Looking around the Bobbitt gallery, the senior art exhibition illustrates a wide ranging collection of work in both art medium and inspiration.
This work, dating from four to five years ago, was completed during each undergrad’s time here. For their final requirement, each graduating senior must submit pieces to be reviewed, approved, and finally shown in the overall exhibition. Each piece displayed the artist’s strengths.
“For me, I’m a very visual learner,” said Lauren Schreer, Northville senior. “Art for me is doing something conceptually in my hands. My work is nearly always 3D because it’s what I know the best.”
Explorations into different mediums helped some see art through different avenues. An Art and Art History double major, Renee Harlow, Marshall senior, used her printmaking pieces as a method of catharsis.
“The pieces have a theme of how I was dealing with the whole life and death thing and our bodies: how fragile we all are, how interconnected we are with our families and just how I dealt with what was going on, realizing how fragile life is,” Harlow said. “I hate to use the word therapy, but it was kind of like therapy. I put [therapy] in my artist’s statement, and the [art professors] made me take it out because they think of it as working with crafts, like with old people. It was actually more like healing.”
That personal connection in their pieces held true for others of the six graduating art seniors.
“My favorite piece is of my best friend, Stephanie,” said Gabriella Vezzosi, Commerce Township senior. “I really enjoyed painting her dancing since she only has two signature moves. I know most of the dancers that I painted, so I have a strong connection to each piece as well as to the underlying theme of dance.”
Though some have experienced backlash or difficulty in their choice of major, this was a final, tangible display of all their work over the years.
“I’ve been told that art is the easy way out, and people have no idea how much work it is,” Schreer said. “I think everyone is creative in their own way, and they need to find their own expression, whether that art is a painting or a sculpture, poetry or a ballet.”
The senior art exhibition ran from March 28 to April 28. Other featured seniors include Claire Fecher, Kayla Flynn and Maria Smith.
Photo by Ben Iwen.
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