“THE LOLLIPOP GIRL”

Emma Brown-B.F.A Painting

“I love to rediscover old memories through candid photos. Whether it’s from my life or others, there’s always an endearing story behind each one that I want to explore. Through the use of charcoal, I captured this moment from my childhood, one Halloween night. With me in focus and the background blurred out, the eyes are drawn to the clothes I wear and the position I stand in. My compositions are quiet yet full of life and this piece does just that.”

“SOFIA in Chalkdiki”

Marianna Asimakopoulou- B.F.A. Photography

“I take photographs of my sisters to make up for the fact that I am missing out on so much that is happening in their lives. In a weird way I am also turning to them hoping they will teach me how to live [better] and grow taller.”

“THE CHEROKEE PRINCESS”

Ashley Dunkin -B.F.A. Painting

“Most my life I have withheld my Cherokee identity from people out of fear that I wouldn’t be accepted as such, even though I am an enrolled member in my tribe. Recently, there seems to have been a rise in people falsely claiming Native roots and Cherokee is what people claimed most. With people doing so, it only made me more insecure to say I am Cherokee even though I can point out my lineage on paper. This piece is for those who falsely claim to be Cherokee by saying that their grandmother was a Cherokee princess. This now infamous statement is entirely wrong as very few Natives had princesses and the Cherokees certainly never did. More often than not, there is never any Native ancestry in their family. So, here is their princess.”

“THE BOY”

Taylor Edgerton- B.F.A. Photography

“This body of work is the first set of photographs in an ongoing series of my little brother titled “The Boy”. His entire life, I have called him “The Boy” because he is one of the few we have in our family. As a sibling, you have to develop a personal connection with your younger siblings.

In an effort to learn more about him and understanding, I asked him to write down words that would describe him. He immediately replied with “like adjectives?” I told him yes and he began to write. After giving him some time, I looked up to see he had drawn a web with his name in the middle. At the time, it didn’t shock me to see him struggling to come up with words. However, considering I had not told him the concept for the photo project, the first three words he wrote down shocked me: They were brown, fun, and boy. In that order.

“VALLE DE ÁNGELES”

Andrea Caballero – BFA Painting

For this painting I worked with photographs from when I was around three years old at Valle de Ángeles, a little town forty-five minutes away from where I grew up. We would drive here every other Sunday with my parents to have lunch, and the restaurant we used to go to had a huge playground. A couple years ago the restaurant unfortunately closed down. Through this work I wanted to commemorate this place, and preserve all the childhood memories of playing and running around while waiting for the food to be ready. Despite the restaurant no longer existing, I will always remember being there in that bright pink tracksuit. This painting allowed me to memorialize a small moment, when I was scared to go down the big blue slide, and honor a place where I made so many memories as a child with my family.

“CHILDHOOD MEMORY”

Allen Jaion Powell – B.F.A. Painting

“I like to paint large colorful paintings. I start with a vision and create as I paint. For this painting I utilized my skills from color theory to create a vision of a childhood memory. While creating, I focus on my purpose of my work, hopefully the audience will feel and vision my feelings on the canvas. On this piece the colors aide in re-creating a picture taken in a earlier time in life. Memories immediately are given life through my vision. I used knowledge from studying colors from my painting major to present a moment of joy and my fashion design minor to show some expression by hand sewing.”

“TROUBADOUR”

Juliet Soto B.F.A. Fashion Design, B.F.A. Graphic Design

PHOTOS BY: TIANA ROSE

“I’m a childrenswear designer who’s really bad at art history. But there’s this one corner in art history that I’ve become obsessed with and thats medieval manuscripts. More specifically, the bizarre, nonsensical illustrations on the margins. My collection takes inspiration from the illustrations of these manuscripts to create prints and embroideries.

My dresses are inspired by the boundless imagination of kids and the way they see things in a larger-than-life perspective. Oversized, poofy silhouettes not only feel very dreamy to me but help my desire to create childrens clothes with longer lifespans and take longer to grow out of. That’s also why I try to incorporate adjustability, such as with the bow straps. My goal for the collection was to give the feeling of one of these manuscripts as if a little girl wrote it today. I want it to inspire kids to write their own stories and not care about whether it makes sense to other people or not.“

“MUTT”

Jee Su Kim B.F.A. Photography

“This body of work is dedicated to Ha Ja Hong, my grandmother. I have always been driven to capture genuine images of people that I find myself to be heavily emotionally connected to, and my grandmother is one of those people that I felt a sudden urge of responsibility to narrate and reflect her life through my camera. The works go beyond documenting literal representations and creating more emotionally evocative images through symbolic and abstract imagery to reflect the subject’s inner self. They are intimate reflections of her past, including her childhood and traumatic memories, as well as her lost dreams and desires.”