A second group of ten senior studio art majors shared their exhibitions this week in the Gund Gallery with a reception on April 3. The exhibit will remain in the gallery until Saturday, April 12.
“Each spring in the Gund Gallery, with much pride and excitement, the senior art majors unveil the fruits of their year long labors in the studio,” Associate Professor of Art Read Baldwin ’84 said. “And with equal pride, excitement and anticipation, the Kenyon community, alongside family and friends, congregate to celebrate these wonderful exhibits, these wonderful college events.”
Hallie Bahn’14 of New York City created a stop-motion animation installation examining themes of escapism, time and how much control we have over our own lives. “The animations surround the viewer, encouraging him or her to physically and mentally enter the obsessions of the characters,” Bahn wrote in her artist’s abstract. “The narratives, and likewise the projections, function as a seamless loop so that one might not notice what they have already seen.”
Abby Cheney ’14 of Baltimore explores ideas of emotion and memory in her sculptural collage paintings. Cheney painted pieces of paper using different tools before tearing and cutting them to form the proper shapes and assembling her paintings.
Madeleine Donahue ’14 of Berkeley, Ca. presents a series of etchings and oil paintings exploring relationships of humans and animals through the lens of eating meat. “Meat can be a memento mori, but it is also a reminder that we cannot escape from our own human nature, which is, at its core, animal,” Donahue wrote in her abstract.
The sculptures of Lana Dubin ’14 of Ridgefield, Conn. examine ideas that question capitalism through the relationships between waste and sustainability, and the consumer and the consumed, with a particular focus on the presence of cattle byproducts in household items.
The acid-etch prints and embroidered photographs of Hanna Washburn ’14 of Wellesley, Mass. convey thoughts on the intersections between the human body, personal identity and external space. “At this moment of transition, I want to use this project to reflect on where I have been spatially, and how I have learned and progressed in my heart, brain and gut,” Washburn wrote in her abstract. “I want these prints to embrace the aesthetic similarities between the body and maps, while still maintaining readability.”
Elise Economy ’14 of Atlanta made a series of portraits through a process of charcoal layering and erasing that look to examine the communal role of mental health and how society copes with such issues.
Kelsey Rice ’14 of Kenmore, N.Y. created a series of images that depict a fantasy-style battle in which she cast herself as both the protagonist and antagonist, in addition to the artist. “In A Hero’s Progress, I play a warrior leading her troops into battle; she soon discovers, however, that her own doppleganger is working against her by killing her allies,” Rice wrote in her abstract. “With each print, more allies fall, and the landscape, made from model train scenery, becomes scorched and destroyed.”
In a series of multimedia sculptures that use wood, metal, fabrics and objects from his childhood, Noah Johnson ’14 of Harrison, Ohio looks to examine the path from adolescence through adulthood from a new, surrealist perspective.
In her series of self-portraits, Maren Less ’14 of Millburn, N.J. mixes styles of drawing and painting and stares at her audience as a way of creating a dialogue about societal objectification.
Jenna Willett ’14 of Kensington, Md. created a series of sculptural chairs that make references to both furniture and nature through an exploration of human interactions inside and outside. “The connection between furniture design and the way that people interact with each other and their environment around them allows me to explore these interactions by combining sculpture and furniture,” Willett explained in her abstract. “By restricting my focus to only chairs I can use the chair form as a symbol for a sense of place and because of their utility they serve as a universal sign of comfort and rest.”
The Gund Gallery is open from 1-7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 1-10 p.m. Thursday; 1-7 p.m. Friday; and 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission to the gallery is free. To learn more, call 740-427-5969.
By Nina Zimmerman ’14