Seniors exhibit four years of art

After years of classes and outside work and a year-long senior thesis class, three University of Richmond senior studio art majors will display their work as part of the senior thesis exhibition.

The artwork of the three seniors, Elizabeth Ygartua, Kellie Morgan and Jon Henry, will be displayed at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, located in the Modlin Center for the Arts from April 13 to May 3.

More of their work will be displayed concurrently at the Wilton Companies Gallery at the University of Richmond Downtown, according to a university press release.

Much of the work was produced during the two senior thesis classes, which consisted of a fall class of seven students, followed by the option to apply for entry into the exhibition class for the spring, Henry said.

Morgan said the class, which was taught by a different professor each semester, had been a transformational experience for her and that she had appreciated having two perspectives help her find her voice in her work.

Erling Sjovold, an associate professor of art, taught the class in the fall and said he had wanted to get students started over the summer in order to get them early feedback.

"The art can be experimental or research-based," he said. "It's [a process of] learning about materials, subjects ... and being able to present the work."

Heide Trepanier, a part-time professor of art who taught the class in the spring, said she had known her role coming in and had not made any large changes to the students' work, instead trying to "best use [the students'] knowledge they have and work with it."

Because each student is responsible for giving a talk explaining their work and motivation, Trepanier said it was important for the artists to be able to make their inspirations and perceptions of their work clear to outside observers.

Morgan and Ygartua used a variety of materials and styles of painting, and Henry used pine needles, pine cones and bark in his work, Trepanier said, leading the three to customize the gallery to be able to properly display their pieces, all of which are for sale.

Ygartua said that her mother had suffered a stroke when she was 9 years old and that she had sought to communicate with visual language the ideals of family and hardships in her paintings. She said that the class, along with a semester abroad, had changed the way she thought about herself and art.

"Before this year, I thought of myself as someone who made art, but not actually as an artist," she said.

Henry said he had been trying to "expand the concept of identity outside of traditional rigid roles ... and the concept of multiple identities" in his collection.

Morgan, who said she had taken up art more seriously during her sophomore year after entering Richmond and intending to major in math, said she had focused on the materiality of paint in her artwork, and how different techniques could suggest different moods or themes.

Ygartua, a journalism minor and former editor-in-chief of The Collegian, said she is pursuing a career in editorial design, something that she has come to view not strictly as a journalism career, but as art in journalism.

Sjovold said that the lessons students learned in the art world were transferable to almost any other career.

"[Students] have responsibility and ownership for initiating a project, for finding strategies to push their comfort zone, and learning to lead themselves, which is universal," he said.

Henry and Morgan are both pursuing careers in the arts, as well as master of fine arts degrees, they said.

Henry, who is also majoring in international studies, will be attending graduate school at New York University next year seeking a master's degree in arts politics, he said.

A usual senior thesis exhibition class is eight to ten students, Trepanier said. Having only three this year meant that each student had the responsibility and opportunity to fill a large portion of the gallery, she said.

Morgan said seeing her work displayed for the public was a surreal, but welcomed experience.

"Finally seeing the product after all of our work was amazing," she said. "I was bashful at first with people looking at my work."

Morgan said that having a small group had made it easy to collaborate as a group, something that was important, as the three of them had worked together to decide the gallery's location, title and arrangement of pieces, she said.

"They've shown great bonding," Sjovold said. "The department has been very impressed with their effort and work."

An artist's reception featuring the three seniors will take place Friday, May 4, at 6 p.m., at the downtown gallery location.

Contact reporter Casey Glick at casey.glick@richmond.edu