PERSONAL SPACE  is more apparent than ever during this time of social distancing and isolation. Our title was established before the unforeseen circumstances of the pandemic. While making and viewing art remotely, the proximity and spatial relationship between the artists and the audience in a certain respect become more intimate. Spatial terms have forcefully been dictated specifically through the lens of the digital.

But beyond the current seclusion, the artwork represented in this exhibition communicates ideas of personal connections, intimacy, and memory. Through the use of projection, text, color, graphic design, light, and paint, we come together to challenge our audience to consider perceptions of mental and physical space. The works not only attempts to discuss our relationships with our own private and communal histories, but that of the exhibition space in our current times.

This online exhibition features the work of eleven studio art seniors: Morgan Barlow, McKael Barnes, Charlotte Bates, Gabriel Craig, Flannery Dillon, Olivia Hart, Raven Larcom, Meiting Li, Annabella Pugliese, Wanqi Wang and Margeonsol Yang.

The largest component of the SYE Studio Art capstone is for students to learn how to develop a self-directed body of work.  For many of the students, this is the first time that they have had the freedom to create work with no prompts or faculty directions.  Within the making this work, comes each student artistic freedom, but also responsibility in their content and ideas portrayed in the work.  Students are advised by the art faculty and outside mentors throughout the process, but ultimately the final work is their own.  The students are exhibiting their work for the first time and still resolving personal styles and mindfulness within their process. It’s important to recognize this while viewing this work.

A big part of this learning is engaging and having a dialogue with their audience, which can happen beyond the classroom.  The Art Department strongly encourages the audience to give direct feedback to the student artist representing in this exhibition.  Although these students are currently alumni, they will forever learn from this first experience.  We encourage those who feel strongly about the work to do so through the feedback form link in the main menu.  We will do our best to contact the alumni with your feedback.