Assumption Capstone Artists-Rising above Restrictions
From Prof. Carrie Nixon
Assumption College Senior Art Seminar Instructor
Introduction
This Blog is dedicated to the 6 resourceful and tenacious women in Worcester’s Assumption College Senior Art Seminar: Eliana Agudelo; Sydney LaQue; Dana Mendes; Nancy Nguyen; Bryanna Peters; and Audrey Tokarz. They have continued to create high-impact, personal bodies of artwork despite the isolation and limitations caused by the Coronavirus.
The virus, as we know, was lurking first overseas and then in our midst. Nonetheless, these brave and dedicated women kept pursuing their visions and making art, even as the College was closed in mid-March. Now they are dispersed to their families in 4 states: Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Georgia.
These Senior* artists (*Audrey Tokarz is a Junior whereas the other 5 are second-semester Seniors) end their final Assumption College semester only to be launched into the uncertain world of the pandemic and economic shut-down. Rather than bemoaning the loss of all their anticipated Graduation benchmarks, Eliana, Sydney, Dana, Nancy, Bryanna, and Audrey have focused on developing their Capstone Projects. In the following posts, each student provides images of her Project, as well as an Artist’s Statement to elucidate her processes, concepts, and inspirations.
If you have questions about artworks, or an interest in purchasing any pieces, please either contact the students directly if they have listed Instagram sites or websites, or e-mail me at cnixon@assumption.edu. Each student's Statement is followed by a selection of images of her completed Project. Enjoy learning about each artist in her own words and images!
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Eliana Agudelo
Thanking My Support Network with Portraits
Studio Art Seminar
4/30/2020
Instagram: @heartsineverystitch
Artist Statement
I am Eliana Agudelo, a senior at Assumption College, who is majoring in Psychology and minoring in Studio Art. On April 25th, I began a golden year; I will have completed my first quarter-century of life in this wonderful world. At one point in my life, I did not think that I would live to be twenty-one. Looking back on the last five years, I realize that I overcame so much. It took me five or six years to get a Bachelor’s degree, and I couldn’t have done it without my support system.
My show is dedicated to the people who have helped me along the way. I have created portraits of my support network, using selected media and color to describe how I see each subject. My goal with these pieces is to unequivocally state that I would not be at Assumption College without their support: this is an act of gratitude for those who have made this journey possible. The people depicted have also helped me get to the next steps. I will be attending Boston University’s School of Social Work in the fall and am elated to see all of my hard work pay off.
I have created one portrait a week to prepare for this show. Each portrait is made as an act of love for each individual subject. The medium reflects my feelings about who each subject is for me. For instance, I have used oil for my distinguished Labrador mix, watercolor for my free-spirited dad, and embroidery for my progressive and feminist therapist. Each individual inspired a distinct media and color. I had originally planned to add a self-portrait to my collection of works, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I undertook a project making masks for my neighborhood, local nonprofits, and local hospitals, thus opting to forego my own portrait so I could dedicate more time to the mask-making process.
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Sydney LaQue
Endangered Animals, Half-living and Half-skeletal
Studio Art Seminar
Professor Nixon
May 4, 2020
Art Instagram: @sydneyleeartpage
Artist Statement
I have always been interested in animals ever since I could remember. My dream job was to become a veterinarian, but things changed when I went to college. Now I am able to use my art work to communicate not only how important animals are to me but also how crucial they are for our world.
For my work I wanted to bring to light how many different animals are endangered and/or exploited due to humans. I did this by showing the life and death of 22 different animal species. Half of one is the skull, and the other half is the actual animal. I tried to use an array of textures and shades throughout each of my drawings in order to catch my viewers’ eyes. I used only mechanical pencils and stuck to black and white because I felt as though I really could get my message across through the bold shades of grey. Each drawing is a different size in order to match the sizes of the animals on them. Another way I made sure each piece was unique was by turning the animal heads at different angles for each piece and dividing them in different ways.
I enjoyed creating this entire set because I was able to study what each animal was like underneath their usual look. I was able to see how different but also similar each skull was to one another. Each drawing allowed me to look at and study these animals in very different perspectives and pushed me to make these drawings come to life.
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Dana Mendes
Overcoming Cancer and Quarantine
Studio Art Seminar
May 5, 2020
Instagram: @thenamesdanish
Instagram: @thenamesdanish
Artist Statement
I’ve had a long and ongoing experience with medical circumstances throughout my life. Starting when I was three, I was misdiagnosed with Leukemia, which later turned out to be a less life threatening bone marrow deficiency that allowed for the possibility of a normal life again. Nonetheless, the medical world always stayed close and steadily grew more familiar than foreign, only occasionally presenting hurdles from time to time. However, it wasn’t until August 15th, 2015 that my “hurdles” seemed more like pole vaulting when I needed to undergo full-intensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant due to my diagnosis of Myelodysplastic Syndrome - a precancerous disease.
Five years have now passed since the time of my diagnosis, treatment, and isolation recovery from cancer treatment. Since then, this narrative has greatly influenced my personal work, which is what I bring you in this piece. Here, I’ve shown remnants of my medical journey, like my central venous catheter or “central line” (an IV implanted in my chest that connects to a major artery from my heart to aid in distributing medications, fluids and blood draws), as well as symbolically representing my family who closely experienced treatment with me through a combination of conceptual elements and surrealist undertones.
Working with oil, I’ve displayed my portrait and five koi fish. In Japanese culture, koi fish represent strength, perseverance, bravery, prosperity, overcoming challenges, and other admirable traits. The combination of colors that koi possess also signify different traits or concepts. There are five koi, one representing each member of my family. The colors they possess represent distinctive traits in each family member that I recognized during our journey together, and their character in general.
I chose koi fish because my older sister, Bianca, who was also my bone marrow donor, is a Pisces (the koi), and I’m a Gemini (the twins). In the main piece, she is the topmost koi, and I on the right. The color red represents bravery, and the combination of black and white represent life transformations, rebirth and overcoming obstacles. These traits strongly describe my sister’s and my journeys as donor and recipient, and the unique mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual transformations we respectively experienced during and after treatment.
The yellow koi is my eldest sister, Tania. The color yellow represents brightness, energy, creativity, intellect, and happiness. Tania was, and always is, the spirited energy that uplifts anyone a room, while also possessing fierce knowledge and wisdom. Within the four walls of my in-patient room, she instilled joy and encouraged adventure. The color yellow also represents wealth and prosperity, and I feel rich indeed having her as my sister.
My Dad is the blue koi. The color blue represents masculinity, like a son or father figure. Blue also represents peace, calmness, and serenity. These are traits I recognize in myself that I know have come from him, and in treatment, when my peace or calmness was stirred, his presence was a familiar calm I could escape to.
The red koi is my Mom, positioned next to her husband, as they’ve always been connected and function together as one being. The color red - along with bravery - represents deep and intense passion, love, power and strength. My Mom holds an immense passion, protection, and mothering strength for her family. She is a spiritual pillar and stronghold for us all, and was especially in treatment.
Though the final display of my piece is not picture-perfect exhibit material, it’s the reality of working through a senior thesis amidst a pandemic. I comfortably situated myself in my basement, but with fluctuating levels of motivation to work through all that is expected in receiving a degree online. There has been more time on our hands, but mentally, emotionally, and sometimes even physically, we are challenged when required to transition to a life of solitude and isolation. Thankfully, this is a life that I have experience in.
This quarantine has paralleled my previous post-treatment isolation, where for eight months, I was restricted as to where I could go, who I could see, and what I could do. In quarantine, I’m once again confronted on similar aspects as I did in isolation, and hope to encourage meaningful thought and contemplation in the lives of others. How do you handle the challenges in your life? Do you have an outlet? How have your relationships changed? Does the fragility of life limit or empower you? How often do you take risks? In your current season of life, are you growing or stagnant? It’s these questions that others can think upon as I have, but in the face of devastating circumstances - cancer diagnoses or pandemics - we can flourish immeasurably.
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Nancy Nguyen
Celebrating Chinese Zodiac Animals
Studio Art Seminar
April 23, 2020
Instagram: new_yen_art
Artist Statement
I am a Tiger.
I am brave, competitive, unpredictable, charming, and independent.
I am an earth tiger. Born in the year of 1998.
I have a kind heart, am willing to help people, generous, always grateful to whoever assists me, and I always love a good challenge.
Being Asian- American, I live in a world where it is cross-cultural.
Throughout the years, I have always loved to paint and draw nature and animals.
When the Chinese New Year is coming up, my family has a tradition of decorating the house and making certain types of food. Meanwhile, we read the horoscopes of the Chinese zodiac to determine which animals out of 12 will have good luck, bad luck, and will be paired with each other to become successful. Each animal has developed different personality traits based on how they live their lives and how they act for the future.
Depending on the year, an animal is different and changes in the lunar cycle.
In Vietnam, the zodiac animals are all strong symbols of good luck within East Asian traditions.
As for my project, I am recreating the 12 zodiac animals. My intent has been to mainly use watercolor which is a type of medium I haven’t been very familiar with. Nonetheless, I have been willing to take the risk to see what I can do to my fullest extent.
Starting in mid-March, however, with limited supplies and being in quarantine, I began to use different mediums and techniques to develop my project. Each of the 12 animals has Chinese symbols of what they are, and are on different sizes of canvases and papers.
Last but not least, I created a watercolor dragon, representing the dragon as the most popular and powerful zodiac animal of them all.
My paintings are inspired by my culture and my race.
Being an artist and challenging myself to create something I have never done is my motivation to keep on pushing forward and to represent my Asian culture. My goal is to help the audience experience a different type of tradition and to learn my culture by opening up their minds.
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Bryanna Peters
Personal Character Sculptures in Dungeons & Dragons
Studio Art Seminar
May 4, 2020
Instagram: _superathena_
Instagram: _superathena_
Artist Statement
Although I’m pursuing a degree in biological science, art has always resonated with me and been a passion of mine. Character creation and illustration are personal hobbies of mine that I've cultivated over the years. In my free time, I have gotten together with friends and we’ve played Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), a tabletop roleplaying game, where we create characters in a fantasy world and have them interact with the world and with other characters, go on missions, and create a story together. As a character designer, I enjoy Dungeons and Dragons because it provides opportunities to incorporate my own designs and ideas. It's the perfect game to complement my interests. The immersion and overall joy of creating characters to life with my friends has became a method of relaxing and relieving stress; I always look forward to playing every week.
The characters I have created follow an animalistic theme due to my passion for animals and interest in veterinary sciences. My very first DnD character is Hikari Azeria, the white fox in blue robes. She grew up with a rough life on the streets instilling a thief's mindset at a young age; however, she can empathize with the poor due to her disdain towards the wealthy. My next character is Brihz Ricchezza, the rat with his bat familiar, Vesper. Brihz is a ratfolk witch who studied witchcraft to protect himself after being kicked out of his colony due to overpopulation. The grey werewolf with heavy armor is Fadeir Volke, an overall good person cursed with uncontrollable rage and abilities, resulting in the death of his wife and disappearance of his son. He joined a group of bloodhunters to control his werewolf side and use it for good to protect cities from monsters while he also searched for his son. Similar to Fadeir, the red werewolf is Ajia Mwitu who also fights monsters and other evil creatures. She’s a natural born werewolf who grew up in a werewolf tribe until a horde of monsters attacked and she and her sister escaped to start a new life. My most recent DnD character goes by the name Twitch. He is a mink inventor who builds robotics in his artisan guild. He travels with his giant mechanical construct to show off his creations and hopes to enlighten others of the wonders of robotics.
After an unsuccessful attempt at animation due to technical difficulties and lack of motivation during the quarantine, I pivoted to character creation through clay sculptures. I've always enjoyed making figurines with clay so I thought I would do it for this project. Bringing my 2D characters into the 3D world felt like I was bringing them to life. By the time I changed my project idea, there was a month left to finish it so I had a lot of work ahead for me. I worked day and night on this project every day: it really messed up my sleep schedule as I stayed up until 3am every night! Nonetheless, I was determined and motivated. It took around three to four days to finish each sculpture from a metal wire armature to being fully sculpted and baked. Then it took an additional day for each of them to be painted. In retrospect, I’m glad I diverted away from my original animation plan to the clay sculptures, which resulted in a Senior Project I can confidently say I am proud of.
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Audrey Tokarz
Multi-layered Personal Poems and Imagery
Studio Art Seminar
Website:
https://arielandaudrey.wixsite.com/antokarzart
Instagram:
@OrigamiByTheLITEswitch
May 3, 2020
Artist Statement:
During my experience at college, there have been three times when I was so overwhelmed with emotions that they overflowed into a poem. While I am a creative person and do enjoy writing, I have never been very big on writing poetry, which makes these three works even more distinct.
The first poem, “If I Were a Tree,” was written in the first month of my freshman year at Assumption after an interview for a work-study position. The last question my interviewer asked me was “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?” and as I was walking back to my dorm my mind was so full of possibilities that I wrote this poem.
The second poem, “A Deteriorating Soul Compares Herself to A Pumpkin,” was written in the October of my sophomore year and is styled in free verse as opposed to stanzas. I don’t remember the exact scenario that prompted it, but I do remember that I was supposed to be eating dinner before going to Daily Mass, and I ended up writing this instead. It was towards the beginning of my realization that I was struggling with depression, and, as can be seen in its presentation here, was a very raw account of how I was allowing my struggles to consume me.
The third poem, “I’m Not Broken,” was also prompted by my depression. I wrote it this past December after attending a performance of the spoken word. While the experience was undeniably beautiful, so many of the poems presented focused on the struggles and pains the writers had been through, and it drove me to tears because there wasn’t anything I could do to help or even comfort these people. It also made me feel guilty for my own dysfunctionality when I had never had to deal with anything like what my peers had gone through. I wrote this poem promptly after this event on some sheets of scrap paper I found lying next to a printer, and then spent 24 hours straight sequestered in my room, not even venturing into the common area for food.
I shared the first poem with a couple people, but I never shared the other two poems with anyone. I want to be a supportive person and part of that is that I do not want to bring anyone down with the consideration of my issues, especially when it feels like I’m the one who’s bringing them on myself. I have only partially told a handful of my friends that there’s anything wrong with me at all because, even when I convince myself that it would be better for everyone if I just told people what’s going on, I can’t ever find a chance to bring it up. Part of the challenge with depression is that it’s not like I am sad all the time, and more often than not I isolate myself when I do feel down, so typically what people see is just me being normal and enthusiastic, or at most overwhelmed and tired. Through this project I have the opportunity to openly express myself though a medium I am very comfortable with and a platform to display it. Even though I don’t like making sad works of art, I know that the pressure to pretend you’re perfect, or even to believe someone else is perfect, can be overwhelming, and I hope that by being vulnerable in this way I can touch those who may be experiencing similar turmoil.
Each of these poems is presented in exactly as written, and therefore they capture a single specific moment in my journey. To further represent my state of mind, I have chosen a layered approach. The middle layer, which is the most figural, contains a symbolic illustration that captures the heart of each poem. The colors of these images are rich and imaginative rather than naturalistic; I love playing with colors, especially those that are particularly vibrant. To this end I blocked in a base color with marker and then went over it to add highlights, shadows, and other detail-work with colored pencils. The negative space surrounding this figure has been carved into a net of patterns, an element I include in most of my art. Creating art in general helps calm me when I am upset or overwhelmed, but I have found that the creation of these patterns in particular, which is an at once mindless and deliberate task, is especially therapeutic and therefore it fits in directly with the theme of this project. Through the negative space of these patterns you can see the third layer, which is simply a field of colors, representing the chaos of emotion inside of me. The top layer presents the full text of the poem illustrated, which is handwritten in Sharpie on acetate. While the patterns were undoubtedly the most time consuming part of this project, writing these poems over and over again was the most difficult, specifically for the latter two, because it meant that I had to spend hours pouring over these emotion packed words, and by the time I was done with each I had nearly memorized each poem. I chose to present each poem as an almost indistinct field because, even though I used them in these circumstances to embody my current internal experience, I find that words tend to serve as an obstruction between what I feel and what I am able to share with others. This overall motif of hiddenness or masking is represented by the use of layers.
