The Guilford College Art Department presents works by nine art majors in the 2021 Senior Thesis Art Exhibition, titled WEATHER. Exhibition held in the Bauman Galleries and McMichael Family Atrium, 2nd floor, Founders Hall, April 7th – May 8th.
The Art Department at Guilford College is a fine arts studio program, which provides an in-depth experience in making images and formulating and crafting ideas. Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Sculpture, Photography and Ceramics are the primary focus areas. The classroom/studio is highly interactive and dynamic, and provides one-on-one instruction and guidance, as well as the support and stimulation of interchange with classmates. The distinction of the art major at Guilford College lies in the development of each student’s creative potential.
To participate in the optional honors Senior Thesis Exhibition, students must apply in their junior year and have at least a 3.25 GPA in art. Selected students partake in a rigorous program of independent work, group critiques, and a required professional practices component, which culminates in their final group exhibition.
Participating artists and their areas of specialization are:
Julia de Wit: Born half dead in Tzaneen, South Africa, Julia de Wit now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and explores folklore, symbolism, life and death in her analog prints. Julia’s time at Guilford College has manifested in a Bachelor of Arts in printmaking and a master of none attitude towards many things, like ultimate frisbee and theology.
John Ellis: Born in Atlanta, GA, John Ellis is a Bachelor of Fine Arts candidate with a focus in drawing. His work explores abstraction through the addition and/or subtraction of instinctually repeated marks across a surface. In this sense, a final composition is reliant on (and serves as evidence of) his emotional state during the process. 100,000 circles or 100,000 tiny dashes, the same.
Alana Harrelson: Born and raised in Winston Salem, North Carolina, Alana Harrelson is a candidate for a Bachelor of Arts in Photography with a double major in Environmental Studies. Her project, Generational Waste, shows the realities and consequences of overconsumption as well as the control it can have over our lives. Through her photographic work, she tells personal and familial stories of struggling with stuff.
Tim McElroy: Born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, Tim McElroy is a Bachelor of Arts candidate majoring in Art with a focus in Sculpture and a minor in Physics. His thesis combines his passion for human interaction and furniture, along with the use of found objects and basic woodworking and welding techniques. He aims for reactions outside of the norm when it comes to chairs and tables.
Emma Sarver: Born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, Emma Sarver is a Bachelor of Fine Arts candidate with a focus in printmaking. Emma’s prints are mixed-media, using photography as a compositional starting point before incorporating collage and sewing. By means of repetition, size, and color, her large-scale print installations become abstracted, pushing viewers to question just what they are looking at. Emma wants people to feel consumed when looking at her prints-no matter where they look, the patterns are all they will see
Willow Stevenson: Mesmerized and inspired by the landscape of Western North Carolina, Willow Stevenson started making pottery and animations to capture the magic of the Appalachian mountains she grew up in. The relationship between her animations and ceramic vessels conveys the inextricable connections between humans and nature and the ways in which people affect the land and the ways in which land affects people. Willow is a Bonner Scholar, a part of the Guilford College Honors program, and is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with a focus in Drawing and Environmental Studies.
Hazel Wechsler: Hazel Wechsler grew up in the mountains around Boonsboro, Maryland, and is a Bachelor of Arts candidate in painting. Since childhood, drawing and painting have been her best way to make sense of things. Her large scale paintings are emotional experiences made into physical scenes, ones you could imagine stepping into. Hazel explores how art and surrealism can help move us further into the truth of confusing feelings and dynamics and help us explain them to ourselves and others in new ways.
Lily Wieleba: Durham, North Carolina based artist, Lily Wieleba began etching in her sophomore year of college and is now a Bachelor of Arts candidate focusing in Printmaking. Working with intaglio methods Lily creates small, intricate, autobiographical prints that explore her memories of places, people, and points of time that give her a sense of comfort and sanctuary. Highly detailed nature motifs are a common element.
Carolyn Worley: Brought up in Falls Church, Virginia, and the Adirondack Mountains in New York, Carolyn Worley began her creative journey through dance. In college she came to sculpture, and found her intuitive medium – clay. She is a Bachelor of Fine Arts Candidate with a focus in ceramics. This project highlights her process of collecting and processing her own wild clay. She sculpts this material from the images embedded in her mind from time spent in nature. Carolyn fires the pieces in a wood kiln, allowing the fire’s mark to have the final touch on her art. Through her process and creations, she hopes to show that we are all connected, that everything you touch is made of earth – including yourself.
