Wittenberg Studio Art Seniors Winter Show (Halley Gallery)
Nov 22, 2014-Feb 1, 2015
The exhibit in the Halley Gallery is an annual display that the senior art students create during their final year at Wittenberg. The studio art majors collectively display samples of their thesis projects as a sneak preview of their individual results.
The senior projects are self-selected and contain their best efforts in that media. Nineteen seniors are exhibiting in the show this year and they represent a broad range of media and techniques within the Art Department at Wittenberg. The entire project from each senior will be displayed in the gallery and exhibit spaces of Koch Hall on the Wittenberg campus in April, 2015.
DeMarcus Sledge: The concentration of my work is small black and white mechanical pencil drawings on cold pressed paper. They serve as visual allegories that ideally portray a future in which nature has deteriorated as a result of building unnatural man made objects into the environment.
Britta Carson: For this show I have created two posters that are a part of a sexual assault awareness campaign. The title of the campaign is "Let me Draw you a Picture." I focused on hand-drawn graphic elements that tie the posters together in an interesting and approachable way. Through my campaign I aim to educate, promote safe sex, and ebb the stigmas that surround sexual assault.
James Dumstorf: My thesis consists of high fire ceramics, wheel thrown and then taken off the wheel to alter. The sculptural attachments appear to intrude on the piece altering the form of the actual vessel.
Toby Weston: "The Poppy Problem" is a digital media info-graphic poster. This poster is part of an awareness campaign, which follows the opium drug trade and how it affects the global spectrum.
Katherine Deck: As a female athlete, I still see the disparity in treatment of male and females in sports at the college level. This piece is one of a series that focuses on providing a moment of self-reflection to women athletes to recognize their hard work.
Caitlin Green: My current work focuses on the female portrait in profile using egg tempera and gold leaf as my media. The viewer is invited to observe the detail of each intimate portrait.
Ed King: I use traditional media in service to representational art to convey a narrative quality in the tradition mid-20th century Pulp Fiction artists. My influences are Rafael Desoto, Norman Rockwell, and Gil Elvgren.
Lillian Hill: For my senior thesis I wish to visualize what music means to me. Thus, using the violin as my central subject I have accompanied the instrument with various flowers to symbolize the emotions or ideas evoked by music.
Jenna Sulser: I am writing and illustrating an alphabet book that does more than just teach your child their ABC’s. Using curriculum based questions you and your child can work together to strengthen reading skills for school in a fun and interactive way.
Christine Steinhaus: My work challenges the view of functional ceramics. By displaying the vessels differently I hope to have them viewed in a new way.
Hannah Fournier: Packaging conveys ideas that draw consumers to purchase products and leads them to believe that buying esteem, safety, or success is the same as achieving through life experiences. “Happy Goods” are meant to test the idea of consumerism, to push the buyer to reflect on attributes of happiness they find most influential in their lives and terminate the idea that happiness is something that can be bought.
Sara Fitch: My senior thesis explores Moroccan culture by using acrylic on canvas and block printed textile frames in a combination of Fauvist and Post Impressionist styles. The piece featured, Chefchaouen Blues, portrays a man seated in a stairwell in the blue city of Chefchaouen, Morocco.
Carla Travis: The process of using earthenware over soft form molds filled with texturizing materials allows for evolving organic form. Each piece of serving ware in the set takes on its own personality through biomorphic shape.
Gabby Bell: Using Digital media I am creating a social awareness campaign to shed light on Autism Spectrum Disorder among college students. Through this campaign I am advocating acceptance and encouraging friendships between those on the spectrum and those who are not.
Abby Russo: These posters and short book contain information pertaining to the neglect, abuse and abandonment of stray cats. I was inspired by this issue on Wittenberg University's campus and learned firsthand about the stray cat issue when I tried to rescue a kitten from campus. All shelters were too full to take him so I asked myself, why is this such an issue? After researching available information on the subject, I took the opportunity to challenge the conventional “guilt-creating” ways that the media presents the issue of stray animals. Wanting to create something visually appealing and interesting to look at, I began researching information graphic design. This poster series and book contain graphic elements created using Adobe Indesign and Adobe Illustrator.
Kathryn Scudier: As a ceramic artist, I hope to create interesting interior and exterior spaces with form and pattern. Combining the human figure with an altered ceramic vessel allows me to draw attention to the space human beings inhabit.
Alena Moore: My work consists of all functional sets of high fire stoneware with each set exhibiting at least one spherical form. My work is functional because I find there is a sort of intimacy in art that can be interacted with and spherical because I enjoy a challenge and find beauty in the seemingly simple.
Additional senior artists represented in this exhibit: Elizabeth Harriman, Allisin Mersch