By Angelia Roggie
Features Editor
Swirling colors, devious characters, strong faces and wondrous perspectives of nature were displayed for all to see last Friday.
Senior Thesis Exhibition 2012, sponsored by the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, opened in the Winifred Shortell Kenney Gallery in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. It allowed students and community members to experience the artwork of seven senior visual arts majors.
Each of the artists involved in the creation of the exhibit, which will be shown in the Quick Center through April 14, presented and explained their various displayed pieces from throughout their art career at St. Bonaventure.
Emily Buccilla
“I love creating art because it fills me with a sense of accomplishment that I do not get from such things as doing well on a test or completing a project,” Buccilla wrote in her artist statement. “A finished piece of art is just visual proof of how much hard work and dedication I have put into something.”
Buccilla’s work includes two-dimensional drawings of characters from Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” and a series of black and white drawings of female athletes.
“I wanted to create a series of work that relates to me,” Buccilla said, speaking of her own status as a member the women’s soccer team.
Buccilla, of Pickerington, Ohio, cited her mother, a professional artist, as her inspiration and said she wouldn’t have pursued art if it weren’t for her mother’s encouragement and support.
Tess Hanna
“My art is inspired by everything that is around me,” Hanna said.
The Rochester native said she chooses to work in a “stream of consciousness” to keep her art more playful and imaginative. Her colored-pencil drawings and watercolors also reflect poetic images from nature.
She explained in her artist statement that although she works in a spontaneous way, she learned the direction her art should take from growing up in a religious family.
“My beliefs have shaped me as an artist,” Hanna wrote. “They have taught me to appreciate all of the things that I have been blessed with, to see the magnificence in God’s creation. Natural beauty, the human form and other organic shapes are prominent themes in my work.”
Hanna said she hopes she can teach art and share the joy art has brought her with others.
Matthew Ryan
Ryan’s inspiration came from growing up in Manhattan and always being around art.
“I was also influenced by street art and hip-hop,” he said.
Ryan’s part of the exhibition showcases his sketches, paintings with contrasting colors and several detailed portraits of African-American personalities, writers and artists.
Ryan emphasized his contemporary paintings.
“My abstract work involves very deep colors, which are layered in multi-directional brush stroke,” he said. “The work is then enhanced with lighter colors, such as white, to create more contrast and emphasis to the piece.”
He also explained how music affects his pieces and how it pushes him to bring more creativity into his art.
“When I work, I listen to an array of music that helps me work very quickly and with a lot of energy in order to infuse the painting with as much passion and feeling as possible,” Ryan said. “I feel that as the songs change, my feeling for the composition changes with it.”
Neil Durkin
As a child, Durkin drew doodles and cartoons. With his time at St. Bonaventure, Durkin said his art has been enhanced by his education and the maturity that accompanies adulthood.
“As I have grown older, my taste in art has evolved as well as my skills,” Durkin wrote in his artist statement. “I have to enjoy painting, ink work and other mediums. Painting has especially served a major venue for expressing myself in my recent work.”
Durkin’s artwork in the exhibit features an urban style with graffiti and street art concepts.
“It’s all about existentialism and urban culture,” said Durkin, a Caldwell, N.J. native. “My series attempts to capture the sporadic and hectic feeling of the metropolitan lifestyle.”
Durkin said he wants viewers of his art to feel and experience the energy and attitudes that go along with his artistic process.
Sara Regal
Regal uses her art to help her communicate more effectively and reveal her emotions.
“Rather than communicate through words, I use pictures,” she said.
Regal, of Beachwood, Ohio, said she believes color is a big part of who she is, and she uses color in almost every piece she creates.
“I surround my thoughts and life with colors,” she wrote in her artist statement. “Color breeds joy, color breeds interest. Life is better with color.”
Her part of the exhibition features portraits made with oil paint, a series of detailed drawings of horses and a large canvas depicting a forest near her house.
Regal said she uses bright and energetic colors to make people who see her art happy and to lift their spirits.
Kellyn Kautz
Kautz, of Williamsville, was inspired by her sister’s art and the fantasy characters she drew. She said she would even sneak into her sister’s room to look through her drawings. However, it wasn’t until she was in high school and applying for colleges that Kautz realized she wanted to become a professional artist.
“There was a pit in my stomach every time I applied for a different major,” Kautz wrote in her artist statement. “Finally, I had to admit to myself there is nothing I would rather do for the rest of my life than be a professional artist.”
It was with this goal in mind Kautz decided to study art and the anatomy of the human form, which appears in her zombie-themed exhibit.
“I started practicing the human form, but then the zombies started to merge with my character artwork,” she said.
Kautz’s ultimate career goal is to become a character designer for any entertainment form, and her experimentation with human anatomy and dark colors led to her eerie figures made in acrylic paint, ink and watercolors.
“By using color combinations that do not look appealing together and creating a dingy look with dark colors, a normal human figure can look more sinister than it actually is,” Kautz said.
Alexandria Stephen
With her background of dance and figure skating, Stephen said she brings lyrical flow and graceful movement to all her pieces.
Stephen’s artwork illustrates the beauty of water and its natural elements. With her paints and pastels she creates canvases inspired by Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies.” Her own series she calls “Water of Dreams.”
“The element of water is the focus of the majority of my paintings,” she wrote in her artist statement. “Water is affected by its surroundings and can portray a variety of emotions. The waves can range from calm to rapid, evoking our emotions.”
Stephen, of Kenmore, said she pushes herself to express her emotions through her work and chooses colors and shapes that will stir up a wide range of feelings. She also hopes people who see her art will come to better understand the world in which we live.
“The beauty of the world inspires me, and my goal is to inspire others to acknowledge and appreciate the beauty and elegance that nature holds,” Stephen said.
Reflecting on gifted artists
The senior artists have worked toward this moment throughout their education. With their creations on display for the next three weeks, each student artist is thankful for what he or she has achieved.
Ed. Simone, professor of theater and chair of the Department of the Visual and Performing Arts, said the senior artists have made it to this point because of their talents and other great elements provided to them.
“I don’t really know exactly what talent is — how to define it,” Simone said. “I understand potential. I understand vision. And I understand hard work. I think the art produced by our seven gifted artists is the result of actualizing their potential through hard, dedicated work, the excellent instruction and guidance they received from faculty mentors, and working in a spiritually rich environment that supports the creation and study of art.”
roggieac10@bonaventure.edu
