W&L’s Staniar Gallery Presents ‘Undercurrents’ The senior thesis exhibition will be on view from March 23 through April 10.

By Emily Innes Stanley
March 23, 2026

Washington and Lee University’s Staniar Gallery is pleased to present “Undercurrents,” the 2026 Senior Thesis Exhibition, on view in the Lenfest Center for the Arts from March 23 through April 10, with artist talks and a reception slated for 5:30 p.m. on March 23.

The exhibition and opening reception events are free and open to the public.

“Undercurrents” will feature the work of graduating studio art majors Jordan Hoover ’26, Katie Lawson ’26, Elka Prechel ’26 and Teresa Yoon ’26. The senior thesis exhibit is a requirement of the studio art major at W&L and builds upon the work started during the students’ junior seminar. Over the past year, this group of student artists has worked independently on a body of work that serves as the culmination of their undergraduate education.

As their debut into the art world, this exhibition allows the graduating seniors to display their work in a professional gallery setting and join an artistic lineage with prominent artists such as Minjeong An and Matt Eich.

Below, the students share, in their own words, the processes behind their featured works.

Jordan Hoover

I create moody black and white photographs with layered multiple exposures of portraits and landscapes to explore human connection with nature. In digital post-production, I merge portraits of my friends into places I’ve called home, from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Massachusetts. My work expresses our intimate ties to the natural world and how nature can carry memory. By merging my personal relations with the environment, I create a visual depiction of belonging, where both become inseparable in forming our perspective. I layer eyes with scenery to show how we see and are seen by the places that sustain us. These images are printed [in] large [scale] for the viewer to confront their own responsibility to nature — to take care of it and to not take it for granted.

Katie Lawson

I create colorful acrylic and soft pastel paintings that use layering and textured brushwork to depict solitary figures in domestic spaces. I strive to bring into view invisible narratives of authentic human existence while also communicating with sarcasm and irony – celebrating the humor and imagination that gives people hope. These pieces incorporate layers of brushwork, expressive mark-making and intense elements of texture. I build texture into the shadows of my figures, use silicone combs to create stripes and distort color to emphasize disorder and invite reflection. I attempt to explain emotion behind subtle visual cues and explore raw expressions. These characters evoke honesty, sadness, worry, resilience and strength. In my explorations I emphasize shadows to allude to characters’ inner turmoil, but I also play with the shadows and textures as a release from the serious and severe. I strive to bring characters to a relatable place with exaggeration, humor and sarcasm.

Elka Prechel

My current studio practice centers on the intersection of gestural figuration and abstraction to explore the ever-changing perception of memory and the experience of womanhood. Within the juxtaposition of controlled and uncontrolled methodology, the paintings and drawings are built through play and experimentation directly on the surface. My work thrives in intense emotional spaces, capturing the feeling and atmosphere of the moment in which it is created. I am interested in the psychological ramifications of what it means to be the person creating or processing art. The combination of my cognitive and behavioral science and studio art majors has allowed me to explore my content on a deeper level, giving tangible substance to back up the thoughts already present.

Teresa Yoon

I created mixed-media installations that explore the relationship between dreams, memory and the unconscious mind. My work investigates how everyday experiences are absorbed, fragmented and reconstructed by the unconscious, often resurfacing through dreams in unfamiliar forms. My work explores this translation across dimensions; just as my painting transcribes three-dimensional experience into two dimensions, my sculptures attempt to suggested four-dimensional space within three. Through contrasts between natural and manufactured materials and between geometric and organic forms, these structures operate like manifolds that mirror the nonlinear logic of dreams. While waking life presents time as linear and Euclidean, dreams unfold in proximity to a fifth dimensional experience that challenges our assumptions about reality.

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For more information about the 2025-26 exhibition and programming schedule, visit Staniar Gallery’s website.

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