SMC senior artists display their work at Moreau
By NELLIE WILLIAMS
Scene Writer
Senior artists at Saint Mary's College take a broad view on the world. Describing their feelings towards poverty, environment, abandonment and nudity were some of the ideas seven art majors used in their senior comprehensive.
Beth Parin, Kate Ryan, Katy Massey, Megan Stanley, Cara Kotas, Kathleen Foley and Valerie Malecki have all spent the last couple of months working diligently on their senior art comprehensives.
"This particular group of seniors fulfilled their potential. I couldn't ask for anything more from them. It's really culminated their experience and education," said Johnson Bowles, director of the Moreau Galleries.
Instead of just doing any kind of artwork, they did pieces that meant something to them.
"They did something more profound," Bowles said. "There is a part of themselves in their work."
Foley, who had spent a year abroad in Ireland her sophomore year, used part of her experience from being a teacher's assistant in Ballymun for the theme of her artwork.
"These collages represent my memories of Ireland. I know I will not forget Ballymun with its dirt and crime, and the sad stories and hopes of 12 little girls whose lives have forever changed mine," Foley wrote in her artist's statement.
For the past three months, Foley has been trying to express her memories of Ballymun into her collages. "I wanted to get the idea of memory across — some fading, some clear," she said.
A little closer to home is Kotas' concern for the environment in her home state, Colorado. She feels the development of cities and suburbs is growing into natural areas and ruining them. Her piece, "Construction vs. Conservation," was created using different fibers. She even grew her own grass specifically for the piece.
"The cold [weather] stunted the growth of the grass," she said.
Still, she was relieved to have her comprehensive over with. "It's exciting to see it all come to a finish and to celebrate. There's an overhanging stress all semester," Kotas said.
After her father died unexpectedly in 1995, Massey was given a super-ball to "clutch as a stress reliever." She decided to create a whole bunch of ball-like figures, using mixed media.
"The super-ball symbolizes a journey," she wrote in her statement. "A journey of alteration and self growth due to the absence of my father. I believe that these mixed mediums have helped me interpret and produce abstract forms that can relate to my self exploration during these years."
Another senior, Malecki, feels that each human is a living work of art. She states her goal of her art was to "present the nude figure in a way which counters these responses; to reinterpret the nude."
Although this was her final art project for her college career, Foley feels it is unfinished. "I always wanted to add more. I still do, I don't see [my collages] as complete."
For Bowles, however, these seniors have already completed everything asked out of them.
"I'm a little bit choked up," Bowles said. "I'm impressed and proud at how hard they've worked and how far they've come."
All Scene Stories for Monday, April 3, 2000
