This is Where We Collide: Senior Thesis Exhibition is on view from April 15 to May 5, 2016, at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, and from April 23 through May 7 at Studio Two Three, 3300 W. Clay St, Richmond. The exhibition is the capstone experience for graduating studio art majors in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Richmond.
Selected by the faculty of the Department of Art and Art History to participate in the thesis exhibition, five graduating senior studio art majors present their art: Amanda Kwieraga, Wenqian Leng, Brianna Rodriguez, Kelley Yang, and Dier Zhang. The students work throughout their senior year to prepare for this exhibition. The yearlong course was taught in the fall by Jeremy Drummond, Associate Professor of Art, University of Richmond, and in the spring by Tom Condon, Visiting Lecturer of Art, University of Richmond.
Amanda’s work makes use of a variety of media and techniques to address the issue of objectification and idealization of women as seen in popular culture. Disney is a common theme among both children and adults, and its images engrain in us attributes we should desire and find desirable in both ourselves and others. While the movies themselves are innocent in plot, their images, especially in relation to femininity, are not. These films portray the ideal women or “princess” as someone highly sexualized with large breasts, a tiny waist, fluttering eyelashes, and coy expressions. They are unrealistic epitomes that even models can’t measure up to. Amanda's work uses these highly recognizable female characters and distorts them to highlight their falseness.
As a Chinese student studying in the U.S., Wenqian has her own point of view toward modern and traditional culture. By combining photography, drawing, Jianzhi (Chinese paper cutting), and sculpture, she created a project titled Complex, Conflict, Collide. Her work examines the conflicting yet coexisting state of traditional and modern Chinese culture. She finds value in the natural state of two conflicting forces coexisting in our contemporary experience.
Brianna's work combines elements of graphic design with more traditional art media to produce pieces that are both reductive in design and charged with social commentary about current detrimental societal and environmental ongoings. Her works are produced using stencils, a process that is historically rooted in social consciousness and activism, and the images are spray painted onto materials such as mirrors and felt, which creates an engagement between the art and the viewers and a sense of being objects as opposed to just images.
Being an athlete all her life, Kelley showcases her understanding of movement with fantasized dreamscapes and animals that travel gracefully throughout her artworks. A combination of fluid line-work and hazy patterns stem from her experience in both painting and printmaking. Using her personal observations and imagination, Kelley’s paintings give insight to her own struggles with feeling isolated and out of place in society.
Dier's work deals with confusion and interruption that happens between the human body and a range of space of the material and social worlds. She is interested in playing with digital information and physical material to negotiate ideas about the human body's roles and relationship to space.
Organized by the University of Richmond Museums in collaboration with the Department of Art and Art History, University of Richmond, the exhibition was coordinated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University Museums.
Friday, April 15, 2015, 1 to 6 p.m.
2016 Arts and Sciences Student Symposium, Modlin Center for the Arts
Artist Talks, 3:45 to 5 p.m., Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art
Kelley Yang (3:45-4:00), Brianna Rodriguez (4:00-4:15), Dier Zhang (4:15-4:30), Amanda Kwieraga (4:30-4:45), and Wenqian Leng (4:45-5:00)
(The talks are presented as part of the University of Richmond’s School of Arts and Sciences 2016 Student Symposium, from 1 to 6 p.m., Friday, April 15. The School of Arts and Sciences presents the Student Symposium every spring to showcase hundreds of student research projects from across the disciplines of the school.)
Saturday, April 23, 2016, 6 to 9 p.m.
Exhibition opening reception
Studio Two Three, 3300 W. Clay St, Richmond 23230
