Previous Exhibit

The Fruits of Chance & Necessity

Works by 11 graduating seniors to be on view

 The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery will host the annual exhibition of artwork by graduating seniors who have participated in the Senior Concentration Seminar from April 25 – May 24, 2013. A discussion by the artists of their work will take place from noon – 1 p.m. the day the show opens, Thursday, April 25, with a reception from 5:30 – 7 p.m.

Student artists participating in the exhibition “The Fruits of Chance & Necessity,” include Jack Butler, Dioni Cruz, Vivian Daly, Janelle DiMartino, Danielle Dimond, Chelesea Jenkins, Julia Keough, Annie Le, Kerry Simon, Alexander Vera, and Katherine Wallace. Visual arts faculty members Susan Schmidt, professor, and David Gyscek, assistant professor, guided students throughout the academic year in developing their art practice and creating a concise body of artwork reflecting the individual’s viewpoint and distinct aesthetic voice.

The Senior Concentration Seminar provides students with the opportunity to explore issues of artistic professionalism with the encouragement to take risks in developing their ideas. Participants are challenged to experience both the revelations and failures of the creative process. Critiques, required readings, writing and sketchbook assignments provide a rigorous foundation for self-reflection and development.

With a diverse array of media serving their artistic ideas, students this year have made use of both traditional means including drawing, photography and sculpture, as well as experimental crossovers between digital, fine art and crafts to express themselves.

There will be several stop-motion videos created by Chelesea Jenkins in which she combines video images of a woman’s mouth singing a lullaby with the recording of another person actually performing the audio the listener hears. Jenkins explores ideas of the self and how memory effects emotion with her photographically based works. Julia Keough has created an enclosed ephemeral installation comprised of layers of transparent gauze fabric on which a changing series of words about personal relationships are projected.

Janelle Di Martino has utilized the floor to ceiling glass wall that runs the length of one side of the gallery to create a temporary artwork applied to the glass out of hundreds of feet of transparent adhesive tape. Di Martino’s layering of successive short pieces of clear and mat tape build up flat biomorphic shapes that float across the windows like clouds or traces of the meanderings of streams of water.

Vivian Daly’s work is comprised of hundreds of small drawings of the face on vellum and glassine affixed to one of the gallery walls. Daly’s drawings are arranged on one wall to look like a crowded bulletin board, but selective drawings are engineered to gradually fall off the wall, creating a cluster of images on the floor surrounding the piece.  Kerry Simon looks to ordinary discarded products such as cigarette packages for inspiration, painting or embroidering miniature portraits of people she knows on them. Simon presents her reclaimed and altered objects both as formal art in frames and casually placed objects located throughout the gallery.  

Alexander Vera has created an installation made from clay, paint, string, Styrofoam packaging and plastic sheeting to explore the temporal nature of human life.  Dioni Cruz uses digital media to create a multi-layered film installation from several stop- motion videos projected in a corner of the gallery. Cruz invites the audience to enter the space between the projector and the wall in order to cast their own shadow into his films, thereby bringing the viewer into a surreal world.

In Katherine Wallace’s 2- and 3-dimensional constructions she uses yarn and thread to ‘draw’ form much like an artist would draw images with charcoal. Wallace challenges conventions of picture making by employing non-traditional materials to construct recognizable imagery with new vitality. Jack Butler’s body of gelatin silver photographs, painstakingly crafted in the dark room with multiple enlarger exposures on a single sheet of photographic paper blend images of the human body with architectural elements to create hybrid identities.

Danielle Dimond’s full spectrum, maximum overload of images assembled in a multisensory walk-through installation combines everyday objects with her own paintings and drawings. Worcester native Annie Le created several wearable art objects based on 1960s and 70s dress patterns that are constructed from digitally printed fabric with images of women laborers in factories around the world. Fellow students will wear Le’s ‘dresses’ in a performance during the opening reception of the exhibition. 

The exhibition will remain on view through commencement on May 24.

EVENTS

Thursday, April 25, 10 a.m. Exhibit opens: “The Fruits of Chance & Necessity”

Thursday, April 25, 12 – 1 p.m. A roundtable discussion with the artists

Thursday, April 25, 5 – 6:30 p.m. Opening reception