Art and Visual Culture – News

Picture story: Mingle and meet at the Senior Thesis Exhibition opening

Phyllis Graber Jensen — Wed, 12 May 2021 21:51:08 +0000

Tucked into the corner of the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art is a small sign with an invitation from Christopher Barker ’21: He wants visitors to pick up his ghostly, serene-looking vessels.

‘Nice bubble of artistry’: 14 show work in 2019 Senior Thesis Exhibition

Doug Hubley — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 19:34:09 +0000

As they amass a body of work to show in �ֲ��ý’ Senior Thesis Exhibition, what are some of the big lessons for this year’s studio art majors?

There are practical skills: Planning and time management. Understanding when to experiment and conceptualize — and when to cut to the chase and start producing. Learning to see through the eyes of people you hope to communicate with.

The 2019 Senior Thesis Exhibition artists talk about their work.

But there are also “softer” takeaways whose value, in fact, may surpass career considerations and play directly into life satisfaction.

There’s the power of consultation, companionship, and collaboration, for example. “Especially in the first semester, we spent a lot of time looking at each other’s work,” says Flannery Black-Ingersoll of Concord, N.H., one of the 14 senior artists in this year’s exhibition, which opens April 5.

“That’s very instructional, both for how you look at your own art and what you ask questions about, but also building that camaraderie in the studio space,” she says, meaning the Olin Arts Center studios that are each shared by several students. “‘Okay, what do you think of this?’ ‘Is this ridiculous?’ ‘Do you have any ideas?’ — sort of feeding off each other.

Flannery Black-Ingersoll at work in her Olin Arts Center studio on March 20, 2019. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“It’s this nice bubble of artistry, which people look for beyond college.”

And then there are the lessons that are basically good for one thing, but a highly important thing: a laugh. Stuck at one point in her work, which involves fabric, ceramics, paint, and wood, Black-Ingersoll was inspired to try to integrate cheesecloth into the concept.

For her and studiomates Jo Cunningham and Daisy Diamond, cheesecloth was The Answer — until it wasn’t. “It was late at night,” says Black-Ingersoll. “We were all freaking out because we just had this genius moment. But of course it didn’t happen.”

That’s because she subsequently heard that a thing for cheesecloth is a typical developmental stage for first-year art school students. “So I didn’t end up doing that.”

At top, Daisy Diamond works with art, steel, and fabric in her Olin studio. At left, Grace Link ’19 hangs her photographs with help from Haley Crim ’19. At right, Mickai Mercer ’19 places his drawings in the art museum’s Upper Gallery. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Pamela Johnson, associate professor of art and visual culture, advised the senior artists during the winter semester, and Penelope Jones, visiting assistant professor of art, was the fall semester adviser.

2019 Senior Thesis Exhibition artists

+Flannery Black-Ingersoll ’19

Formalism and craftsmanship are important in Black-Ingersoll’s artwork. Generally speaking, she makes two types of structural forms — quilted canvas wall hangings and wooden structures incorporating ceramic vessels and painted canvas — that both take abstracted nude self-portraits as subjects.

“I am not interested in developing sexualized imagery” Black-Ingersoll says, but instead focuses on the human form as it appears in visual art and dance. She sketches, paints, and embroiders figures in a way akin to choreography. “In contrast with the ephemerality of dance, these figures have permanence,” she says. As she does in her choreography, Black-Ingersoll infuses her art with humor and a sense of rebelliousness. “There’s something comical to me about depicting the nude female with embroidery,” she says.

A detail from “Quilt — Posture Pattern” (2019), a piece in acrylic paint and embroidery on canvas by Flannery Black-Ingersoll ’19.

+Jo Cunningham ’19

Cunningham of Brooklyn, N.Y., confronts her own discomforts and anxieties in her paintings. Painting saggy skin and baggy eyes gives her the opportunity “to explore a level of darkness and discomfort in the safety of the abstract and the fantasy of paint.” She often paints babies, which “have the saggy skin, puffy eyes and disproportionate bodies that I love” — but “they are important. The creation of them and their appeal is fascinating to me.”

Because babies represent human potential, they are precious. Cunningham’s paintings “explore the complexities of being this precious captive, and the discomfort of childhood.” She depicts scenes where babies run amok, driving cars, lassoing cows, and creating general chaos. Her work is meant to unsettle and disturb. “The material and process are beautiful, but like artist Ida Applebroog said, the finished product is not meant to hang over the living room couch,” she says.

“Home Free” is a 2019 oil painting on canvas by Jo Cunningham ’19.

+Sarah Daehler ’19

Ceramicist Daehler of Greensburg, Penn., aims to make vessels that will be valued “for their texture, beauty, and utility,” she says. She places high value on craftsmanship: “The pieces I am most attracted to are ones that do not easily reveal their process,” and Daehler strives to remove or conceal such evidence of pottery technique as throwing lines or fingerprints.

She’s also acutely conscious of the user experience, making vessels that are lightweight and a pleasure to handle. “Tactile sensation is an important part of my work,” she adds. She uses slip-trailing to speckle the surface with raised dots in random order. Inspired by the clean designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, Daehler glazes with white, which affords attractive effects of shadow and light, or with deep blues that allow “my slip-tailed dots to peek through, like stones peeking out of the water in a shallow stream.”

Untitled white stoneware (2019) with blue and white glazes by Sarah Daehler ’19.

+Daisy Diamond ’19

With the goal of confronting systemic privilege and oppression, “I think about my sculptures as representations of invisible frameworks: penetrable webs of histories, symbols, and identities,” says Julia “Daisy” Diamond of Bala Cynwyd, Penn. Using sutures as a motif in pieces that also incorporate steel, fabric, clay, wax, thread, and animation, “I want to understand and deconstruct my privileges, especially my whiteness, as historically created and maintained by violent assemblages of sutures.”

Her sculptures, says Diamond, “represent the way that whiteness is constructed by thousands of moments, stitches of affirmation, wobbly and waiting to unravel.” But the sutures have more than one meaning. “The process of confronting myself in my work is not an easy, pain-free, linear process,” she explains. “Sutures are a recurring visual element that I use to represent this experience as a step of healing.”

A detail from “lady / of the sutures, / wobbly to the touch, / she was anxiously stitched into a complicit soldier / for when / time would not cleanse these wounds” by Daisy Diamond ’19. The 2019 sculpture incorporates steel rods, fabrics, and wire.

+Meha Jhajharia ’19

“Using drawing and building as a liberatory practice,” Jhajharia of Kolkata, India, makes objects that he calls “headspaces.” Constructed from everyday materials such as cardboard, wire, and beads, these miniature spaces invite the viewer to peer inside. “The interiors are both intricate and methodical, urging the viewer to explore the details and construct the hidden narratives,” he says. “Depth, perception, and light combine to challenge the reality of what is being viewed.”

Creating physical space is important to Jhajharia, who struggled to find his own place as a queer trans South Asian boy. “It was natural that the work I wanted to create took up the radical act of explicitly embodying myself,” he says. “Each headspace that I have made is significant to an experience I have lived, and each structure holds thoughts I have actually had.” He asks his viewers to “be ready to reject an apolitical approach and instead challenge their beliefs on gender, race, caste, and societal norms.”

The interior of “Headspace 2” (2018) by Meha Jhajharia ’19. The media in the piece include cardboard, reflective sheet, plastic crystal buttons, Scotch-Brite metal scrub, and Christmas ornaments.

+Lily Kip ’19

Kip’s oil paintings were born out of agitation and insight dating back to a time abroad, during which she missed nature in New England and felt alienated from her art-marking. Back at �ֲ��ý, Kip of Needham, Mass., began a series of self-portraits with plants, but wasn’t satisfied with those. Her current approach emerged when a friend advised her to “paint people holding the plant.” This suggestion proved to be an effective way forward.

Humor is essential to the paintings, as is an appreciation of color. Along with bordering each of her portraits with a golden arch in the manner of an illuminated manuscript, Kip chose background colors corresponding to the relationship between painter and her subject. “Color is critical to my conception of character, the same way that comportment or clothing can capture the essence of a person,” says Kip.

An oil painting on plywood panel from “Growth Cycle Altarpiece” (2019) by Lily Kip ’19.

+Morgan Lewis ’19

Lewis’s drawings stem from his love for comics. “I strive to emulate the dynamic movement that I see on these pages and craft an engrossing narrative,” says Lewis of Nederland, Colo. “In my work I try to build new worlds that capture views of different kinds of space. Through the use of deep blacks and stark whites, I hope to create dynamic and eye-catching pieces that call for a closer look.”

Lewis doesn’t feel attracted to the ironic and cynical school of comics. In comics, “we see characters rise from tragedy and undergo many trials and tribulations throughout their lives. However, no matter how bleak these stories may seem, the message that they consistently send is that there are always good people in our world,” he explains. “When I was younger, I wanted to be Superman because I wanted to be strong and impervious for its own sake,” he adds. “A few years later I realized that there was an additional reason: He stands for hope.”

A 2019 drawing in micron pen, sumi ink, pencil, and Bristol paper by Morgan Lewis ’19.

+Grace Link ’19

Link’s love of photography started with her first digital camera at age 10. Now she works exclusively in black-and-white film, finding that both the limitations of film and “the physical control that I have over image processing make me feel like I am creating art pieces instead of mere renditions of digital files.”

In the Senior Thesis Exhibition, Link of Montclair, N.J., is showing portraits of young adults. Most of the images are studio portraits taken against a plain background. “My goal is to present the emotions I see in each person in a short period of time,” she says. The subjects, friends and strangers alike, choose to be photographed by Link by signing up online, which gives her the comfort of consent. “This develops trust between the subject and myself where I can respectfully represent them,” she says. “I want the hidden power of each person to be present in my portraits.”

The silver gelatin print “Haley” (2018) is a portrait of Haley Crim ’19 by Grace Link ’19.

+Mickai Mercer ’19

“Ever since I could first pick up a pencil, I was drawing on newspapers, books, Bibles, and any other type of paper I could get my hands on,” says Mercer, a Philadelphia resident. “My Nana got so irritated with me drawing on everything that she brought me my first sketchbook and took me to a museum.”

“Concepts of life, death, manifestation, human will, metaphysical space and experiences that can be relatable for everyone became the main topics I explore,” he explains. Mercer depicts his own face, plants, ravens and crows, wolves, and butterflies, viewing the animals as extensions of himself. Each image “attempts to allude to a thought, emotion, or a shared experience,” he says. Through a variety of media, subjects, and styles, Mercer has found ways to fully “dive into this world of mystery and infinite possibilities.”

“Plumas y Aleteos, Feathers and Flutters” is a 2019 drawing in graphite, charcoal, and ink on paper by Mickai Mercer ’19.

+Hawley Moore ’19

Erica Hawley Moore’s interest in depicting drawing, painting, and sculpting hands began as a challenge. “The hand is widely regarded as one of the more difficult body parts to depict,” says Moore of Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J. Her foray into creating hands is neither easy nor comfortable. “I tend to bounce back and forth between looking for meaning in this work and then deciding that it’s not necessary to do so,” she says. Ultimately, her discomfort allows her to create disjointed pieces that “do not have to make sense to be complete.”

“I am making broken hands, pieces of hands, whole hands, hands linked together, hands alone, hands forming shapes, and hands in blank space. I have removed context from my work, to allow more focus on the form itself,” she says. “I have noticed more and more how crucial they are to my practice and how my appreciation for them has grown.”

A recent untitled work in plaster, acrylic, and wood by Hawley Moore ’19.

+Abby Lynne Kizirian Myers ’19

“My fascination with dragons is lifelong and deeply personal,” says Myers of Pawtucket, R.I., who has found inspiration in mythology, folklore and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. In her installation “Broodmother,” she explains, “I’m investigating how my agency as an artist, a woman, and a feminist subverts the patriarchal and masculine toxicity historically associated with dragon iconography. My manipulation of this imagery effectively subverts that relationship.”

Her installation consists of sculptural objects arranged, in juxtapositions influenced by mountain ranges (the natural lair of dragons), to suggest dragon anatomy. “Fire is an indisputable aspect of dragon iconography,” Myers notes, and she uses heat-worked materials like clay, metal, and glass, and also selects washes and colors to create “a volcanic surface quality,” as ways to evoke expanses freshly scorched by dragon fire.

A detail from the 2019 earthenware piece “Broodmother” by Abby Myers ’19.

+Bailey Richins ’19

As she considered subjects for her paintings, Richins of Westerly, R.I., thought of visits to her grandmother’s house before and after her grandmother moved to a new home. Richins recalled the quality of light and the significance of the objects in the bathroom. “After contemplating what was missing from and what remained of the space, I became aware of a bathroom’s significance as one of the most personally revealing rooms in a home,” she says.

Now she uses representational paintings of bathrooms to “examine how an unoccupied space can be activated by human energy and natural light,” she says. She has a particular interest in the contrast between warm and cool light and how each falls on neutral objects. “With the hope of accurately representing the temperature of light, I challenged myself to ignore what colors I instinctively associate with an object and instead mixed paint to reflect what my eyes actually perceive,” Richins says.

A detail from “Bathroom, second,” a 2019 oil painting on canvas by Bailey Richins ’19.

+Chandler Ryan ’19

Ryan’s portraiture arose from her response to the “male gaze,” the sexual objectification of women in literature and art created by men. It was a phenomenon brought uncomfortably to her attention during her semester abroad in a country where the male gaze is a fact of life in social settings. “To land in a place where I wasn’t even able to meet the unwanted gaze of men on the street shook me to my core,” says Ryan of Delmar, N.Y.

Through her photographic portraits of women, “I subvert that norm,” says Ryan, “as the one doing the looking, with my female subjects presenting themselves and looking back at the viewer.” These images “are my pushback to the ways in which our bodies, and at times presences, do not feel like they are our own.” Shooting on black-and-white film, she says, “my goal is a simple portrayal of women around me whose strength and power is magnified.”

“Josie” (Josie Gillett ’19), a 2019 inkjet print on silver rag paper by Chandler Ryan ’19.

+Anh Thai Tran ’19

Dynamic, spontaneous, and iterative, Tran’s image-making process begins simply — with a square, circle, or a set of connected lines. “I want to invoke emotions with only simple geometric shapes,” says Tran of Middleton, Mass. “I am drawn to lines and colors by the same curiosity that prompts a toddler to inspect an object for the first time.”

Influenced by the detail and layered effects of Japanese textiles, Tran lays geometric patterns on top of each other in order to create a “sense of wonder.” He also responds to the formal restraint and clarity of commercial wallpaper design, in which he embeds his own emotionality — “visions of futures that will not come, and memories that will not fade.” His work is utilitarian, useful as designs for clothing, screensavers, or even a tatoo. “Art has to serve a purpose: If a piece does not enlighten our mind, it should enrich our surroundings,” he explains.

“Starry Night” is a 2019 digital image on matte paper by Thai Tran ’19.

Senior thesis sees green inspirations in iconic West Coast homes

Doug Hubley — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 13:52:43 +0000

For Emerson Krull ’19, the topic of her senior thesis was as near as her father’s business and as remote as the post-World War II era.

An environmental studies major with a concentration in art history, Krull has spent much of this year researching the so-called Case Study Houses of Southern California: a series of designs intended to model efficient, affordable housing for military veterans coming home after the war.

Specifically, Krull’s thesis analyzes ways in which those designs have inspired today’s environmentally sustainable houses.

Emerson Krull ’19 poses at the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art, where she was a curatorial intern for exhibitions including the current Anthropocenic. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Thirty-seven were designed, of which 25 were built (seven were later torn down or substantially remodeled). Most of the finished houses were photographed by Julius Shulman, whom Krull describes as “an iconic photographer of modern architecture generally, and specifically of the buildings of Southern California.”

Shulman, for instance, was responsible for a Case Study House image that has become emblematic of Los Angeles luxury (bottom image): two women taking their ease in the glass-walled living room of Case Study House No. 22, seemingly hovering in space high above the city lights.

And Shulman, who died in 2009, was represented by Craig Krull Gallery, located in Santa Monica and owned by Krull’s father. It was through her father and the gallery that Emerson Krull became aware of Shulman’s Case Study House work and the project itself.

Shown in a period photo by renowned photographer Julius Shulman, Case Study House No. 22 (the Stahl House) has become an icon of California architecture. (Julius Shulman Photography Archive, 1936-1997 © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles)

“I always loved the photos and the simple, clean-lined modern design” of the Case Study Houses, she says. “They weren’t really thinking about it as sustainable back then — that wasn’t even a term — but today they can be good examples of sustainable design.”

A Santa Monica native, Krull is passionate about the Southern California landscape at its best, notably the visual harmony between its natural and built environments — a harmony, she says, that she discovered through Shulman’s images.

No. 22, the Stahl House, may be the best-known example of a characteristic shared by many of the Case Study Houses: their thoughtful placements into the natural setting and their expansive use of glass to visually integrate outdoors and indoors.

“That integration is so perfect for the Southern California landscape,” says Krull, whose thesis research last summer included a visit to the Stahl House (which is still in the hands of the Stahl family). “We have pretty good weather, so it makes sense to utilize the land around the house and not just have it be a box on a street. Those architects really used the land and used the views they were given.”

A contemporary view from the Stahl House. (Emerson Krull ’19)

The houses were a project of Arts & Architecture magazine and editor John Entenza, who recruited a host of notable architects, including such eminences as Charles Eames Jr. and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, and Pierre Koenig — designer of No. 22 — to try to set a course for postwar housing in LA.

“[C]hosen not only for their obvious talents, but for their ability to evaluate realistically housing in terms of need, [they] have been commissioned to take a plot of God’s green earth and create ‘good’ living conditions for eight American families,” Entenza wrote in his announcement of the program, in the magazine’s January 1945 issue. (Of course, the eight-house goal fell by the wayside.)

In general, “the designs balance a consideration for the economy, society and the environment,” Krull explains.

Reflecting the optimism and energy of the time, they would employ building technologies that emerged from the war, and they would be replicable — “in no sense…an individual ‘performance’” by the architect, Entenza stipulated.

Each would seek to fulfill “the specifications of a special living problem in Southern California,” such as the peculiarities of a given site or the needs of a specific family. For instance, Case Study House No. 1, designed by J.R. Davidson with Greta Davidson, needed to be easy to clean and maintain to accommodate the busy lives of its inhabitants, a childless two-career couple.

The Case Study Houses program outlasted the postwar circumstances that inspired it, and the houses were built, mostly in and around Los Angeles, from 1948 until 1966. (Koenig’s CSH No. 22 was built in 1960.) Yet the program retained its experimental outlook.

Sustainability as we know it was not on the radar of Entenza and the CSH architects. But, as Krull shows in her thesis, aspects of CSH design did anticipate contemporary thinking about green design in aspects like functional efficiency, respect for natural aspects of the building site, openness to natural light and ventilation, etc.

This Julius Shulman image gives a sense of the immediate surroundings of the Stahl House. (Julius Shulman Photography Archive, 1936-1997 © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles)

Though an ES major, Krull is approaching her thesis from a visual art perspective. (A curatorial intern at the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art in her sophomore and senior years, Krull helped put together this winter’s major exhibition, Anthropocenic). In an unusual cross-disciplinary arrangement, her thesis adviser, in fact, is Ned Harwood, associate professor of art and visual culture.

Harwood, she says, “really helped me understand the historical precursors or precedents to the Case Study House program. He’s provided me with knowledge on the context of the Great Depression, European functionalism, and even early socialist thought, and how these all came to influence the program.”

The Stahl House living room and pool today. (Emerson Krull ’19)

“Emerson’s smart, very engaged, unbelievably well-organized, and a self-starter,” says Harwood. He adds, with a laugh, that students often proclaim plans to do thesis work the summer before senior year — “but Emerson actually did it.”

Starting before she arrived at �ֲ��ý, Krull has undertaken a variety of internships related to the visual arts in the Los Angeles region — notably a 2017 stint at the Getty Research Institute, where she did archival work on a collection of images by the noted architectural photographer Lucien Hervé.

The thesis research has given her a head start in understanding sustainable architecture in her home state, a place on the cutting edge of green consciousness. “I’m increasingly interested in working in that field after �ֲ��ý,” she says.

She adds, “Personally, doing this thesis has been the most inspiring and uplifting project in my time at �ֲ��ý — an opportunity to research a very specific topic that combines all of my passions, interests, and experiences.”

Photographer Julius Shulman took this Case Study House image that has become emblematic of Los Angeles luxury. (Julius Shulman Photography Archive, 1936-1997 © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles)

‘In love with something’: Senior Thesis Exhibition 2018

Doug Hubley — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 18:51:44 +0000

“It can be exciting, seeing the progress that smart kids can make in a short period of time,” says Robert Feintuch.

The smart kids in question are the studio art majors who show nine months’ worth of creative work in the annual Senior Thesis Exhibition at the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art ().

Since he started at �ֲ��ý, in 1976, senior lecturer Feintuch has been one of two advisers to help student artists prepare for the show, working in tandem for many of those years with a colleague in the art and visual culture department, associate professor Pamela Johnson. The exhibiting artists in the Class of 2018 are the last Feintuch will advise at �ֲ��ý.

Sophie Olmsted ’18 installs her work in the 2018 Senior Thesis Exhibition at the �ֲ��ý Museum of Art. Senior Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture Robert Feintuch, who advises the studio art majors during the winter semester, is in the background. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Feintuch, who retires this year, is himself a highly regarded painter, represented by the Sonnabend Gallery in New York City and by the Zevitas Marcus Gallery in Los Angeles. “I see teaching thesis as an opportunity to respond to students’ individual interests, while pointing them to historical and contemporary work, as well as to larger contexts that could inform them,” he says.

But, Feintuch adds, “in the end, it helps for young artists to fall in love with something.”

Meet the artists

Who are the artists featured in the 2018 Senior Thesis Exhibition, and what’s their work about?

Those objects of love vary widely for the 14 artists in this year’s senior show — from animations made by Durotimi Akinkugbe to the kinetic grid drawings of Meghan Cleary, and from Georga Morgan-Fleming’s abstract paintings to the utilitarian pottery that Max Breschi, of Carlisle, Pa., is giving away to local residents through the exhibition.

All told, Feintuch says, “the mediums in this year’s exhibition include vessel-based ceramics; straight, digitally and hand-altered photography; drawing, hand-drawn animation, painting, and sculpture.”

The seniors’ thematic interests, he continues, “include sociopolitical concerns about gender and identity, emotional or comic responses to daily life, drawings as meditational devices, ceramics as functional and/or aesthetic objects, and sculpture as a metaphor for memory.”

With her ceramics in the foreground, Sophie Olmsted ’18 and adviser Robert Feintuch ponder the arrangement of student art in the 2018 Senior Thesis Exhibition a few days before the opening. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

He continues, “My students often start with elaborate intellectual ideas that are clearly expressed in spoken or written language. Then they make the work, and the result has very little to do with the starting point. It’s not that visual work is separate from ideas — it’s that the visual works differently from language.

“I try to encourage my students to see how the visual information they get from making can be used towards a wide range of ends.”

As exciting as the exhibition is — and as portentous as it may be for the graduates who go on to careers in art — it nevertheless bears a sting for the exhibitors. “It’s very bittersweet to finish a project that you’ve been working on for a whole year,” says ceramist Sophie Olmsted ’18 of Winchester, Mass.

“I’m proud of what I’ve done — but I also feel like it’s not done,” she says. There’s more for her to explore. She adds, “It’s also exciting to see my work compared to other people’s, and see the interactions in the gallery of our hard work together.”

2018 Senior Thesis Exhibition artists

+Durotimi Akinkugbe ’18

Durotimi Akinkugbe, of London, regards animation as a means of distilling and expressing his artistic ideas and his feelings. His current work uses hand-drawn imagery to probe for meaning in mundane day-to-day activities. Beginning with a concept that he wants to portray, Akinkugbe embarks on “a series of unraveling challenges – developing ideas, prototyping, and refining.” He explains, “What I like most about animation is that I get to combine different artistic skills all for the purpose of making films.” While his ultimate goal is the ability to “weave together powerful imagery,” he adds, “for the time being I feel that entertainment is a worthwhile goal to strive for.”

An untitled work by Durotimi Akinkugbe (2018), pencil on paper animation for HD video (border added).

+Saleha Belgaumi '18

Saleha Belgaumi’s art explores her identity as an American-Pakistani woman. “I attempt to represent some of the complexities of being a biracial woman of color, of Muslim heritage, living in contemporary U.S. society,” says Belgaumi of Karachi, Pakistan. She overlays close-cropped charcoal drawings of the nude female figure with traditional Islamic tile patterns in oil paint, exploring how these elements interact on the canvas and how they “allude to different histories of representation.” While she uses her own figure as reference, “the works are not self-portraits,” Belgaumi says. “I strip the figure of its distinct individuality and ask viewers to relate viscerally to the body in front of them.”

“Dekh, Magar Pyaar Se” by Saleha Belgaumi (2018), oil and charcoal on canvas.

+Joshua Bilchik '18

Joshua Bilchik of Brookline, Mass., makes decorative pots and vases from porcelain. Influenced by ancient Greek amphorae and work from the Ottoman ceramic center of Iznik, he forms smooth, curved vessels. Yet for his surface decoration, Bilchik finds inspiration in the rectilinear, geometric, and colorful stylings of modern and contemporary painters like Piet Mondrian and Ellsworth Kelly. Bilchik exploits the tension between the pottery’s rounded forms and the hard-edged surface designs. He says, “My intention is to make work that explores contrasts within and between the physical presence of the pots and their decoration.”

An untitled porcelain work from 2018 by Josh Bilchik.

+Max Breschi ’18

Max Breschi’s pottery is utilitarian art made with the desire to build community and strengthen relationships. “I imagine my ceramic vessels bringing simple pleasures to someone’s life as they drink a cup of coffee or look at a flower in a vase,” says Breschi of Carlisle, Pa. As he creates a work, he imagines the piece in the hands that will ultimately put the product to use. “To connect the communities of �ֲ��ý and Lewiston and to show my appreciation to the community,” he says, “I invite community members to visit the �ֲ��ý museum and to choose one of my pieces that speaks to them.” It’s a way to give back: Local residents “have played integral roles in my education and forging a new home for me throughout the years.”

Untitled glazed stoneware works made in 2018 by Max Breschi.

+Maria-Anna Chrysovergi ’18

Maria-Anna Chrysovergi of Nea Moudania, Greece, sees photography as a tool for personal empowerment and “as a mirror of my dreams and secret desires.” Her images compose an idealized story of her time at �ֲ��ý, compressed into the course of a single day. Inspired by the children’s book Matilda, about an oppressed child who gets the power to move objects with her mind, Chrysovergi imbues her photographic narrative with magical elements as a way to empower her own character. “I admire Matilda’s courage, intelligence, and humor,” she says. “I hope viewers can see how our stories are connected, and that some of them see the work as an invitation to imagine how their lives would be if they had magical powers.”

An untitled inkjet print by Maria-Anna Chrysovergi (2018).

+Meghan Cleary ’18

Meghan Cleary’s geometric pen-on-paper drawings explore movement. Inspired by the abstract artist Agnes Martin, Cleary of Burlington, Vt., begins each piece with a grid, choosing either to follow and accentuate the existing lines or to use them as a basis for new patterns. “I approach this work almost like a puzzle,” she explains: “It becomes my job to figure out where the pattern or design goes.” Deviation from the grid imparts more kinetic energy, she says, “which is an aspect of my drawings that I’ve been particularly interested in exploring this year.” She adds, “I don’t strive toward any particular conceptual meaning. For me, it’s simply about the marks on the page and how they interact with each other.”

“Fastest Man Alive #1” (2018), a drawing in ink and graphite on paper by Meghan Cleary.

+Nora Dahlberg ’18

Nora Dahlberg of Arlington, Va., uses prosthetic and theatrical makeup practices to transform plastic-foam wig forms “into something inhuman and creature-like.” She’s motivated in part by the desire to highlight costume and makeup techniques using clay and plaster that are highly regarded specialties. At a time when computer-generated imagery is the prevalent means of altering actors’ appearances, Dahlberg strives to “showcase prosthetic design and construction as an art form.” While CGI has its benefits, Dahlberg feels it is lacking: “People cannot experience the product face-to-face, only on a screen. I want to create tangible objects that evoke a visceral reaction from my audience.”

An untitled work by Nora Dahlberg (2018), made from plaster, clay, and epoxy on plastic foam.

+Stephanie Flores ’18

Stephanie Flores of Highland Park, Ill., views her work as an expression of her love/hate relationship with the fashion industry. “I find fashion’s ability to transport me into new worlds exciting,” she says, and she values the beauty and layered meanings of fashion apparel and photography. Yet she’s well-aware that the industry reinforces unrealistic beauty standards. “So I’ve chosen to just stay conflicted and let that dictate the direction of my artwork,” she says. Working with published fashion images to emphasize the persistence of these interpretations of beauty in her daily life, Flores alters the photographs with overlaid marks – made both consciously and subconsciously – that reflect her inner conflict and frustration with the industry.

An untitled work by Stephanie Flores (2018), in oil stick, oil pastel, and acrylic paint on InkJet paper.

+Emily Jolkovsky ’18

Emily Jolkovsky of Avon, Minn., says that she “began doing observational photography at a time when I was overwhelmed by ugly details of the larger picture.” Now she combines photography with her study of philosophy in search of insight into such abstract concepts as “good and evil, their interdependence, human nature, and language.” While she hopes her work will provide clarity, she strives, at least, to display the world’s simple and often overlooked beauty. Jolkovsky believes the world is full of answers: “I don’t want to attempt to give my own. I’d rather help provide some calm in a chaotic world by pointing out the quiet beauty that can be found in the banal.”

“Rose 2,” an inkjet print by Emily Jolkovsky (2017).

+Kiana Keller ’18

Kiana Keller’s pottery is loosely inspired by vessels used in Japanese tea ceremonies — “quiet and intimate, small-scale and subtle,” says Keller of Mililani, Hawaii. Yet the work expresses its own serendipitous character. “I’m interested in the tension between functionality and aesthetic choices,” she notes, as well as the organic conflict between planning a piece, on the one hand, and the “serendipity and chance inherently involved in making ceramics” on the other. Ultimately, Keller says, she celebrates the spur-of-the-moment decisions that can lead to stronger and more interesting pieces. “Sometimes, something happening in the moment takes me in a completely different direction,” she says, “and I just go with it.”

An untitled work in white stoneware with celadon glaze by Kiana Keller (2018).

+Louise Marks ’18

Louise Marks of Mount Pleasant, S.C., was inspired to create her assemblages by the sight of a burned-out house. Starting with “ash-covered wood, copper piping, wallpaper, and the occasional brick,” she fits the pieces together “as if they fell out of the sky and into these strange, but well-composed formations.” She explains, “I want the sculptures to stand in an unorthodox way, to make dramatic negative and positive spaces, to be visually interesting in the round, and to invite the audience to think about the meanings of and possible purposes” for refuse and wreckage. Originally wanting to paint portraits, Marks says that “in a surprising turn of events, I’m now using a hammer instead of a brush.”

“The Oldest,” an assemblage sculpture by Louise Marks (2018), made from electrical wire, found wood, wallpaper, brick, and nails.

+Madeline McKay ’18

Madeline McKay of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., is inspired by mapping practices to make images that explore personal and societal connection. With paint, pencil, marker, and ink, and Mylar overlays, she creates “diagrammatic representations of reality drawn from land, space, and movement through space.” McKay focuses on “mapping social, political, and environmental systems…responding to the ways in which reality feels chaotic and fractured on a societal level,” with society’s smartphone habit, and her own separation from loved ones, as contributing factors. Her art seeks to address this disorder “by reformatting, reordering, and filtering information and realities into legible, navigable systems of meaning – what, for me, feels like a necessary task.”

An untitled work by Madeline McKay (2018) in acrylic, ink, marker, and graphite on Mylar.

+Georga Morgan-Fleming ’18

Georga Morgan-Fleming of Belmont, Mass., describes her work as a “way for me to explore my experiences of people and events and the ways those things exist in my memory.” Explicitly subjective, her images explore our perception of memory as compelling truth, even as the components of memory are shifting, indistinct, and ephemeral. Painting with oil on canvas, Morgan-Fleming uses the color and quality of her lines to explore the fogginess of memory, allowing them to “waver and falter as they meander around the plane and sometimes disappear.” She says, “I want people to follow my lines and feel their way through the paintings like I have, moving tenderly, boldly, or stumbling uncertainly.”

An untitled oil painting on canvas by Georga Morgan-Fleming (2018).

+Sophie Olmsted ’18

Sophie Olmsted’s creative process evolved from making wheel-thrown pottery to hand-building vessels after she took a figurative sculpture class in Paris. Hand-building, says this resident of Winchester, Mass., “was liberating. Rather than striving to form the perfect pot on the wheel, I was free to add and take away clay where and when I saw fit.” Her subsequent adoption of a new pinching technique has imparted new energy to her interest in making functional pottery. “I now see that simplicity plays an important role in my sense of beauty,“ she says. “I hope that when people use these pots, they are reminded that what they are holding in their hands was made by another human’s imperfect, strong, and sometimes shaky fingers.”

An untitled vessel from 2018 in matte-glazed white stoneware by Sophie Olmsted.

What I Mean When I Say: Susan Dewsnap and ‘bat’

Emily McConville — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 19:56:44 +0000

For most of us, a bat sleeps upside down in caves or attics. Or, a bat hits home runs.

For Susan Dewsnap, a lecturer in art and visual culture, bats help ceramics like bowls or plates keep their shape.

“The term derives from ‘batten,’ as in, ‘to batten down the hatches’ or hold something secure,” Dewsnap, who has exhibited her ceramics in the U.S. and internationally, says.

Lecturer in art and visual culture Susan Dewsnap teaches a Short Term course in 2015 on soda firing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Bats are flat objects, usually circular, made of wood, plaster, or plastic. They can be attached to a pottery wheel, and ceramics are created, or thrown, on top of them.

“Bats enable a potter to throw a form on the pottery wheel, and when completed, to remove the pot, while still attached to the bat, without touching the wet work,” Dewsnap says.

The bat is essentially a support, good for creating wide, shallow pieces like plates, which could be deformed if a potter tried to pick them up with her hands. By lifting the piece by the bat, the potter keeps the piece pristine.

A rack of �ֲ��ý’ bats sits in an Olin Arts Center studio, awaiting their ceramicists. (Emily McConville/�ֲ��ý College)

Bats are also useful for making larger pieces, Dewsnap says.

“When making large round jars, I will actually use two bats: one to throw the bottom half of the pot and one to throw the top half,” she says. “After allowing the two sections to set up, the top half, still secured to the bat, is flipped upside down and attached to the bottom half, resulting in a larger form, which is then returned to the wheel, still attached to the bottom bat, for further shaping.”

Video: Katie Van Patten ’17 and the pursuit of directing

Joshua Kuckens — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 14:00:22 +0000

Katie Van Patten ’17 of Chico, Calif., talks about her senior thesis project last fall, directing a Sherlock Holmes play with an all-female cast. “I want to pursue directing,” she says, and the experience has shown her more about “what the job of directing entails, and that’s invaluable for my future.”

�ֲ��ý at Night: Nude figure drawing

Joshua Kuckens — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 19:40:58 +0000

On Wednesday night in an Olin Arts Center studio, the only sounds were charcoal on paper and hands sweeping over sketches as local residents joined students for a nude figure drawing session.

Meghan Cleary ’18, an art and visual culture major from South Burlington, Vt., was the model for this session in the weekly Life Drawing series. New to modeling this year, Cleary has already gained a level of comfort. “I was a little nervous the first time, but once you’re up there it’s pretty easy to zone out,” she said. “It’s more like just drawing shapes, rather than seeing a naked person.”

Artist John Bowdren of Pownal, Maine, has been coming to the weekly sessions for over a decade. “A lot of people have been coming for a long time, so it’s nice to catch up and hear what’s going on in the art world locally,” he said. “There’s no teaching, which is nice. People do little critiques but nothing serious, so it’s everyone just doing their thing.”

Figure drawing is "more like just drawing shapes, rather than seeing a naked person.”

Maine residents join �ֲ��ý students for a Figure Drawing session in Olin on Wednesday evening, Mar. 8 2017.

Meghan Cleary '18 of South Burlington, Vt, holds a pose. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

Deshun Peoples '17 (left) of Chicago is among the artists who joined the figure drawing session on March 8. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

John Bowdren, a painter from Pownal, Maine, holds up his pencil to "measure" units based on the model's head size. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

The informal aspect of the drawing session appeals to students like Deshun Peoples ’17. “It’s helpful to have this uninterrupted session of just drawing the figure consistently. It helps a lot in a way that is different than class time,” said Peoples, an art and visual culture major from Chicago.

He also noted the college-community aspect of the sessions. “It gives you a chance to interact with the population, especially artists, which is not something that’s a common occurrence.”

Video: ‘Modeling trash was something to get used to!’

Joshua Kuckens — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 21:42:45 +0000

The annual Trashion Show, held Wednesday, once again captivated an enthusiastic audience in the Gray Athletic Building. Kevin Tejada ’17 of Mount Kisco, N.Y., whose designs have been fan favorites for the past three shows, this year used shipping materials and discarded Halloween decorations to create “Marie Trashionette,” a stunning French Revolution–inspired outfit. “I didn’t know I could create outfits out of trash until I got here,” quipped Tejada, a history and Spanish double major. “The way I see my journey at �ֲ��ý is ‘discovery.’” His model was Gemma Rubi ’20 of San Diego, Calif., who has had some modeling experience. Still she said, “Modeling trash was something to get used to!” A traditional post–Harvest Dinner event, the Trashion Show is organized by the EcoReps, students who are trained to build a more environmentally sustainable �ֲ��ý.

An overview of new faculty, and the look of �ֲ��ý’ future, from Dean of the Faculty Matt Auer

Matt Auer, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:10:22 +0000

Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Matt Auer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

At �ֲ��ý, we often try to imagine the college 25 or 50 years out. What �ֲ��ý looks like in the future is at least partially revealed each time we hire a new faculty member. Today’s new recruit may teach at �ֲ��ý through 2050 or beyond.

Our ability to peer into the future is especially sharp this year because we recently hired nine tenure-track faculty members who will make an impact on the curriculum and on scholarship across all of our intellectual divisions — that is, in the humanities, natural sciences and mathematics, social sciences, and interdisciplinary programs.

Carolina González Valencia is a great example of a new faculty colleague whose impact will likely be felt early and consequentially. She’s an expert in digital media and drawing. Her interest in areas like representations of migration, identity, and “nationlessness,” and her ability to teach students to inscribe their own understanding of these issues on paper, canvas, and film, will add major new intellectual thrusts to the work of the Department of Art and Visual Culture.

She is also the first Mellon Diversity and Faculty Renewal Postdoctoral Fellow at �ֲ��ý. In her first year, she enjoys the advantages of a postdoctoral fellowship before converting, automatically, into a tenure-track assistant professorship in 2017–18.

Patrick Otim is the second of our two new postdoc fellows. A historian, his expertise is in 19th- and 20th-century East Africa, focusing on intellectual history in the pre-colonial era.

We talk about “a college for coming times” in our mission statement, but Carolina’s and Patrick’s backgrounds, experiences, and expertise illustrate that the coming times are already here.

Patrick is joined in the history department by Wes Chaney, who adds breadth and depth to our increasingly strong social, historical, and humanistic perspectives on China. Wes’ work is at the intersection of the environment, society, and the law in China during the Qing Empire (1644–1911) with a special interest in historical China’s border areas.

Network Infrastructure Project Manager Kevin Poland, left, and Desktop Operations Analyst Matthew Thomas install components of �ֲ��ý’ new High Performance Computing Cluster at 65 Campus Ave. New members of the physics faculty have taken the lead in bringing the system to �ֲ��ý. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

Wes has an instant community of fellow intellectual travelers since he comes on board at �ֲ��ý at the same time that Mia Liu and Nathan Faries begin their shared assistant professorship in Asian studies. Mia is a history, art, and visual culture expert, focusing on China. Nathan’s research considers religion, particularly Christianity, in Chinese literature in the contemporary context. Both Mia and Nathan teach Chinese language and culture courses.

The trend of faculty renewal is boldly evident in the natural sciences, too. Andrew Kennedy, an organic chemist whose work has neurobiological and medicinal applications, is fortifying connections between our department of chemistry and our program in neuroscience. Kennedy is already a major force nationally in understanding cognitive dimensions of a rare, genetic disorder called Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome.

Andrew Mountcastle, a new assistant professor in biology, is exploring the boundaries between physics and anatomy in living creatures, particularly insects. His students can expect to learn everything about the secrets of insect flight, from biomechanical, locomotive, and physiological perspectives.

The trend of faculty renewal is boldly evident in the natural sciences, too.

Two new assistant professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy are helping to boost �ֲ��ý to a new level of computing capability. Jeff Oishi is a computational astrophysicist whose specialty is fluid dynamics and whose laboratory is the cosmos, as he studies solar magnetism. His new colleague, Aleksandar Diamond-Stanic, uses supercomputers to understand the structure and behavior of supermassive black holes.

With Oishi taking the lead, �ֲ��ý is now installing its first High Performance Computing system — a scalable computer cluster that, for example, will allow the astrophysicists to crunch data-rich imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. This increase in the size and sophistication of the college’s supercomputing resources will continue in dramatic fashion as the college makes hires in the new Digital and Computational Studies program this year, and next.

Winter exhibitions showcase Occupy posters, digital montages by Becton

�ֲ��ý News — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 17:37:20 +0000

“The Pilot House,” a 2014 digital montage by Jeffery Becton. Courtesy of the artist.

An exhibition of Maine photographer Jeffery Becton’s digital images, which merge seascape and interior views in dreamlike ways, and a show of posters from the worldwide Occupy movement open at the �ֲ��ý College Museum of Art with a reception at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Becton will sign copies of the new book, The Farthest House (Marshall Wilkes), during the opening. The book features 68 reproductions of Becton’s images; an exploration of his work and career by noted Maine art historian Carl Little; and appreciations of the artist by novelist Deborah Weisgall, Wall Street Journal critic Peter Plagens and �ֲ��ý museum director Dan Mills, who curated the exhibition.

“Keep Calm,” a 2011 poster by Mark Miller, Los Angeles.

The museum’s winter exhibitions, titled The View Out His Window (and in his mind’s eye): Photographs by Jeffery Becton and The Art of Occupy: The Occuprint Portfolio, run through March 26. Showing at the museum through the same period is Maine Collected: Contemporary Selections From the Permanent Collection, an exhibition of images from the museum’s holdings by living artists with a Maine connection.

�ֲ��ý art museum events are always open to the public at no cost. The museum’s regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday (until 7 p.m. Wednesdays while �ֲ��ý is in session). For more information, please contact 207-786-6158 or museum@bates.edu.

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