Seniors showcase their final projects in Art Thesis
Renee Lorenz
Staff Writer
Capstone projects are a daunting reality for every graduating senior, but for Carroll senior art majors, their final projects bring about their own unique set of challenges.
“The technical side of taking the photographs-- it was very traditional, with film instead of digital,” said senior art major Sarah Gallagher.
While Gallagher, who focused her sixteen-photograph series on farmlands in Wisconsin, had to overcome slightly more unusual obstacles, the dedication she put into her series holds true for her fellow exhibitors. Four graduating art majors, Erik Grau, Aaron Trochlell, Sarah Gallagher, and Marie Roberts, spent between nine months and over a year blending a dose of passion, drive, and meticulous care to assemble the bodies of work that have become their culminating artistic experiences at Carroll.
As a part of their capstone project, every senior art major gets a chance to present their work at a gallery show. Due to the low number of graduating art majors, this semester’s students were fortunate enough to experience that on a greater scale.
“This year, we just have two students in each spring show,” said art professor, Amy Cropper. “It was great. They not only got a show, but they got to use half the gallery.”
For Erik Grau, whose Decide series was shown alongside fellow senior Aaron Trochlell, the exhibition offered an opportunity to showcase a message of animal rights.
“My Decide series is about factory farming, which is where most of our meat comes from in the United States,” said Grau. “The animals are notoriously treated pretty poorly. That was pretty much the driving force behind the series, and that series tells the story of those animals’ lives.”
In addition to bringing his cause to the forefront, Grau was also able to spotlight his personal artistic achievements.
“I’ve never welded before, so that was kind of an interesting area to explore,” said Grau. “I was so excited, and I was really happy to show with Aaron too, because I respect his work a lot.”
Trochlell’s portrait series featured people he knew portrayed in an historic American context.
“It was difficult, I’d say especially just the painting in general, because I chose to do a new naturalistic style of painting,” said Trochlell. “Skin tone is not just straight-out-of-the-tube. For example, for one of my skin tones I mixed blue, yellow, white, and red, and that gives you a more realistic skin tone. So I kind of had to experiment and try new things.”
Despite the trials that come with any unfamiliar undertaking, the goal of working towards the final exhibition was a motivating factor for Trochlell.
“It was a lot of work, but it was nice because it pushes you to finish,” he said. “I think it was rewarding, when you’re done, and see them all in the gallery.”
Grau and Trochlell’s exhibit has since come down, after running for two weeks through April 20 in the Rowe Art Gallery. Taking its place starting April 27, will be Gallagher and Roberts’ senior theses, an event that both artists have been long anticipating.
“I started preparing for the series in June,” said Gallagher.
“I’ve lived in Wisconsin my whole life. I had moved away to California for a couple years, and then I came back and started noticing, ‘Oh, that store wasn’t here before,’ or, ‘so-and-so’s farm is for sale,’ so I think I was just wanting to find out more of what was happening in my community.”
Choosing the farm landscape as the subject matter for her series wasn’t necessarily a motivation, however. For Gallagher, the theme drew her attention on its own.
“It was getting to a point where you couldn’t help but see what was happening,” she said. “You start talking to the people, and realize there’s a story behind what’s happening there.”
While very much of a contrast in outward appearance, Gallagher and Marie Roberts’ work should prove to be a complementary pairing. Though Roberts works more with abstract concepts, both artists were almost instinctively drawn to their series themes.
“My work is really intuitive,” said Roberts. “I just kind of start playing off colors and texture. I go through multiple layers before I’m happy with it, and then I decide to take it in a certain direction. I really cherish my little pieces a lot, because I had freedom to really figure out what I wanted to do, find out what colors I liked working with, and then I could take that and use it in the larger pieces.”
It didn’t take too long for Roberts to develop a comfortable rhythm, though.
“It’s been an interesting process,” she said. “I just kept going, working at it every day, and then it just became kind of a normal routine. It was just more natural. It was nice to have that freedom.”
Regardless of the time spent or obstacles that had to be overcome, there is something to be said for the incredible amount of perseverance and esteem each senior put into their work. For these four artists, the senior projects were not merely vast bodies of work that consumed weeks of their lives. Rather, the pieces have a distinct quality in their ability to both illuminate and reflect the intricacies of the lives that created them—something easily recognizable in the pride each one exudes when talking about their finished product.
“We’re really proud of them,” said Cropper. “It’s a really big deal, and they really rose to the challenge.”