The Cerritos College Art Gallery has opened its doors to host the Re:Creation Art Exhibit. The exhibit is described as “serious play with canonical art.”

The exhibit features recreated pieces by various artists such as Artemio, Ray Beldner, Ron English, and others.

The pieces featured are based off of original works that expressed many issues.

One of the works featured was Jay Merryweather’s “OFf Course.” The piece is loosely referenced to a work entitled “Raft of the Medusa.”

Merryweather’s piece features a wooden raft with many Pinocchio dolls on top of it, referencing the original work, which featured a makeshift raft with slaves riding it. Merryweather states that his piece refers to the historical aspect of the original work, as well as expressing Walt Disney’s vision that was “intimately suppressed” after his passing.

Another artist that was featured was Carrie Yury. Her work consisted of various drawings of previous performance art pieces done by other feminist artists with the addition of masks over the drawings’ faces, which references an experience she had as a performance artist. “I decided to do a series of drawings as an homage to other woman performance artists,” Yury said.

Other pieces that are being featured include: Ron English’s “Obama-Lincoln,” which is a recreation of a portrait of Abraham Lincoln that has been morphed with President Barack Obama’s facial features; Ben White’s “McAuliffe Devouring the Challenger,” which illustrates the story of Christa McAuliffe, the schoolteacher-turned-astronaut who was a part of the Challenger incident in 1986; Vik Muniz’s “Medusa Marinara,” a photograph of a sculpture of the mythological creature Medusa made entirely out of spaghetti.

Students have already taken the opportunity to visit the exhibit. Kyra Bradley, Biology major, said, “I really like it. It’s really provocative, but then it comes into reality.”