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Students who have completed honors projects in studio art are currently exhibiting their works in the Richard A. and Rissa W. Grossman Gallery in the Williams Visual Arts Building through May 19.
The Honors Exhibition in Art (Studio) public reception will take place 5-6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 3 at the Grossman Gallery. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
The exhibition includes artwork by Terese Brown ’07 (Bronx, N.Y.), Emily Gillespie ’07 (Hammonton, N.J.), Danielle Schreier ’07 (New York, N.Y.), and Sara Smith-Katz ’07 (Stroudsburg, Pa.).
Brown’s project entitled “Fashion, Sculpture, and Appropriation” focuses on the theme of cultural sharing through the unique combination of fashion design and sculpture. An art and economics & business double major, Brown says that fashion not only reflects this “cultural sharing,” but has been a vehicle for increased cultural appropriation of selected fashion over time. Her work specifically explores the transfer of American Hip-Hop culture to Japan and Japanese popular culture to the U.S.
Gillespie’s honors project is titled “Gender Benders: Challenging Stereotypes in Advertising” and utilizes a combination of skills including photography, photo retouching, color correction, graphic design, and art direction. The project is based on the premise that society holds certain expectations and cultural norms that dictate how members of each gender should look and act.
Gillespie, an art major, believes these norms are especially evident in the world of advertising. By completely reworking ads found in a variety of magazines, she tries to push these boundaries to force the viewer to question traditional stereotypes and consider other alternatives.
For her honors thesis, Schreiercombined her passions for art and animal rights to produce the documentary Giving Thanks, an hour-long film focused on the tradition of Thanksgiving. Schreier, a double major in art and environmental & social justice, visited numerous local turkey farms, conducting interviews with farmers and documenting conditions. She also interviewed national experts including Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation; Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns; and Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s largest farm animal protection organization.
Smith-Katz’s honors project is an artist’s book titled “Altered Perceptions.” It is based on the premise that if any phenomenon or human value is taken to its logical extreme, it will yield its opposite. In her artist’s book, Smith-Katz pairs images to show a certain polarity that becomes unified as the disc revolves.
To do this, she used a popular early 19th century animation technique called phenakistiscope. The human brain does not attempt to interpret what is viewed as continual motion, but instead edits the scene into a series of fractional snapshots that then become edited into smooth vision as the brain goes from one object to the next. Smith-Katz, an art major, believes the resulting inner confusions of the viewer will then allow for a new perception of the subject, allowing for new insight.
Honors theses are among several major programs that have made Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. The College sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year; 21 students were accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.