This year’s exhibition includes works by Tamara A. Conner, Quinn Evans, Francis King-Harvey, Shania I. Lopez, Emma Shen, S. M. Sutter, Parker H. W. Williamson, and 妍利 Yanli.
I’ve spent a short lifetime hiding from my own trauma. Like most people who experience this kind of pain at a young age, I suppressed the memory and learned to do the same as I grew up. Every shameful encounter was shoved to the back of my mind; I did not want to accept that I lacked control in any of those situations, and I could not face the reality that my body had been stolen from me. My work today explores the emotions I spent so long hiding from. However, unlike my own experience, I will not force my suffering onto my audience; consent and choice will be offered instead in the form of plexiglass boxes shielding them from the works.
Printmaking allows me to face my trauma head-on. By layering my work, I force myself to return to the same memories that once haunted me. I confront my pain each time I lay down a coat of ink by revisiting the same images I recreated from my affliction. I try to capture the hopelessness I felt in hues of blue, and how I covered up tears with fake happiness in the form of glitter. This series explores my emotions in locations that are private and hidden, such as behind the shower curtain or in the bathroom corner. A space of solitude and isolation, the bathroom is rarely shared by two people at once, much like how I spent my years in denial shielding my trauma from the world.
I know I’m not alone in these experiences, but like others, I have hidden my pain as if it is my shame. It’s not shameful to be strong. It is shameful to inflict suffering on another person. By creating a series of prints centered around this pain, I hope my audience can resonate with the raw despair on display that I myself have only just begun to heal from.
Shania I. Lopez. Video: Washing off the emulsion of a screen after it has been exposed, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
I felt it would be insincere of me to create a series encapsulating four years’ worth of skill build-up without also incorporating the experiences that went along with them. I’ve endured a lot of trauma in my college career and I chose to close this chapter of my life with the pain I started it with as the subject of this series.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
I hope viewers find solace in my work. I work with strong themes that, I believe, everyone has either dealt with or experienced themselves at one point in their life. I want viewers to see my work and understand they are not alone in their pain.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
I’m in a capstone course with incredibly talented artists. I’ve seen each of their works and I’m blown away every time I see an update. My capstone peers have pushed me to be a better artist, for this work and the next.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
My pain drives my art. I work through my depression by creating prints or paintings as a form of healing. I’m not motivated by joy because it’s so fleeting, but raw pain? Trauma and suffering and anxiety? We experience that every day. Look around you. Rather than allow myself to get overwhelmed by negative emotions, I channel them through my art.
My work is about ghosts and how we repeat what we don’t intend. The main inspiration for this body of work comes from the writings of Mark Fisher, in his book Ghosts of My Life. At the most basic level, hauntology is about the futures that we pictured in the past, how they keep the present from happening. The original creation and use of the word comes from Jaques Derrida in his book Spectres of Marx. Although it originates in the concepts of Marxism, hauntology has become something that can take on many forms and meanings.
I see a lot of the past 200 years of America coming back to haunt me, not only in ideology, also iconographically and aesthetically. As a country, we have formed an iconographic language that means more to us than any of the ideas they represent. We are more concerned with maintaining image than considering their meaning. And so we find ourselves more concerned about returning to the past than ever moving forward. In regard to form, these aesthetic ghosts come as references to American Realism and, at its opposite, Surrealism. Oil paint allows me to capture something sweet and soft. Slippery and fading.
The hauntological lens reveals these moments that I try to capture. Not all of them are real; some of them come from dreams and beyond that. Everyone is alone in their experience because everyone we see is a ghost. By the time we register the light hit our eyes, they’ve moved on. The light is just a ghost. I am a ghost, too.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
As humans, we view our lives through the lens of time, which is inescapable. My work has a lot to do with the concept of ‘hauntology.’ One of the biggest inspirations for my work is the writings by Mark Fisher in his book Ghosts of My Life. After reading his writings on hauntology and depression, I was inspired to create a body of work that reflects how I feel about time. Hauntology was first coined by Derrida in his book Spectres of Marx, so to remove the concept from the political is impossible.
My own personal set of aesthetics was already influenced by many of the themes that I bring up in this body of work. Fisher’s writings helped to clarify my thinking. I am interested in mid century sensibilities as far as visuals go, and I look to painters from that time for inspiration. With that time period comes with that which we have been trying to move past. And now, the present, we are left to deal with everything else. Everything but the present. We never get to feel it, the present moment just keeps going away. As for the future, we can never get there.
Hauntology is not only a lens through which we view politics and economics and social theory. Our lives are haunted in every way. We see someone in front of our eyes, but all we are seeing is the light they reflect. Their image is a ghost; we continue on without them. And them without us.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
There is no specific way that I want anyone to respond to my work. This body of work has a lot to do with the never ending past and present and future; the meeting of all three. Maybe leaving it altogether.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
Capstone has helped me to solidify my practice. As an artist, there is a significant amount of time spent alone. It can be hard to focus your time and attention when you are working for yourself, and this class has helped me develop the skills to manage my time. Beyond that, I have a stronger sense of my personal brand and imagery as an artist, who I am, and what I might create in the future.
My time at F&M has also broadened what I pull from to create my work. I spent some time at Pratt, which had its own merits, but the interdisciplinary nature of this school means that I have more to work with, more to think about in terms of the ideas I am exposed to, what information I can transform. F&M has also helped me to solidify how I form my arguments, which absolutely translates to physical mediums and artwork. Each painting is a thesis, and you have to be prepared to defend it.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
The biggest drive for me in creating art is being able to convey something that feels stuck in the back of my mind. Spending hours visualizing something while I daydream and being able to put that image down on paper is the most rewarding feeling.
In the work Our Joys I was compelled to bring attention to joy, specifically Black Joy, although it can extend beyond the Black experience. I felt there was a need to bring attention to Black Joy with the recent publicity of all the Black resistance to injustice. Black resistance refers to the protests, which can take many forms, against oppressive systems and institutions and the violence that these systems cause. We should make space for joy and pleasure because it is necessary to maintain and just as necessary as resistance. Therefore, I pose the question, “What is Black Joy to you? It can be anything; it can be a word, an activity, a feeling, anything. What does it look like?” to Black people.
This piece consists of Black continents that rise off the wall to announce its presence and importance, surrounded by a sea of words. The continents represent the Black people all around the world, celebrating their Blackness and emphasizing that Black people exist everywhere and Black people experience joy in varied ways. The sea of words represent only a few responses, gathered from the question, “What is Black joy?”. These joys are not meant to be homogeneous of what Black people experience as joy, but celebrate their individuality and show that these responses are a few of a variety of ways to experience joy. I hope viewers can take away the importance of acknowledging joy. More specifically, I hope the Black viewers can take joy, add joyful experiences, and make intentions to experience and/or reflect on joys. The process of working on this piece and witnessing other Black people speak about joy brought me joy. The process also made me reflect on shared joyful experiences and things I might find joyful, especially when finding joy is difficult.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
My work was inspired by the protest and resistance against police brutality and systematic racism with the continuous violence and killing of Black people. The emotional toll and exhaust I witness in myself and other Black people inspired me to look toward moments of joy as a way of preservation and finding hope in despair.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
I want people to interact with my work by seeing that joy is important and joy and resistance work in tandem. I also think this piece makes space for Black people and is sacred in that way. Thus, for Black people I hope they can reflect on their joys and feel like their joy and collective joy is important.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
F&M has influenced my work because of my time with the Alice Drum Women’s Center Board. There is a lot of work, support, and learning within the board and on the board is where I learned to find and acknowledge joys. I was also introduced to activist’s work like Adrienne Maree Brown who speaks of pleasure and joy as a form of activism.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
There is an inner appeal or something that I cannot exactly articulate that drives me to create art because regardless of if I am satisfied with what I create or not I am still drawn to create again.
This series offers a peak into the isolated yet overloaded minds of our generation during this past year, exploring how digital media has influenced our wellbeing by leaking into our safe spaces during quarantine. Taking a more journalistic approach, I hoped to use painting as a medium to construct an overarching narrative that documents this era from various perspectives. Collaborating with close, photographer friends, I invited them to stage a self- portrait in a familiar, safe space, and then reflect on how the predominance of digital media has exacerbated the impact of this past year on their well-being and state of mind. Each individual provided screenshots of digital content that has been weighing heavily on their minds, which I then used to create collages in Photoshop. I fitted the digital media onto the walls in the space the model sits, surrounding and enveloping them, so that the room becomes a symbol of their mind, in which they are existing. Ultimately, I hoped to highlight how news headlines and social media content plaster the walls of our minds, influencing our psyche.
The title, In(Site): How the Digital World Occupies Space, utilizes various meanings to the word “in(site).” Phonetically, one hears “insight,” meaning “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing.” This relates to my series, as each painting serves as a window into the mind of the subject, allowing the viewer to understand and empathize with what they had been preoccupied with in 2020. “Site” also refers to the websites that we frequent nowadays, as we are all isolated in our homes. It also, simultaneously, plays with the definition of “site” as an area, as each subject exists in their individual space. There is the additional reference to an archaeological site, as the viewer digs up meaning by investigating the walls and surroundings within the painting.
The final series includes five 24x30” mixed media paintings, using oil and acrylic, on top of a printed collage composed of digital media. The content received from collaborators was arranged in Photoshop to form the digital collage background, which was then printed on 24x30” heavy printing paper. This was then adhered to wooden panels of equal size, upon which the composition was painted. The multiple layers of these paintings contribute to the overarching theme of exploring the various experiences of the young adults within the context of the year 2020.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
In my body of work, I wanted to consider the momentousness of our current national and global situations, particularly focusing on how it impacts the mindsets of our graduating generation. Reflecting on how we are constantly surrounded by digital media, whether it be news headlines or social media posts, I wanted to explore how the gravity of these reminders influence our state of mind, even in our most isolated, safe spaces.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
I hope people will be able to relate to some of the scenes in my paintings, especially how the subjects are immersed in digital media. I really wanted to include as many perspectives as I could in this series, so that it can offer a more expansive look into the range of personal experiences, specifically in relation to digital media, during quarantine. Each subject had full say in what digital media was included in the background of their portrait as well, so the paintings represent very intimate windows into each individual’s mind. Every painting has many layers of content and meaning, so I hope viewers will spend time to read and explore each composition.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
Though it’s been difficult navigating a capstone course studying remotely during a pandemic, Professor Laurie and the museum staff have been so supportive and communicative throughout the whole process. I am also so grateful for Professor Laurie’s guidance in creating this series.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
Everything! I have found that simply intentional awareness inspires much of my work. By being conscious of things, from the shadow created by a water glass to international news stories, I always have reasons to create. There’s always been a part of me that wanted to pursue journalism as well, so I try to fold that resolve into my work, so that my paintings become another platform to present an argument or reflection on our modern world.
My artwork aims to explore current social and cultural issues in China, such as the social issues created by gender inequalities. Through my artwork I try to balance the artistic and the social connection to disclose issues often unacknowledged by the public. My current project, “ Violence pinwheel,” is centered on revealing the domestic violence concerns in China. The materials I used are domestic products, including a king-size bed sheet, household gloves, needlework, and chopsticks. The sheet is the main piece of the work with the gloves sewn on top arranged in three circles representing the victims, SOS signals of victims, and the abusers or abusive words, respectively. The gloves with red thread are related to abusers directly, while the words on the gloves without red thread are from other people, always imposing unexpected pressure on victims (the third circle). The gloves are facing towards the outer edge of the sheet to symbolize victims of domestic abuse reaching out and asking for help. The arrangement of these gloves represents the dilemma that victims were actually trapped by either abusers or words imposed by others so their needs for help may not be seen or heard by the public.
I started to pay close attention to domestic violence a few years ago when I found out that one of my female cousins was a victim of this cruel abuse. But because her husband was perceived as a well-mannered man and was highly respected at his work, she followed the advice of her family and friends and decided to bear the abuse. She wanted to keep the family together providing a "harmonious" environment for her kids and avoid worrying her parents. However, I believe this situation is not uncommon for many domestic abuse victims, especially in China, but they lack the power and support from their family and society as a whole to escape the situation. In China, domestic violence is considered a private matter, the system or law does not interfere or provide the necessary protection for victims, so many victims choose to bear it alone and keep silent.
The “ three-direction ” pinwheel represents three traditional cultural roles that women are expected to fulfill; daughter, wife, and mother. However, in China, these cultural roles can become heavy chains preventing women from finding the strength to stand up for themselves. Like many other women, my cousin chose to bear the abuse and not get a divorce because of the societal pressures and traditional roles that were imposed on her. The pinwheels provide an opportunity for people to make connections and see themselves (for the potential victims or others seeing with empathy) in the mirror. Encouraging people to pay more attention to and provide more help to victims of domestic abuse and encouraging women to live for themselves.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
I started to pay close attention to domestic violence a few years ago when I found out that one of my female cousins was a victim of this cruel abuse. But because her husband was perceived as a well-mannered man and was highly respected at his work, she followed the advice of her family and friends and decided to bear the abuse. She wanted to keep the family together providing a "harmonious" environment for her kids and avoid worrying her parents. I cannot understand, and I tried to support her from her stand, but she still compromised on life by taking suggestions from her friends or family. And in recent years, some similar news and reports about violence got into the public's eyes in China frequently, and people pay more attention to these events, but still the comments from the public are so various. So I decided to make a work to disclose female victims’ tough situation brought by domestic violence, oppressed by the public and their social roles invisibly. I hope to call more people to pay attention and provide help.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
Yes. Various sizes of pinwheels are parts of my whole work. Each one has a mirror at its center, and they were put in different places in the museum. The “ clover pinwheel” actually is the symbol of women’s traditional roles (daughter, wife, mother) expected most by society. And I hope viewers see “themselves” through the mirror, and try to make some connection with women. Also by this I want those potential viewers to see “themselves” in the mirror but not just the roles which are expected by society, in order to encourage them to live for themselves.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
First, I feel so grateful that I could have a chance to present this topic through art before graduation. And also I feel very grateful that professor Laurie is always patient and supportive to help me to build the clear process of the whole work, and always provides me pertinent suggestions to push my work better and further.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
Art is always in my life, but just accompanied me in different ways during different time stages. So it’s hard to say what specifically drove me there, but me and art are always together. And I’m more than happy to be a life artist in order to capture any important or interesting moments anytime in my life.
My series, Fragments and Distractions, is dedicated to the minuteness that collectively makes up my existence. Life has become more monotonous and tedious in quarantine, but the beautiful things distract me from the repetitive daily ordinaries as well as my anxiety about the present and the future. Inspiration often comes at unexpected times when I am walking to class, studying for an exam, or making a meal. The little surprises bring gratification and let me appreciate life more.
The paintings are inspired by the little moments and mundane objects in everyday life. The pandemic limited our activities primarily to our homes, schools, and workplaces, which actually gave me more time and opportunities to notice the normally overlooked yet interesting things in my routine. I photograph whatever I find intriguing and put it aside in an album, but I would not draw immediately after the encounter. I let things sit in my mind where they can evolve and transform under the magic of time. They become more abstract and remote, and a couple of moments may integrate into one new idea.
I use watercolor in my work as an attempt to relate the uncertainty in my subject matter to my process. Just as I cannot fully control how the pigment spreads in the water, there is uncertainty in the way objects or scenes develop in my imagination and subconscious.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
It’s the minute yet beautiful details of everyday life that inspired me to make my series. I had more time to daydream and pay attention to the things that I normally would not notice during the pandemic as I had more time.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
No. I hope everyone is able to interpret my works in any way they want. I want my works to be responded freely even though I extracted some very specific fractions of my life to create them, but such moments do contain some arbitrariness in them. My works are my interpretations and transformations of the moments I encountered, but I don’t want to restrict what the viewers think.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
I have learned a lot from the F&M art studio courses and I appreciate all the guidance and help my professors have given me. Professor Liu’s talk about the energy in drawings and paintings and how in muddiness we can see things coming along inspired me a lot. Also, Professor Laurie has been really supportive in the capstone, and I am very grateful.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
I enjoy the process of creating artworks, which is a very happy process for me. I think art helps maintain the balance of my use of left and right brain and keeps me sane.
My life has changed drastically more times than I can count. When I left Franklin & Marshall College halfway through my junior year in 2014, I had no intention of returning. I moved to New York City in the fall of 2015 and for the next four years slept, breathed, and well, ate food. The culinary industry was my life, until once again I needed to move on, strangely enough back to F&M. This time pursuing an art degree, I found a love for sculpture. Chocolate is the perfect medium because it allows me to utilize my culinary background and push my artistic boundaries. It has potential for change; chocolate melts, it shatters, and I want to exploit that artistically.
All three pieces were made using chocolate and silicone molds in some way or another. While I’d never used chocolate as a medium for anything other than cookies before, I had to learn about tempering and the intricacies of molding chocolate. Some of the shapes I was molding were also irregular, so I needed to make my own silicone molds as well. I wanted to work with chocolate because it melts, it’s impermanent. Chocolate as a medium is inherently temporary, and I want my art to reflect that impermanence. Another quality I want to highlight in my work is how it makes you feel. I want to focus on you, the viewer, because without you, the art is no more than decoration. Without your eyes, your interaction, the art doesn’t exist. So I want you to interact with the work. Get close to it, put your hand inside and turn on the heat lamp. Melt my heart, if you can, but while you do so, be sure to look at yourself in the mirror. You know how it feels to be vulnerable and hurt, can you do that to someone else? And when you stare into the face of a chocolate inkblot test, what do you see? Does it make you feel happy or sad? Now, tell me, how does it feel to watch that same image be destroyed?
Life is a constant state of change. We transition from one moment to the next without a second thought, but these changes matter. Even miniscule ones, like thirty seconds of heat, add up and could eventually melt even the strongest hearts. I think people are afraid of change, afraid of what it means. But change is a necessary part of life, and I want to see more people embrace these opportunities. My hope is that you will recognize these moments of change, and see them for what they are.
Traditionally, Rorschach tests are inkblots pressed on paper. For this piece, I decided to use chocolate as both the paper and the ink. Using silicone molds, I created white chocolate plates, and then I used colored chocolate as the ink. I dripped the colored chocolate onto the white plates and then pressed them together to form the image.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
My culinary background was the source of inspiration for the medium of chocolate, but I’d never worked with chocolate in this capacity before. I lack a lot of the patience for traditional formal art, and so chocolate allows me to be expressive, which most of my art is. The pieces themselves are tiny reflections of myself. I’ve always been fascinated by Rorschach tests and the graphic novel Watchmen is my favorite book of all time. I don’t have the best track record with mental health, and I can assure you that I’ve been in the fetal position more than once because of it. And who hasn’t had their heart melted? Even though these pieces are extensions of me, I think people can relate to them.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
Absolutely! “Cakes have layers!” is meant to be observed and pondered. Not meant for touching or eating; please avoid the temptation. “October 12, 1985.” is also meant to be observed, but I seriously hope people react in many different ways. I think people will see different things, which breeds different responses. I can’t wait to see how people react. And lastly, “Momma always said…” is very much meant to be interacted with. Feel free to pull the handle and reach for the heart. Please do not touch the heart though.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
All of this was only possible thanks to my teachers, but especially Professor Laurie and Professor Lee. Professor Lee’s sculpture course completely changed the trajectory of my life. I returned to F&M thinking I was going to write and draw my own comic books. I also thought the sculpture course was a pottery course for some reason...I was wrong on both accounts. I fell in love. There is truly nothing compared to having an idea and then using your own two hands to literally form that idea in front of your very eyes. Professor Laurie also encouraged me to be expressive in new ways. Her support and guidance really helped me along the way.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
Anybody who’s ever met me will tell you I’m an emotional person. I don’t know where those emotions come from, that energy. But it’s there. And I have to let it out.
Beauty through pain is the focus of my work. For far too long Black people have been cast into darkness and ridiculed for the situations over which they had little control. The Black race is a race of resilience, despite the hand they are dealt. In my work, I reflect upon the trauma and highlight the beauty of Black people. No one has the range and versatility of Black people, making it nearly impossible to capture the immense beauty we possess. We are the creators and originators. This range is the cause for the hate that we Black people endure. After centuries of building the American economy and maintaining it, we are constantly belittled and told that we can not be us. Constantly told we are not enough. Only to turn around and have our identities appropriated and exploited.
There is a deep need for a more positive representation of Black people. We are all products of what we see and our environments. As an African American artist, I believe that is my duty to help influence the art that our Black youth is exposed to. It is important to see Black people beyond the depths of the “hood” and the images that social media produces. We are so much more than what society wants us to be. Using oil paint on canvas I strive to cast myself and black people in positions of love, power, and royalty.
Oil paint has a long tradition of being used to record monumental people in history. It is a form of documentation, much like photography, that someone was here. Oil paint can capture reality in such a fascinating way that is very personable. Taking the time to study and paint someone applauds their uniqueness and lets them know that they are seen. Recreating realistic images in oil painting is very time-consuming. The process requires studying the subject and making sure you see it clearly. This means making sure that what you recreate tells the story you want it to. One of the most difficult, but rewarding parts for me is finding the correct skin tone. There are a lot of variables that can impact the way skin looks. However, accurately capturing those tones is like deconstructing that person. What better way is there to see someone than to see them exactly as they are. In these skin tones, you get to see the unique patterns they form and how eventually they form a person’s appearance. I believe doing that much work to paint someone is a true testament to their value. I am here to empower and appreciate my people.
What inspired you to create your work for this exhibition?
The inspiration for my work comes from the continuous injustice that Black people face here in America. I also have been wanting to do a magazine or modeling type of project and this is somewhat close to that. I love Black people and I love modeling, so this is sort of like a combination of that. Also, this is a fight for Black people. This is my way of contributing to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Do you hope viewers respond to or interact with your work in a specific way?
I am not expecting any specific reactions to my work. I just hope that people, especially Black people, are able to connect with what I created. I want them to feel inspired to continue fighting for the quality of life and justice we deserve. In whatever way that might be, I just want them to keep going, It is not fair that we have to work 100x harder to prove our worth, but that doesn’t mean we should stop. This work is an appreciation of Black People for being and continuing to be more than enough.
How has F&M or your capstone course influenced your work?
Through my painting course this year, I was introduced to a new art medium, Oil Painting I have grown to really love and appreciate the art and dedication of oil painting. It takes time and practice, but I have really enjoyed the process and the outcome.
What drives you to be an artist or to create art?
Since a very young age, I have always been drawn to creating. I have always used my hands to see and understand the world in new ways. The act of doing and being physically involved, allows the brain to think and produce in such a beautiful way. I also love using my work to make others feel better. I have always loved helping people. You don’t have to work in the medical field to help people. As I stated before, the work I produce for this exhibition, is with the intentions of inspiring the people that look and feel like me. Everyday, we have to wake-up and face a society that hates us, with a smile. Anything less is not acceptable. So I want to show Black people being naturally happy, in their element. Not just with a get through the day smile. It is important to feel seen, especially when the world around you deliberately ignores you. I want the people involved as well those who witness the work, to feel seen and appreciated.
Exhibition photographs by Deb Grove, F&M Staff Photographer, Salina Almanzar '13, Photography & Printmaking Technician, Janie Kreines, Curator of Academic Affairs & Community Engagement, and Lexi Breinich '13, Art Museum Assistant. Design by Janie Kreines.