Ruoxi Hua, Scene I: A Panorama of Life on Achernar, 2022, Oil on canvas, 18 x24, 45.7 × 61 cm NFS. VIEW ON ARTSY

Carter Helmandollar, *Seasons in Reverse*, 2022, MDF Print, 11 × 14 in, 27.9 × 35.6 cm, Editions 6-16 of 16 + 0AP. PURCHASE ON ARTSY

PROFILE ON THE W&M STUDIO ART SENIOR CAPSTONE SHOW BY HANNAH KUHNS

INTRO

On February 25th, studio art majors at William and Mary exhibited their Senior Capstone show at the Linda Matney Gallery. We had the opportunity to interview some of the artists as they showcased their work at the gallery reception this past Friday. Casual interviews with the student artists reveal some of the inspirations, methods, and experiences behind their work. We were also able to get a few words from some of the professors, students, and other artists that were in attendance at the reception. The Senior Exhibition runs until March 25th.

ARTIST INTERVIEWS

Khadijah Bea

From the artist: “We were doing a lot of still lifes, and I wanted to stay clear of those, so I talked to my professor about doing a landscape. He mentioned working with perspectives and I was looking at the building that I live in, and usually because it’s so tall I’m looking up at it, so I decided to capture what it looks like when the sun is beaming on it when I’m looking up at it, which is why it’s such a dramatic perspective.”

Martha Rose

From the artist: “I concentrate primarily on figure drawing and painting, this particular exhibition I mostly have my drawings and a print but I consider myself mostly to be a painter. I am most gravitated towards compositions with a strong sense of light and movement through light. I try to create an atmosphere in the painting that reflects an internal state of being rather than just an external reflection of what is there.”

- Can you tell me about the green print?

“So the green etching was done as a monotype print. It’s the only one I have from that block because it had a very specific formula of wiping and working back into it, and had a very specific offset registration. I printed the plate multiple times in the same piece of paper slightly offset to create a haziness to the image with an almost 3D quality to it. Content-wise, I wanted to capture this feeling from the middle of the pandemic where isolation was strong and those feelings of loneliness and fear and stress and cathartically release them into the work. I wanted there to be a bit of chaos in the line work, it’s not necessarily neatly rendered, however there’s a strong sense of light and contrast that make it readable.”

Isabelle Gareis

From the artist: “So the title of this piece is Barbie Harvest and we’ve been working on still lives a little bit in class, and I’m usually not a still life person, so I was trying to find ways I could enjoy painting ordinary objects. I brought some of my childhood barbies from my parents’ house and set them up in a traditional still life, and just worked on trying to find as many colors as I could in the piece while trying to study the human form in a less traditional way, in a less generic way… and just setting them up in an interesting format because they’re so inaccurate to regular people.”

Ruoxi Hua

From the artist: “This is one of the paintings in my series, and it basically depicts life in an alien civilization. I wanted to create this world where there’s all types of problems like war, slavery, oppression, and then in subsequent works [not shown here] there is a savior who comes down from the sky and saves the planet, but they end up casting him into outer space. So basically the story is a mock retelling of the bible, sort of a more modern take on it.”

- Where did you get the inspiration for the planet itself?

“I definitely have sources for inspiration… the aliens, the architecture, they’re all inspired by science fiction and Surrealist paintings. But the world building is all coming from my brain.”

Laura Reitze

From the artist: “I wanted to do something more on the abstract side, and I was in the printmaking studio looking at the architecture of the space, and I was fascinated by these tubes running along the wall and the ceiling that made these really interesting shapes. I wanted to play with this semi-abstraction, semi-recognizable space, but you can’t really identify where you are…”

- Is there an underpainting? How did you make these lines?

“It’s a relief block, and that’s what that greenish-yellow color is. On top of that there’s an etching, so that’s what all the black is, and then on the etching plate before I printed it I painted the red and blue parts in ink. Then I printed it, and after it dried I went back in and painted on top of it. And on the other ones there’s some pencil markings on top as well.”

Avery Hines

From the artist:

- What were some of the biggest challenges you faced trying to capture the colors reflecting onto the pot?

“Trying to get the colors vibrant enough. My first pass at it, I thought that I was exaggerating all of the color, and then my professor walked by and told me that it all looked dead. It took me several rounds of that until I got it to the point that it’s at now. I’m happy that I was pushed like that because I like how it turned out.”

Litzy Morales

From the artist: “The bird in the picture is a quaker parrot, after my pet. I’m very fond of him and wanted to incorporate things that were close to me somehow. I like Edward Hopper’s paintings; I really like the space they hold as well as the colors, and since the room was green and my parrot was green, I kind of just put them together.”

- Did you paint the scene outside the window with a specific city in mind?

“I just looked up different cities and decided on the one I thought made the most sense with the room itself as well as the aerial perspective and altitude.”

Carter Helmandollar

From the artist: “So this print is a woodblock, so I started by drawing a live model and then sketching right onto the board in quick sessions. From there I just carved into the board.”

- What do you use to carve it?

“You use special printmaking tools, that are very tiny, and it took a long time. The lines at the top definitely took a while. You have to get the hang of taking away things; it’s all subtracted. You have to make sure you’re keeping track of what needs to stay and what doesn’t. I ended up leaving some of [the smaller lines in the hair and on the wall], which is the leftover ink on the undercut parts (like the hair and the wall). In the places where there’s more light there’s less of that where the cut is deeper. Once you look at it as abstract shapes that you have to chunk out, it’s kind of fun, kind of meditative. From there you ink the block, and you get the page wet and then dry it off, and you can print on top of it.”

VIEWER INTERVIEWS

Trinity Bea: “I like this piece because of the imagery. The cosmic brownies aren’t necessarily the focus but they pop out of the image. The skin complexion of the subject, the eyeshadow and lip color… it’s really hard to convey African American [skin] in paintings, and I think this artist did a really good job with that.”

Mayada Hassan: “What I really liked about this piece was the incorporation of the brownies. Obviously it’s a black woman depicted in the image. I’ve been told personally by peers of mine that I am like those rainbow brownies. A black woman with lots of sprinkles, lots of color, lots of light, and brightness in her spirit. I love that she uses these brownies to depict such a sweet character trait of the woman in the picture.”

- Litzy Morales, Sweet Dreams, mixed media, 14 x 17, NFS

Grace Rust: “I was drawn to this piece called “Midtown” by Khadijah Bea. I really like what she’s done with the contrast of the blue to the rest of the painting, and especially how she put little instances of blue [around different areas].”

Rico (age 6):

- Why do you like this painting?

“Because there’s a lot of colors in it!!!”

- Khadijah Bea, Midtown, oil/canvas paper, 18 x 24, $2260

Miles Piontek: “I love this painting because Jarvis does a lot of inventive work, and paints beyond the scope of reality. It’s something that I struggle with a lot in my own work, so I think it’s very admirable, and he does it in such a convincing way.”

- Ruoxi (Jarvis) Hua, Scene I: A Panorama of Life on Achernar, 18 x 24, oil on canvas, NFS

Jose Morales: “It was really interesting to see this perspective of the apocalypse. We have war, famine, and death, and I just think his perspective is interesting of each of the four horsemen, of what they represent. I also like the different forms of shading, and the contrast of black and white he uses within his artwork.”

- Ruoxi Hua, The Four Horsemen Series, 11 x 14, graphite on paper, NFS

Hayley Scheir & Hannah Dahl “I really like how you can make out all the shapes of the pice, but it’s also very blurred and blended together so that you do have to look to find the objects, but they’re also very distinct.” “I like that the light is so direct from the lamp and the stagelight in the front; it’s very homey but at the same time I’m wondering why it is so direct, what might be going on.”

- Martha Rose, Staged I, charcoal/paper, 26 x 40, $800

Elizabeth Mead: “What I think is so wonderful about this piece is the sort of structure of it, it feels sculptural, it feels like a Leonard Baskin print to me. He went back all the time between sculpture and printmaking. The way that the figure is drawn in, almost cube-like, and the way that the space is holding onto it. The relationship of the figure to the space, at the same time the figure goes in and out of being in these forms, it feels really muscular with great strength. At the same time there’s a certain vulnerability, that gesture of pulling into the corner is one of retreat, but the real physicality of the form and these marks sit in opposition to that. So while the figure itself is pulling in, there is a real solidity and strength that asserts itself.”

Mike Jabbur: “I’m an object maker, and I work in ceramics, so I’m really drawn to material and process. This print spoke to me about material and process, so I had a connection to it there. I like the mystery in it, I can recognize the figure but I’m not quite sure what the story is. That mystery lets me enter the piece and make up my own story about it, which makes it engaging for me.”

- Martha Rose, Blue and Green Interludes, monotype etching and aquatint, 10 x 13, $500

Stella Brockwell: “I like how half of the face is just black, and the other half is so contoured, there is a sharp difference between light and dark. It looks very much like a statue. It doesn’t look soft. Like someone took a chisel and literally carved it out.”

Caryn Helmandollar: “At first I was disappointed at the inclusion of the mask, but after I thought about it I realized it was more a sign of the times and an indication of the period of time we’ve gone through, so then I was fine with it. I think hearing about printmaking, the steps and the process and the intricacies of it, I think it’s really amazing. [Carter] got a bunch of supplies, and her younger brother was fascinated. So they started to do it together.”

- Carter Helmandollar, Wear Your Mask, woodcut print, 14 x 22, $400