“Fully in Person”
The long awaited 2024 Visual Arts Senior Show is titled Fully in Person, aptly named for a class that started college in 2020, and the room was, in fact, packed on opening night Tuesday, May 21st.
The show takes place in the Usdan Gallery inside the visual arts building’s second floor. It is a compilation of all the graduating senior’s final works in animation, architecture, book-making, ceramics, collage, comics, design, drawing, fashion, fiber-arts, installation, painting, photography,printmaking, textiles, VR, and zines.
The 31 seniors were given their space assignments on the 13th, about a week before the show. They were allowed in the gallery most of the day and all night throughout the week to set up their exhibitions. The artists were given lots of freedom with how they would set up their space. In the middle of April the seniors turned in their show proposals, which described what they needed for their show. They were given a handbook and could reach out to faculty if they needed help or had questions. The gallery was lit the day before the show. Different exhibits needed different lighting and they needed to make sure the various old and flat screen tvs were working properly.
The artists were invited to a last minute toast outside the gallery half an hour before the opening. The toast was given around 6:50 by Jonathan Kline, who is a retiring visual arts faculty.
The opening was well-attended by faculty and students supporting their friends and pupils. The long table full of charcuterie and other snacks and drinks were wiped out quickly. The room was swelteringly hot and people clung to their cold glasses.
Despite the heat, attendees used their programs as makeshift fans and continued to walk through the show. Some students stood besides their displays and were giving excited explanations to their work, where others visited other artworks they may not have seen complete yet.
When you get a chance to visit the gallery and see the most anticipated show of the year, you will be met with 31 unique displays of vibrant artwork from architecture models to a VR 360 video.
My personal favorite pieces were the giant oil paintings, specifically My Brother by Jade Baratta and Sam Kemmerer’s paintings based on dreams. I was also entranced by Alexa Nikol Curran’s photographs of rugby players, especially the one with the special frame to fit in the corner. Speaking of photography, Linn Miller’s beautiful scrapbook altarpiece includes zines you can buy using Venmo. The giant photograph on fabric is also for sale by the artist.
If you were unlucky enough to miss Persephone (Effie) Ludke’s fashion show Phantasmagoria, you can view the wearable art collection along with a video of the fashion show on the floor framed by dirt.
The animations created by Elliot Hopkins Shafnacker and Maya Razvi both include stunning stop motion animation. Razvi’s is in the form of still cyanotype images and Shafnacker uses hand drawn animation to bring to life mixed media sculptures.
The amount of care, work, and energy put into each of these displays by the graduating class of 2024 is truly a feat. You can visit the show from now until June 1st Tuesday through Saturday from 1-5pm. Congratulations to the senior visual arts students.
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