Studio arts students unveil their senior exhibition ‘Veiled Currents’ at opening reception

In the basement of the Frick Fine Arts Building lives the community of the studio arts department. It is in this basement that many of the student works displayed around Pitt’s campus go through the multi-step creation process. From brainstorming to physical creation, the works that viewers ultimately end up seeing on display has a whole life in the studio arts department basement before it makes it to this display stage. This year, senior studio arts students chose to recognize and honor this “hidden” process in their senior exhibition, “Veiled Currents.”

The department held an opening reception for the show on April 3 at the University Art Gallery in the Frick Fine Arts Building. Students, faculty, families and friends attended for a first look at the works of senior studio arts students, which will remain on display until May 4. 

The exhibition displays various works created by each of the studio arts department’s 22 graduating seniors. The theme centers around removing the “veil” cast upon the studio arts department by shedding light on the creation process that goes into pieces. Students spend the entirety of their senior year in the exhibition course with their fellow final-year studio arts students, developing the theme for the end of year exhibition and planning out what they want the display to look like. 

Delanie Jenkins, the interim chair and adviser of the studio arts department, is part of the team of three faculty members, including Lenore Thomas and Sean Morrissey, who facilitate the senior exhibition course. Reflecting on the theme that she worked with students to choose, Jenkins believes this year’s exhibition is representative of the overall nature of the studio arts department.

“[The studio arts department] doesn’t have a lot of visibility on campus, so there is in some ways this veil on us,” Jenkins said. “So there’s this invisibility of what [students] do. Being seniors, they are in the throes of a stage of development of growth in a really big way, which is where the ‘current’ comes in — it’s electric and it’s charged. This project has been veiled for so long, and we’re finally at the point of emergence.”

Emma Shearer, a senior studio arts major and museum studies minor, has three works on display in the show — “Childhood Memories,” “fading youth” and “Sketchbook Series 1.” She hopes that audiences can resonate with her personal reflections on aging.

“Creating the pieces for this show was a really personal and reflective process for me. My work was inspired by my own journey with understanding and accepting the journey of aging, something that feels so universal yet deeply individual,” Shearer said. “Each piece became a space to reflect, not only on change and loss, but also on growth and transformation. My hope is that people viewing my work can connect with their own experiences of aging, and maybe even begin to see the beauty within it.”

Reflecting on the senior exhibition course students take leading up to the event, Shearer feels that the process of developing this year’s theme brought her and her peers closer together. 

“The process of developing the show’s theme was really collaborative, and it was powerful to see how everyone’s different approaches could still connect to the show,” Shearer said. “That sense of unity made the exhibition feel more meaningful, and I think it also pushed all of us to go deeper with our works.”

Stephanie McBarron, a senior studio arts major, also has three works on display, “I Care Too Much,” “Piece by Piece” and “Fractured Souls.” She agrees with Shearer that the “Veiled Currents” theme represents the diversity of the cohort and enjoyed getting to see all of their works come together at the reception. 

“Senior exhibition allowed me to get to know my classmates and their art more as a whole rather than a few pieces, which was very exciting, especially when all of our work came together in the UAG on hanging day,” McBarron said. “Seeing what connected us thematically as well as how diverse our crafts are helped us come up with the title for the show that provides context for where we all are now, but does not define our work for the future.”

Alongside the main exhibition, Jenkins says that students organized a “Salon des Refusés” of works that were not selected for the show, which was also on display at the reception in the basement of Frick. Arrows placed in the main gallery directed attendees to the vault, where the nonselected works were on display.

Overall, Jenkins feels that this course and process of developing an exhibition is essential in fostering community amongst students as they prepare to graduate. 

“The core group of graduating seniors have been together as a group since last fall,” Jenkins said. “We’re trying to build a community within this class so they help each other as they move out into the world.”

Anyone who missed the opening reception can still see the works on display in the UAG until May 4. Students will also be facilitating walking group tours through the gallery to give a more inside look at their works on Thursday, April 10 and Tuesday, April 15 at noon.