W&L’s Staniar Gallery Exhibits Senior Art Projects Each spring, the W&L art department showcases the senior theses of studio majors in a professional gallery setting.

By Erica Turman
March 13, 2019

Washington and Lee University’s studio art majors will present their senior projects in an exhibition that opens in Staniar Gallery on March 28. The show will be up through April 5, with a reception for the artists in Lykes Atrium, Wilson Hall on the W&L campus on March 28 at 4:30 p.m.

At the reception, which is free and open to the public, each student artist will give a brief gallery talk.

Each spring, the W&L art department showcases the senior theses of studio majors in a professional gallery setting. This year’s show features a variety of media by six artists.

For example, W&L senior Mary Catherine Greenleaf ’19 draws on her dual majors in studio art and computer science to explore digital storytelling for her project, with a video game that invites viewers to play through the same series of events, retold from multiple points of view and different perspectives. In his mixed media collages, Michael Kerr ’19 highlights the significance our society places on celebrity culture. Working in painting, drawing, collage and poetry, Iman Messado ’19 poses questions about what it means to be a part of a community and how past generations shape one’s identity. Brianna Osaseri ’19 will present her comic book “Avalon” in which two siblings who are growing up in a secluded Japanese fishing village experience trauma that transforms how they see the world. Also exploring comics as an artistic medium, Brittany Osaseri ’19 will exhibit her graphic fiction “Forsaken” whose main characters struggle with issues of abandonment and acceptance of their identities. In her photographs of flowers, Julia Schloss ’19 uses the garden as a metaphor for the life cycle as she explores notions of growth and death.

Staniar Gallery is located on the second floor of Wilson Hall, in Washington and Lee University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts. Gallery hours are Mon. through Fri., 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call 540-458-8861.