In a department whose graduating seniors are few enough to count on two hands, there’s bound to be a level of camaraderie and collaboration that’s difficult to find in more popular disciplines.
Featuring artistic media ranging from painting and photography to drawing and printmaking, the senior art major showcase is the result of this unique dynamic. Beginning yesterday, April 24, seven graduating Studio Art majors are showcasing their thesis projects in an exhibition entitled Pit Stop, now on display at the Spagnuolo Gallery in Walsh through May 17.
While many students at Georgetown seem most keen on policy jargon and their next internship opportunity, these seven seniors have decidedly struck out on their own.
Laura Thistle (COL ’13) is a Philadelphia native who served as captain of the field hockey team this year. Her contribution to the exhibition comes through the medium of oil paints, specifically “somber landscapes that convey not only a sense of loss of physical things, but also the fleeting quality of moments themselves,” she wrote in an email to the Voice.
After arriving at Georgetown, Thistle surveyed the landscape of potential majors and settled on Studio Art, in a department that, she notes, “is barely known around campus.”
However, her perception is not necessarily a reality, according to fellow Studio Art major Swedian Lie (COL ’13). “I think it is too easy and simplistic to just prescribe to that belief,” he said. “As an active member in the theater community as well as a Studio Arts major, I find myself surrounded by individuals from the MSB, from the SFS, from the NHS, and so forth who are all exercising their artistic minds in various capacities on campus.”
A certain charm exists within this kind of small group working together. Greta Rasmus (COL ’13), who has a series of charcoal drawings on display, talked about her appetite for this niche.
“There is something entirely unique about spending time in a studio for five hours a week with your professors and classmates that allows you to really delve into the art you’re doing, but also to simply get to know the people who are working around you,” she said.
The title of the exhibition, Pit Stop, provides a double meaning for both the artist and the viewer. These are seven young artists, unsure of the future of their craft and their lives, eager to make their first step into the real world a positive one. This show is only a brief respite along the way, and it could prove to be an enlightening break for the viewer as well—as a welcome interlude from the chaos of the twenty-something’s journey, a haven from the unknown.
