Senior art students have carefully exhibited their hard-earned works to form the Bachelor of Fine Art and Photography Thesis Exhibition, “Commune.” The exhibition will run from Nov. 13 to 17 in all galleries except the Colvard Student Union gallery, running until Nov. 30.
In the “Commune” news release, drawing major Sarah Qarqish said the exhibit is about “people interacting, working together and bringing each other together.” It is a way of connecting people with art in deeper ways than the rampant communication tools of today.
Rebekah Trotter, senior fine arts student with an emphasis in photography, recently gave a representative snapshot of the work put into her thesis and the Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition as a whole.
“I took around 400 pictures. I have 10 in the show,” she said.
Rebekah Trotter’s “The Wayside Series” is a series of photographs comprising her thesis used to represent her long struggle with general anxiety disorder.
“It’s called ‘The Wayside Series’ simply because it’s necessary to dwell in these dark places with the knowledge that if we push them to the wayside, they won’t go away,” she said.
Her photographs find a silhouetted, backlit figure in motion with trails of light coursing around her. Trotter is the kinetic silhouette in the images. Having done all the work alone with herself in a studio, she held lights in her hands and moved through different motions at different speeds. She said she found using herself as her own model was invaluable to the thesis.
“When you’re going through the movements of things, the contorting, it’s so much easier to concentrate on what I felt like (in my anxiety) and what I wanted it to look like. You can tell a model what to do, but to be totally unselfconscious in a room by yourself in a studio is implemental to the work,” she said.
The students go through the semester, not only developing a set of work they are comfortable labeling as their theses, but they also learn the ins and outs of the business of putting on an art exhibition, through art 4093 thesis or photography portfolio II class.
Brent Funderburk, senior thesis coordinator and professor of art 4093 said he is more involved with the students’ understanding of business knowledge than creation of the work itself.
“Senior thesis class is part seminar part learning businesses practices for fine artists, and the other part is planning the exhibition,” he said.
The students spearhead the creation of the exhibit, putting in all the work themselves under Funderburk’s direction. He said he gives guidance but the hard work is put in by the students.
“Mainly, my job is to point at things, and they do the work. They direct each other, they form a team, brainstorm and discuss and create the identity and process,” he said.
The artwork spanning the exhibition is hardly able to be categorized or tied down to simple labels; Funderburk said this resulted from the complex statements the students have to make.
“Many of them are dealing with mixed media, sculpture, painting, installation, a lot of combinations of media in this show. The work is multitudinous; they’re using a lot of media because they have something strong to say, and it’s not easy to say,” he said.