Throughout the extended pandemic period that has disrupted lifestyles and transformed ways of thinking, Union’s senior fine arts students have remained committed to making art.
The Class of 2021 senior exhibition, aptly titled “Interlude,” highlights work in a variety of media, including digital collaging, traditional-and-digital sculpture, robotics, animation, 3D video rendering, projection mapping, video and photography.
Heavy with new media, it tackles many important social issues, including women’s rights, the Covid-19 pandemic and immigration.
The show, in the Crowell and West galleries in the Feigenbaum Center for Visual Arts, runs through June 13. It is open to members of the campus community only, and may be viewed Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
You may also visit this virtual gallery, or join the students as they present their work on Zoom May 26 at 4:30 p.m. and May 27 at 5 p.m.
“I express and challenge my creativity through a newly found interest in photo manipulation and digital art,” says Stephen Nadler, a double major in studio and fine arts who explores photographic surrealism through a series of digital portraits. "each portrait captures the essence of loneliness we have experienced throughout the pandemic."
Samantha Siegel also turned toward photography in the past year. Her thesis project, a photographic series documenting New York City and surroundings areas, captures the impact upon daily life caused by Covid-19 as well as the resiliency of the city’s residents as they have adapted to new forms of “normal.” Siegel is a studio fine arts major with a minor in film studies.
An installation by Ava DiSavino, who is studying art history along with studio art, synthesizes data taken from a campus-wide survey for women in an abstract array of sound, light and narratives to amplify the voices of women in her community and invite viewer empathy and reflection.
Bridget Cunningham, whose art concentration is 3D animation and motion graphics, is passionate about exploring the relationships between color, form and movement in this dimension.
“My interest in 3D animation stems from a natural inclination to visualize and make sense of my imagination, as well an interest in studying the relationship between art and technology,” she says. In her work, titled “With My Own Eyes,” a doll-like character navigates several unique environments that ultimately leave him anticipating where he'll end up next.
Other Class of 2021 students participating in the exhibit are Sean Dephilips (a neuroscience major with minors in studio fine arts and music), Tyler Greenwood (a political science major), Lilith Haig (who has an arts concentration in digital media and contemporary art history), Edwin Palma Solis (majoring in studio fine arts and French), Aleks Szumilo (an Organizing Theme major in technology and visual design), Tina Tully (a mathematics and studio fine arts major) and Yiran Zhang (computer science major with a studio art focus in design and visual arts communications).