Spring 2020 Virtual Senior Showcase—See the Works!

After spending the spring 2020 semester creating artwork in quarantine, seven senior Art majors opened the Virtual Senior Solos Exhibition in the Hewitt Gallery of Art, all online!

Featured artists include students who have completed independent study projects with Professors Beth Shipley and Millie Falcaro. The projects, which range from oil on canvas paintings to digital photography, will remain on display virtually in the Hewitt Gallery of Art for the fall 2020 semester.

Click here to view the whole exhibition!

Recent graduate Lucia Thompson ’20, a Studio Art and Digital Media and Video Production double major, shared how the COVID-19 pandemic affected her artwork.

“When the pandemic began, I felt as if none of the art I’d been making was important anymore. Along with almost every other aspect of my life, my art stopped in its tracks and changed directions completely. Alone and stuck in the middle of nowhere, all my art supplies fit into a single box, and I no longer had a space to create art, or the resources I was used to. I regressed back to my teenage years of making art, no real equipment, no studio, and no real idea of where the art would take me. So I went back to the basics.”

Professor Shipley, who serves as the Chair of the Department of Art and Art History, spoke on the perseverance and adaptability of the senior artists.

“We are immensely proud of the work that the Independent Study Studio Art and Photography students produced in the midst of a global pandemic,” says Shipley. “The sudden flight from MMC in March, and the instability that took hold of all aspects of our lives, had a profound effect on their works-in-progress. The students grappled with a lack of studio space, adequate materials, and, more importantly, existential questions of how to make meaningful work under the extreme circumstances. The virtual show in the Hewitt Gallery of Art is a testament to their resilience and creative determination.”

Congratulations to all of the featured artists!

Published: September 03, 2020