At the beginning of this month, the Fine Arts department unveiled an exhibition that showcases the latest work of its devoted students, the "Dimensions 3" exhibit. On view in Dreitzer Gallery in the Spingold Theater Center through March 22, "Dimensions 3" features work from students in the Sculpture, 3D Design and Digital Photography classes.

This exhibit levels the playing field, so to speak, among the different levels of skill among Fine Arts students at Brandeis, as the work it features was created by first years, sophomores and juniors. As the Fine Arts department at Brandeis aims to cultivate well-rounded artists who are skilled in many art mediums and confident in their work, the "Dimensions 3" exhibit, and others like it, are essential opportunities for students who are serious about their careers in art.

The semicircular shape of Dreitzer Gallery lent itself to a tidy organization of the pieces so that the inevitable architectural disjunction caused by dividing walls within the gallery did not make for a great aesthetic divide within the exhibit. Collections of digital photographs were hung on the concave wall of the gallery, and light from the high windows seeped in and illuminated the exhibit.

The digital photographs selected for the exhibit fit under the umbrella title "The Ink Can Bury A Blade," an idea conceived by students Joseph Jacobowitz '14, Sofia Retta '15 and Anna Yatskar '14. "Once in a while," the students wrote on a title page displayed within the exhibit, "we happen upon a circumstance of such overwhelming and terrifying might that we temporarily neglect our sense of self and feel awe and security rather than fear." Each collection of photographs fit this invocation beautifully.

The photographs range in subject from nature to cityscape, from close-ups of scenes to places and people, from objects to bodies. Yatskar's collection was by far my favorite-close-up, purposefully focused shots of the human body. The solid, un-textured black background and soft yellow lighting that Yatskar's collection used complimented its subject well. The body parts portrayed through these pictuers-unclothed, rippling with lean muscles, slenderness queued by skin stretched over protruding bones-were nothing short of haunting.

In contrast, a collection of nature photographs by Jonathan Greengarden '15 showed an intimate point of view with a mood entirely different from Yatskar's works. His photographs focused on leaves, branches and blooms and captured sunlight shining against these small treasures of nature in rays shaded amber, yellow and blue. The closeness that one was able to feel to the subjects of the photographs and the integral stillness of each shot were absolutely sublime.

Along the outwardly-curved wall of the gallery, the array of sculptures was organized into a gradient of subjects and materials. The sculptures were made of a range of materials: black wire, painted clay, found or salvaged objects and even X-Acto blade sliced pieces of cardboard. While the sculptures were placed throughout the gallery into groups organized by sculpting material, the exhibition did not seem choppy or segmented. Rather, one concept of art flowed into the next with a pleasant ease.

The sculptures made of found materials had written titles and descriptions mounted next to them, establishing the humorously-executed theme for the sculpting assignment: Each sculpture was created of an amalgamation of found objects to solve an everyday problem. For example, Briana McCalmon-Bailey '14 created a "Silverware Necklace" of several forks, knives and spoons strung onto a piece of wire, so that one will never be without silverware as he sits down for a meal. Kerry Morse '13 crafted a dangling pair of "Earplug Earrings," so that the wearer would always have earplugs at his convenience.

Conversely, the sculptures crafted from medium-thick black wire were less practically-minded and more stoically displayed. Each of these sculptures was accompanied by a nameplate crediting its artist, and none of these works were titled. Some of the wire sculptures depicted objects from nature, like a beautifully crafted three-dimensional tree, while others were shaped into box-like dioramas that housed wire-crafted shapes or scenes of nature or of the city.

The "Dimensions 3" exhibit is overall both an aesthetic and conceptual delight, and proudly shows students' work as they practice using art as a forum for expressing emotional insurmountability. I genuinely look forward to seeing more exhibits like this one in the future.