Every year, Colgate seniors majoring in Studio Art display the culmination of their research and artistic endeavors in the Clifford Gallery of Little Hall. The gallery featured nine artists this semester; each of their works varied in both medium and content, a testament to each student’s unique experience and understanding in their field of study.

Senior Donte Jordan created “Feel What You Saying,” a rap video focused on empowering himself and others to move beyond hardship opened the exhibit. The milieu of familiar Colgate and Hamilton backgrounds accompanied by Jordan’s group of friends explored the concepts of community and shared experience through the lens of hip-hop.

Senior Benji Geisler’s work “Untitled” revolved around the human body and recreated the physical remnants left as the mind enters a dream. The set of doctored images formed a disjointed and distorted collection of body parts to envelop the viewer into this fantasized dreamscape.

Senior Nicole Chen created “On the Edge Of Introversion”, which combined sculpture and painting into abstract shapes jutting out of the walls and rising from the floor. The piece centered around blue and yellow, experimenting with color theory to create a balance between outward and inward movement. 

“I seek to reflect upon my own personality through the interplay of blue and yellow,” Chen said.

Just across from the doors of the gallery stood Senior Amy Abshier’s  “Radiate,” a curtain-clad enclosure with two slide projectors clicking past nostalgic photos. The piece asked viewers to contemplate the light and dark of their lives as they lie down in the pillows and blankets provided and watch the fleeting images whir away.

Senior Sharon Ettinger showcased her resistance to typical conceptions of the female body with “Puncture,” a set of black and white realistic drawings of women interrupted by red streams that energized each piece, breaking through the edges of the women, challenging the conceptions many have of the female body and ownership.

Art was envisioned through an environmental lens with Senior Kimberly Duncan’s piece “H2CO3.” An Environmental Studies and Studio Art double major, Duncan used bleach and pencil to depict a scene of the ocean’s vibrant colors dulled to sepia tones to comment on the current rate of ocean acidification.

Senior Alex Rosenthal coded his digital illustrations in “Untold” to create moving scapes of adventure and intrigue. Each piece was inspired by a random phrase generator which Rosenthal used to create an image, expanding the idea while leaving most of the story untold, as the title suggests. The viewer was compelled to create their own stories behind each of his moving fantasies.

“Vertices” stood in the middle of the gallery, an intersection of two wall panels depicting a charcoal street scene. 

“The charcoal and sculpture create an immersive environment,” the artist, Senior Marcell Sandor said.

Indeed, as one walks closer to the intersection, they are pulled into the scene, transported to the world of charcoal.

Ending the exhibition was Senior Tino Zinyama’s interactive “Trails.” The work consisted of a screen on the wall and a taped-off square on the floor. As viewers walked through the square, their movements were tracked and recorded, creating a doodle upon the screen. The screen stored a compilation of everyone’s movement, a playful way to end the tour of the gallery.

Contact Andrew Kish at [email protected].