Undergraduate students’ work featured in ‘Micawber Medley’

Four years of learning and a one semester of hard work is being put on display at the John A. Day art gallery for graduating art majors.

Undergraduate art students are putting their thesis artwork out for the public to view.

Alison Erazmus, director of the university art galleries, said this is the fourth thesis exhibition this spring.

“At the end of the spring semester, the university art galleries usually devotes several weeks to thesis shows,” Erazmus said.

Due to the large number of students graduating this year, there will be five exhibitions put on, each of them five days long, Erazmus said.

“This one is Micawber Medley and it will have five bachelor of fine arts students’ work in there,” Erazmus said. “Two are photo (undergraduates), two are graphic design (undergraduates) and one is a print making undergraduate.”

The five students will have separate works of art, but have to work together on different aspects of the exhibit.

“There is an element of having the students work together that is a part of the thesis show experience,” Erazmus said.

Erazmus said while the students all share a gallery, a lot of the students treat the thesis show as their own individual project with their own space in the gallery.

“This is really their moment to showcase what they’ve done in the previous semester,” Erazmus said.

Senior photography major Jodie Boss said she decided to do a collaboration of many projects she had throughout the past three years.

“My theme is wildlife in nature, so I combined those images to make my senior show,” Boss said.

Besides the artist statement and biography and getting all the framing and everything done, Boss said having an idea of what she wanted to portray to people when they saw it took time.

“For me personally I didn’t want to just put pictures on the wall,” Boss said. “I have a real passion for nature so I brought in tree branches to make a 3-D environment feel.”

Boss said, for the most part, her images focused on the beauty of the work.

“A few of them are double exposed which means I took one image and combined it with another to explain the story,” Boss said. “But I want people to look at the image and have their own story.”

As a curator, Erazmus said she is able tell when someone has actually thought about their audience.

“Communication through a visual language to portray their ideas is important,” Erazmus said. “By the end of their four years they should be able to do that on a profound and purposeful level.”

Professionals are always thinking about their audience and how their artwork will be displayed, Erazmus said.

“The goal is to make them professional artists and they need to experience this step,” Erazmus said.

Viewers should be able to see an individual’s point of view and the skills they have developed over the past four years, Erazmus said regarding the art being featured in the exhibition.

“They should be able to see what is happening in the art department and understand what the curriculum is like,” Erazmus said.

Erazmus said viewers will be able to notice how different students can really be when it comes to their artistic visions.

“Some students are quiet and minimal and some go big and bold with their work,” Erazmus said. “Every thesis show has something interesting to reveal.”

The thesis exhibition is important on several levels, Boss said.

“It’s important to get your name out there and display what you have been working on,” Boss said. “It gives a person an understanding of the process and what it takes to put on a show.”

Reach reporter Payton Randle at [email protected].