Alec Pugliese/ The Towerlight

Large-scale abstract structures made of wood pulp and color pigments, blue and purple, are suspended in midair from the ceiling.

Others rest on the ground throughout the gallery. One piece, “Form in Motion 1” can even be seen across from the gallery under the stairs.

Last Thursday at the Center for the Arts, a new exhibit titled “Form Life” opened in the Holtzman MFA Gallery.

The exhibit featured pieces created by MFA candidate and Towson graduate student Joe Cypressi.

“I admire the balance of the piece, it being free standing yet so large,” Britt Sorensen, a sophomore, said of the “Form in Motion 1” piece. “His use of color was very interesting, because it would have had a completely different feeling had it been any other color other than bright blue.”

Cypressi said he began working with his art about four years ago when he first enrolled at Towson.

He said the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his sculptures are the source of his inspiration.

Organic elements found in nature combined with his interest in figure are the driving force behind the themes in his work.

“[It’s important] to incorporate both color and formal decisions about shape,” Cypressi said.

His favorite piece in his exhibit is “Baroque Study 1,” the purple and gray stationary piece inside the gallery, Cypressi said.

The biggest struggle in producing the structures was the unstable nature of the surface and getting the pigment to adhere to the surface.

“[It is] wonderful to see a working artist who is a student. It validates the instruction at this school,” Carroll Cook, Cypressi’s former professor at Carver Center for the Arts and Technology, said. “The exhibit shows kids that there is life beyond public education. I believe teaching provides the opportunity to pass along a love for a medium and at the same time, producing art.”