By Joy Priest

The Student Activities Board has changed the face of Rasdall Gallery once again with its latest take on innovation. “Peeled,” — a photo exhibit running through Oct. 19 — employs Polaroids and aluminum.

Louisville native and fine artist Letitia Quesenberry has put her bachelor of fine arts, in drawing and printmaking from the University of Cincinnati, to use in a process she describes as “dye sublimation on aluminum.”

“These were Polaroids,” Quesenberry said. “What I ended up doing was taking them apart, and I scanned the insides.”

The scanned images, which present themselves faintly on 18 large aluminum canvasses that currently line the walls of Rasdall, require a little interaction. Observers must move around to make out the details; the further one moves to the side, the more vivid the object in the photo becomes.

“I saw her work first at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville,” ­said Shannon Ruhl, Cultural Arts director for SAB. “It was also from the‘Peeled’ series, so it was the same kind of work. It just struck me as something nostalgic. For me, it’s like looking at a memory.”

Quesenberry said that’s exactly what these images are — memories that she wanted to change.

“It’s funny, it’s such a personal work and it references such a short period of time that was sort of difficult,” Quesenberry said. “I made this work specifically to transform what those images mean to me. Transformation … is what I hope you get.”

The exhibit at Rasdall, which is only a part of the entire “Peeled” series — the complete series is a 60-piece collection resulting from Quesenberry taking one photo every day for 60 days — captures the Cultural Arts committee’s goal, Ruhl said. (The entire exhibit can be viewed online at http://www.letitiaquesenberry.com.)

“We’re trying to bring people who are truly innovative and who have something to say with their art,” Ruhl said. “It uses Polaroids, which that in itself is rare, but the technique is what makes it distinct.”

Quesenberry said when working, she chooses things that are open-minded and seek to involve the viewers’ perception in some way.

“I would hope that it would encourage students, anyone really, to see things differently,” Quesenberry said. “There’s sort of a beauty in not knowing always.”