APR 13-28, 2024
THERE AREN'T WORDS TO HOLD THIS: 2024 Senior Thesis Exhibition
Featuring the work of graduating studio art majors, the senior thesis exhibition provides a unique opportunity for these artists to present their work in a professional art museum.
This year's presenting artists are Brianna Keely Cheng, Dani Collins, Esther Fuentes, Joyce Kuehn, Ollie Matityahu, Victory Okragly, Andalucia Prendes, and Kathryn Valente. Experimenting with a range of forms and media from painting and photography to sculpture and book arts, the artists in There Aren’t Words to Hold This create work to explore grief, and loss, to reconcile familial relationships, and to challenge tradition.
THE ARTISTS
BRIANNA KEELY CHENG unveils her experiences of processing familial and social oppression by creating drawings, paintings, and photographs that express psychological pain and resilience. Her monochromatic compositions combine dramatic highlights and shadows and incorporate imagery representative of her identity as a martial artist, in addition to realistic self-portraiture acknowledging her struggles of overcoming depression and trauma.
DANI COLLINS is a lens-based media artist who creates work surrounding ideas of grief and childhood memory. In her practice she explores the raw and unfiltered emotions associated with the loss of a loved one that many are familiar with. Her current project focuses on the intricacies of her postmortem relationship with her late mother.
Using painting, ceramics, and book arts practices, ESTHER FUENTES reflects on how her family’s complex history and dynamics play a role in who she is today and how her identities challenge the traditions she grew up with.
JOYCE KUEHN is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily through sculpture. Her work conveys narratives of grief and mental health using the unique canvas of skateboard bodies. After losing her father to suicide in 2022, Joyce’s art became a vehicle to commemorate him while sparking conversations about mental wellness.
OLLIE MATITYAHU is an interdisciplinary artist focusing primarily on fiber and textile arts, painting and illustration, and ceramics. In this collection, they engage with the mutability and persistence of memory, grief, joy, and loss, through the lens of their relationship with their grandfather.
VICTORY OKRAGLY is a digital illustrator working in character design. Many of his original creations explore gender, fantasy, and how they intertwine. His current project captures characters with a magical tool used within the real world—the tarot card—to bridge the gap between the worlds of imagination and reality.
ANDALUCIA PRENDES is an interdisciplinary artist who works in textile and book arts. She is particularly interested in how analog arts survive in an increasingly digital world. Recently, Prendes has focused on how the making processes of pre-Industrial sewing can be applied to modern fiber arts to resist fast fashion.
KATHRYN VALENTE is a photographer and book artist who works around her experience in the equestrian world. Through photography, she reveals the emotion in the underbelly of this world and uses her books to pass on this knowledge.
