The BW Senior Art Exhibition, “A Journey In Pieces,” will host its closing reception on March 19 in Fawick Gallery for attendees to have the opportunity to meet the senior studio art major students whose art is featured in the gallery.
Ben Lambert is an assistant professor of art, and one of the three professors who taught the senior seminar for the exhibition. He is one of the professors that “guides and supports the process of professional practices and real-life experiences that artists would expect when they graduate.”
“These artists are going to be sharing their work with galleries or submitting to competitive shows. They need to have good documentation of their work,” Lambert said.
Lambert said this year’s theme is reflective of how personal each student’s artwork is in the exhibition.
“Some of it is relatively personal, but there’s parts of their lives that they show to certain people, other parts that they either keep to themselves or show different parts of their lives. They might share certain things with their friends, really, that they wouldn’t share with their family and vice versa…the ‘journey in pieces’ could also reveal or point to the fact that their formal output is multiple pieces combined together,” Lambert said.
Joey Downey, a senior studio art and music major, said the theme reflects the quite literal journeys that he and his fellow classmates are conveying through their work. For instance, his artwork reflects his sexuality and coming out and coming to terms with authentic self-expression. In his work, “Which Me to Lose?” It reflects the person before and after revealing your sexuality as well as his life-changing decision of whether to stay in the US or move to the UK due to his long-distance relationship.
Lambert said some advice he would give to incoming freshmen exploring the arts is to encourage them to enroll in the available art courses offered at BW as well as to communicate and ask questions about the art community and how to become more involved.
“Just knowing about some of the regular events that happen in Cleveland can be a great way to segue into that community. For example, there’s the THIRD FRIDAY Art Walk at 78th Street Studios…there’s a lot of really wonderful supportive art communities within Cleveland,” Lambert said.
Downey said while creating art at BW, there have been so many “life lessons and character-building moments.”
“There’s so many opportunities that BW has given me for exploring art and exploring content and process,” Downey said.
Max Carrier, a senior studio art major said something that he learned while at BW that he will take with him when he graduates and attends graduate school is his printmaking skills.
“I’ll be taking all my sketches and sketchbooks that I’ve made here and all the art I’ve made…I’ll always keep those and treasure them,” Carrier said.
