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EXCEL Scholar Kara Henry ’03 (Newtown, N.J.) is spending her summer scouring the Internet for various digital images to use in a series of large canvas panels. She is collaborating with another student and a professor on the artwork, some of which is displayed at the Hunterdon County Museum in Clinton, N.J.
A double major in history and studio art, Henry, an upcoming senior, began working with Ed Kerns, Eugene H. Clapp ’36 Professor of Art, in June. She joined EXCEL Scholar Janice Truszkowski ’03, who has served as Kerns’ assistant since last winter.
“We just finished a five-panel series,” Henry says, explaining that each panel is created by taking images, manipulating and layering them in various ways using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, then printing them on a two-by-seven-foot canvas using a high-end printer loaded with archival-quality ink.
Henry has found images of cells and tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates) for one series, and the moon and galaxies for another.
“Another one we’re going to be working on is water images — puddles, bubbles, tropical birds, snakes, leaves, and trees,” she says. “We’re trying to build a huge vocabulary of images so that we can mix and match and create more panels.”
Henry, who worked primarily in acrylic paint before beginning the EXCEL project, says she has picked up new computer skills and grown as an artist over the past two months.
Kerns says he chose Henry as his assistant “because she’s so savvy about the aesthetic part of the work … Some of images Kara is working on have as many as 77 layers of color.”
Kerns adds that Henry understands the process and works fluidly with him and Truszkowski.
“She’s very good at the collaborative aspect,” he says. “She and Jan and I are now signing off on works together, in the old style of after the master signs, the assistant signs.”
In addition to producing the panels, Henry has become Kerns’ liaison with artists who come to Lafayette to learn more about the techniques he’s using.
“I’m delighted to have her,” he says.
Henry’s experiences with Kerns and other professors at Lafayette have helped her decide to work on a senior project in art.
“The professors have been wonderful,” she says. “They’ve helped me grow and encouraged me.”
Henry hopes to work as a graphic designer in advertising after graduation. This fall, she plans to continue her EXCEL work and serve as a teaching assistant for Kerns’ Intermediate Painting class. She is a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority.
Kara Henry ’03 manipulated digital images in a series of prints in an EXCEL Scholars project with Edward J. Kerns, Eugene H. Clapp II ’36 Professor of Art.