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The Dartmouth
March 29, 2024 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Student Spotlight: Corinne Romano '15

Corinne Romano '15, a studio art major and digital arts minor, has designed for the DALI lab and Tiltfactor.

Corinne Romano '15, a studio art major and digital arts minor, has designed for the DALI lab and Tiltfactor.

Corinne Romano ’15 said she was the only AP studio art student in her high school.

“So I am used to being given materials and being told, ‘alright, let’s see what you can do with them!’”

Romano said she came to college confident in what she wanted to get out of the experience and has stuck to her path since freshman year. Now a senior, the studio art major and digital arts minor can reflect on her time in the arts at the College.

“Studio art is drawing, sculpture, painting, photography, basically hands-on creation,” Romano said.

And Romano is always at work.

Fellow studio art major Hannah O’Flynn ’15 spoke to Romano’s dedication to art.

One time, at a track meet, O’Flynn looked toward Romano. Amid the cheers, the senior sketched fans’ portraits.

“You can tell how passionate she is about it,” O’Flynn said.

Romano, who has a concentration in drawing and enjoys working with charcoal, said she has been challenged by her art classes at Dartmouth, listing studio art lecturer John Lee’s sculpture class as one that particularly changed her point of view.

“It was the hardest art class I have ever taken in my life,” she said. “It was a sobering experience that was like, ‘Hey, guess what? You’re not good at everything.’ I think that is when I first started growing maturity-wise as an artist.”

One project Romano remembers most fondly from the class was one in which students had to make recycled art.

Halfway through the project, students had to cut their works in half and give one half away.

“The experience was just incredible, and I learned not to treasure my pieces as much as I had before,” Romano said. “I learned how to destroy to create.”

Studio art senior lecturer Karolina Kawiaka, who taught Romano in a digital drawing class, wrote in an e-mail that Romano can switch between “her hand and the computer and innovatively combin[e] them.”

Both Kawiaka and O’Flynn referenced Romano’s creativity and talent.

“She is very into creating her own creatures, combining things like a dragon and a rat,” O’Flynn said.

Kawiaka wrote that in her class, Romano created “rich, layered images” from “beautiful and terrible dreams.”

Besides her work in the classroom, Romano could combine her art with her position on the College’s varsity track and field team, linking her two passions.

Last year, she made posters for more than 20 athletes for the indoor Heptagonal Championships.

She has also designed posters for student groups and the Hopkins Center, has worked for Tiltfactor and spent an off term in Hanover doing animations and illustrations for the Digital Arts Leadership and Innovation Lab.

“Whether or not she’s taking a studio art class, she always has a project she is working on,” O’Flynn said. “If you assign her a project, you know that it will be impressive, crisp and well-done.”

As the head fellow of art direction for Tiltfactor, Romano illustrated a card game, which she presented at this year’s Boston Festival of Indie Games. She counted the moment among her favorite art-related experiences, and said she is hand-drawing illustrations for another card game.

Romano said that the “Marvel Universe” is among her biggest inspirations.

The process of animation, Romano said, fascinates her. She said she would love to go back to see older, more hands-on animation in progress — for example, for “Aliens” (1986) or for the building of “Jurassic Park” (1993).

Romano will work on her senior seminar this year, which will culminate in a gallery show in the spring. Like her inspirations, she aspires to work commercially in character and concept design for video games and movies.

“There is really no limit to what she can do with her dedication, hard work and passion for art making,” Kawiaka wrote. “It will be exciting to see where her tremendous creativity, skills and dreams take her.”

The Final Word with Corinne Romano ’15

Favorite band: Aerosmith

Favorite midnight snack: Sushi