlight each person’s uniqueness, according to Gard’s artist statement.
Gard said she was in a state of disbelief for most of the process, only accepting the reality of it all when she saw the photos physically mounted on the walls of the campus center.
“...my brain was like, ‘God, why on earth did you choose me of all people?’” Gard said. “So it was a very humbling experience.”
Part of this disbelief stems from the fact that the gallery, now displayed for all to see, started out as a simple class assignment for a portraiture photography class she took last fall, taught by Jamie Miles, previous Art Department co-chair and photography professor.
During this class, Gard learned to take photos of people using various lighting techniques. One of these techniques was called “short lighting,” used in the “You” photos. Last fall, Gard took a photo of her friend Averie Meyer using this lighting and saw something special.
“I saw it, and I was like, I really want to see it with more people,” Gard said. “I want to see more people under this light because it really makes you think about the person differently. Like, a good differently, than if you just saw them face to face.”
For a class assignment to simply “bring in something cool,” Gard started contacting more of her friends asking if they would let her take their photo in this black and white, short light style. She ended up taking 20 photos for the class project.
On another side of campus, Mark Masuoka, assistant professor of art, was starting his role as director of the Boren Art Gallery (BAG).
One day, he was walking through the student center when he noticed the paintings that inhabited the space before the “You” gallery.
After inquiring about the paintings, he learned they were pieces from a specific part of the Boren art collection that focused on Indiana artists. They had been hanging there since the addition of the Campus Center, about eight years ago, Masuoka said.
As the new director, Masuoka sought to do something new; he wanted to see a portrait display of Taylor students in black and white inhabiting the space. He thought it would be fitting considering how the Campus Center serves as a gathering place for students, he said.
After receiving permission from various staff members, Masuoka reached out to Miles to share the idea with him and ask for help organizing the photo collection.
“And [Miles] just kind of looked at me with this little smile,” Masuoka said. “And then he went on his computer and showed me Chloe Gard’s portfolio on her website. He said, ‘Is this what you’re talking about?’ I looked at it and I couldn’t believe it…there it was.”
These were the photos Gard created for her class assignment approximately a month before.
She already had the photos Masuoka was looking for. The name of the series was already called “You” and the artist statement had already been written. Everything was already put together, Gard said.
Masuoka wanted 30 portraits for the show; she simply had to take 10 more photos.
“It’s just, not many artists get that opportunity,” Gard said. “There's always some sort of condition that you have to follow. Like, ‘Okay, we can display your work, but you have to do this, this and this.’ There was none of that for me here, which is weird. Which is why I think it felt too good to be true at first.”
Sophomore Raena Rogers, film and media arts major, was one of the students Gard took a portrait of for the series.
As a deaf individual and only a freshman when Gard reached out to her last fall, Rogers felt honored and seen by this project. She believes other students will also be able to resonate with the gallery too.
“The beauty of God’s kingdom is that it’s diverse,” Roger said. “And [you’re] able to see that through the collection. And I feel like the majority of campus will be able to see and at least recognize one person that represents their dorm or their major…”
In order for the viewer to feel that connection with the photos, the portraits were scaled to look more life-size and also placed at eye-level. Additionally, the spacing in between the photos makes it so there’s a new portrait to look at with each step a person takes, Masuoka said.
As for the paintings that were previously there, students and staff can still enjoy the old collection by visiting the Boren Art Gallery, located in Helena Memorial Hall, Masuoka said.
Gard thanks every one of the 30 people she photographed for simply saying “yes” to letting her take their photo. Beyond their images, they are real people with their own unique stories, Gard said.
Still, there’s one person she said she could not have done this without.
“The biggest shoutout would be Jamie Miles,” Gard said. “He’s been the person that I think has pushed me the hardest to reach these limits that I didn’t know I could reach or go beyond…Because of him pushing me in that way, I was able to finally reach something to this level that I never thought myself capable of. But he had always seen that in me.”
