EMU School of Art and Design senior students shed light on diversity and representation through many forms of artwork featured in the upcoming capstone exhibition, Down the Rabbit Hole.
All students in the School of Art and Design take a capstone course before they graduate. The course is designed to teach students the business aspects of art and help prepare them for their career after graduation. Students spend the semester putting together a gallery to display all of the pieces they’ve worked on that semester.
Current capstone student Paris Stinson described the class as a great opportunity for art students because not only does it prepare them for careers post-graduation, it also helps them step into their professional careers with the gallery.
The exhibition brings together the different works of every student in the class. The gallery will have many paintings, prints, 3D art and sculptures, graphic design work and even video games.
“When I came into this class, I was really confused on how we were going to mesh all of these different artists and styles together," said Paige Funcion, a student in the capstone class. "I’m a sculpture artist, we have multiple 2D, multiple SAG people, and graphic design. I was really wondering how we were going to mesh all this together and I think it created this really fun, immersive, whimsical gallery experience.”
The gallery will run from Nov. 24 through Dec. 12 in the Ford Gallery located in Ford Hall. The public reception will be held Wednesday, Dec. 10, from 4:30-7:30 p.m. Ford Gallery is open Tuesday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“The students in the show had full control over what they wanted to put in the show," said Ryan Molloy, professor of this semester's capstone class and graphic design professor at EMU. "I think some groups in the past — and I think this is where every capstone class is a little bit different — have done a much more specific curatorial [gallery]. This class kind of did it in a more open-ended fashion which I think in a way gave them a little bit more autonomy."
All of the students in the exhibition have different intentions with their art and their careers post-graduation.
Stinson said her work is meant to represent the Black community.
“What I’ve noticed taking these classes, and learning about art history is that there isn't a lot of Black representation," Stinson said. "Even though Black artists have always been there, we just have never had our stories told. So I was noticing that and it was also just being a Black person myself, finally emerging into the space myself, seeing how people treat me with the different environments I’m in."
Stinson said her work representing the Black community is only the beginning. She intends to pursue a career in art administration as a means to bring more diversity into gallery spaces.
Oil painter and print maker Maddison Wells’ work explores femininity and feminism.
"The colors are really bright and saturated, I like to talk about deep, dark things in the opposite way [being] really bright and colorful to make you really sit with yourself and reflect," Wells said. "The boundary that I like to push is highlighting all of the things that women are told not to talk about. I hate to call them taboo because they’re not taboo to females, but unfortunately, to society they are. So anything involving birth, periods, puberty, weirdness, all of those things, even mental health. The biggest take away is that you feel seen."
3D artist Funchion works with metals and wood, focusing on materialism and making natural elements work together. Funchion describes wood and metal-working as a male-dominated practice, so her goal is to bring out the more intricate and delicate feminine aspects of the work.
Additionally, the exhibition will feature drawings and student-made video games from Simulation, Animation and Gaming students.
“Art is beautiful because it can be defined without words," Stinson said. "You can look at a painting and just feel it, you don’t always have to have someone describe it to you. Our stories deserve to be told."
