Students completed the pieces featured in the show during their senior seminar, a two-term sequence that began in January. Studio art professors were tasked with selecting pieces to include in the show and arranging them in the gallery.
This year's exhibit is notable for the quantity and variety of the pieces. Reflective of changes to the studio art major requirements that took effect for the Class of 2012, which made it easier for students to double major in studio art and other subject areas, this year's senior class is twice as large as classes in past years.
Rather than selecting fewer pieces for the show, the studio arts professors utilized additional display areas in the window cases of the Hopkins Center. Most students had three to five pieces selected for the show, chosen by the faculty for the their artistic merit and ability to expand on the diversity of the overall exhibition.
Students that produced large sculpture pieces had fewer works chosen for the gallery than photographers or drawers who produced smaller works. Most of the pieces in the show were completed during Spring term, when senior artists had become most comfortable with their personal styles and visions for their artwork.
Kayla Gilbert '12, who has five acrylic paintings and one oil painting included in the show, highlights animated characters from Pixar and Disney movies in her artwork. Gilbert said she hopes to pursue a career in animation after college.
Gilbert said her two different professors for the senior seminar, who taught during the Winter and Spring terms individually, pushed her work in different directions. While she focused on animated characters as her subject for both terms, she pursued a detailed, realistic style during the winter and a more abstract, experimental style in the spring, she said. The work in the exhibition features Gilbert's realistic work.
"The first professor gave me more leeway to do what I wanted to do while my second professor tried to get me to come up with deeper meaning for my work," Gilbert said. "I don't know which style I prefer. It was nice to do something new with the same subject."
Monica Dalmau '12 has four sculptures and three ink drawing pieces featured in the show, both of which feature humanoid figures meant to provoke discomfort in the viewer because they are not quite natural forms. Dalmau equated their effect with closely observing a mannequin in a clothing store.
Although she previously focused on drawing and printmaking, Dalmau credited her Spring term professor with helping her branch out and try sculpture as a means of experimenting with similar themes in a new medium.
The senior exhibition is also an opportunity for students to make their first art sales, Dalmau said. The College traditionally makes a number of purchases at the show for residence and dining halls, she said.
"Before the senior seminar, I thought I would do something in an art-related field, like working in museums or galleries," she said. "But after having my own studio time and free reign of my resources, I really got to see myself making and selling art for a living. I think I'm going to wait a year, build my portfolio and eventually get a [master of fine arts]."
Bogyi Banovich '11 has three pieces displayed in the show, all of which were completed in steel and combine elements of plants, animals and humans. In a number of his pieces, he combines natural and human forms so that it is ambiguous as to where certain elements begin and end, some of which are growing out of each other, he said.
"I came to Dartmouth with the idea of being an ecologist and started with studying earth science," he said. "My art reflects this idea of evolution and progress."
Kendrea Begaye '12 has three charcoal works included in the show, which were inspired by her Navajo heritage and the landscape of the American Southwest, she said.
"I started the senior seminar questioning whether my work should be modeled after traditional or contemporary Native artists," she said. "But this spring, I've come to the conclusion that I don't really need to be categorized."
While she began the seminar working with acrylic paints, she became frustrated when she could not achieve the translucent layering effect she was trying to create and moved on to work with charcoal instead, she said. She plans to earn a master's in American Indian studies at the University of California, Los Angeles in the fall of 2013.
Also influenced by Native American artwork, BriAnn Laban '12 focused on bringing to light issues of blood quantum and skin color. Of Native American descent herself, she used fellow Native American students as subjects of her photography to create collages of hands that highlighted the variation of their skin colors.
Malia Reeves '12 has three paintings featured in the show, all of which are based off of her own reflection, that comment on themes of womanhood and self-reflection. Her themes are conveyed through the abstractions of the figures, and she paints the images in bright, neon colors. As the senior seminar progressed, her work became increasingly abstract, and she focused more on color theory, she said.
Nathaniel Seymour '12 worked to abstract the figure as well, zooming in on details of human faces and enhancing the dirty, gritty qualities of his photographs through work in Photoshop, he said.
"I wasn't necessarily trying to create a message, but I liked to bring out the contrast in my images," he said. "It looks cool, and I liked the idea of doing the opposite of airbrushing and really focusing on details of the face that you usually wouldn't notice."
Matt Stumpf '12 has three pieces in the exhibition, all of which are black and white, high-contrast pieces created with charcoal, ink and pencil. The pieces spotlight the figure as the main subject, depicted in a geometric, minimalist style.
"Some people have seen animals in my work, some people have seen nothing," he said. "Psychologically, I think that's pretty interesting. I've drawn them as figures, but they're angular and abstracted."
Lauren Goodnow '12 began the senior seminar with a sculpture concentration focusing in large-sized welding pieces in metal, but after she underwent a serious knee operation in the winter, she was forced to change the direction of her work. She transitioned into creating installation pieces with copper wire and started to experiment with printmaking. Her work in the gallery includes both her installation and print pieces.
Sarah Jewett '12 has two pieces in the show, both of which were completed in steel. One is a large floor piece sized at 12 by four feet and the other is a smaller but taller piece sized at two by three feet. She will be staying on campus next year to study engineering through the College's five-year engineering program.
The exhibition will be open for viewing through June 17.
Stumpf is a former member of The Dartmouth Staff.
