Fulton and Margaret Kornack, parents of art and visual culture major Elise Kornack ’09, admire their daughter’s work in wire and graphite on paper during the opening for the Annual Senior Exhibition in the Bates College Museum of Art.

The 2009 Annual Senior Exhibition focuses on the works of 14 artists whose images explore aesthetic issues raised in their training.This exhibition traditionally attracts a large crowd, including students, faculty, staff, parents and members of the community.

Seven studio art majors at Bates are showing work from their yearlong thesis projects in the annual Senior Exhibition, which runs through May 28 in the Bates Gallery, Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St.

The artists are Lindsay Allsop of Concord, N.H.; Brooke Anable of Plymouth, N.H.; Emily Fisken of Thetford Center, Vt.; Yi Xing Hwa of Seremban, Malaysia; Sarah Judice of West Granby, Conn.; Molly Stoddard of Los Osos, Calif.; and Annie Wachnicki of Norwalk, Conn.

Showing through the same period is Josef Koudelka, comprising images by the award-winning Czech photographer. The exhibition showcases Koudelka’s images of Roma (gypsies) living in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and of the Soviet military suppression of the “Prague Spring” liberalization movement in 1968. Bates seniors Julia Knight of Chestertown, Md., and John Phelan of Guilford, Conn., curated the show as part of the Students in the Vault exhibition series.

Admission is free. Regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, please call 207-786-6158 or visit the museum Web site.

Since its dedication, in 1986, the museum has maintained a special relationship with the college’s Department of Art and Visual Culture, expressed in part by its support of studio art majors through the annual Senior Exhibition. As required by the major, those students create a cohesive body of related works through sustained studio practice and critical inquiry. The yearlong process is overseen by studio art faculty and culminates in this exhibition.

Allsop is a painter. “What keeps me working is the process of reworking,” she writes in a statement about her work. “I am looking around and looking through things, exploring not explaining.”

Anable, devoting her thesis to graphic design, created the catalog and a promotional post card for the exhibition. “Synthesizing large quantities of information into a single, clear concept is my goal,” she writes.

Fisken is a photographer. “I have begun to understand wilderness as my own wildness,” she writes. “Tagging teabags with photographs of sensory organs is a way to reflect on the human relationship to wilderness: our eyes, ears, noses and mouths are openings to Otherness — to elements outside of ourselves that we have become increasingly disconnected from.”

Hwa makes prints that make integral use of text. “I am exploring the language of gender, sex and sexuality, particularly the naming of gendered and sexual identities,” she states. “What is expressed and what is repressed? How much of ourselves can we communicate through language?”

Judice makes ceramic pots on the wheel. “These organic forms offer a sense of balance, warmth and inviting comfort,” she says. “They are physical, three-dimensional objects that should be handled, not just looked at from a distance.”

Stoddard uses snapshots, along with throwaway office and art supplies, to delve into our affection for personal snapshots. “There is a strange disparity between the disposable, ‘low-quality’ nature of the typical snapshot and the intensity with which we cherish our photos,” she writes.

Wachnicki is a printmaker. “I am interested in grids, especially when they are used disjunctively — to order organic forms, or when the grids themselves are composed of loose, imperfect lines,” she writes. “I also work in multiples; there is beauty in the subtle differences between images that are printed by hand.”

Twelve art majors cap their Bates College careers with the popular Annual Senior Exhibition, opening with a reception at 7 p.m. Friday, April 9. The exhibit at the Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St., runs through May 30 and is open to the public at no charge.

The exhibition highlights work selected from the thesis projects of graduating seniors majoring in studio art. The program emphasizes the creation of a cohesive body of related works through sustained studio practice and critical inquiry. The yearlong process is overseen during the fall semester by Assistant Professor of Art Pamela Johnson, and during the winter semester by Senior Lecturer in Art Robert Feintuch, who also curates the exhibit and oversees its installation.

In alphabetical order, here are the exhibiting artists:

Julia Allen of St. Paul, Minn., has made cups, bowls and vases of porcelain, exploring varying degrees of distortion in order to find forms that imply fluid motion.

Sarita Fellows of Natick, Mass., has used Nigerian printed fabric as a source of inspiration for intensely colored abstract paintings and etchings.

Jon Greer of Chester, N.H., has worked with abstraction, space and light in his monochromatic paintings of fragmented images of the figure.

Using manipulated and anthropomorphic forms, Paul Heckler of Cross River, N.Y., has made a group of high-fired reduction stoneware teapots.

Alison Locke of Troy, Maine, has done a group of paintings of Martha Stewart that evoke journalistic photography and address Stewart’s multifaceted and controversial image.

Working with images of furniture, Graham Macbeth of Ellsworth, Maine, has made paintings and monotypes that play with ideas of geometric abstraction and representation.

Meredith Nutting of Rockville, Md., has used forms found in tree branches as the basis of abstract paintings that explore color interaction and spatial relationships.

Helen O’Donnell of Mount Desert, Maine, has used etching and drypoint to make images that combine handwritten text, abstract imagery and cartoons, and that question traditional ideas of content and meaning.

Through her work in ceramics, Caitlin Reiter of Mystic, Conn., investigates textured surface patterns in a series of monochromatic functional forms that are hybrids of bowls and trays.

In digital photographs that stress color, Elizabeth Sall of Villanova, Pa., shows still-lifes that she found in domestic situations.

Annie Schauer of Louisville, Ky., has made black-and-white photographs of interiors and landscapes that evoke notions of absence and presence.

K-Fai Steele of Charlton, Mass., is interested in the intersection of banality, humor and awe. Her work in the fall semester culminated in the large-scale installation Me and Jesus in the Perry Atrium. Her more recent work uses a structure inspired by dollhouses.

The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and is closed Sundays and major holidays. For additional information call 207-786-6158.

Rachel Cochrane, of Belfast, Maine, will exhibit small drypoints that include self-portraits and portraits of friends.
Nine painters are among the exhibitors. Elizabeth Calihan, of Wilmette, Ill., has worked on a series of nudes based on compositions she cropped from Rubens’ “Shivering Venus.”

Aidan Earle, of Peterborough, N.H., is showing large paintings that combine abstraction with perspectival architectural images. Her most recent work makes connections between conflicting or contradictory forms of representation.

In his self-portraits, Brent McCoy, of Hardwick, Vt., combines “realistic” figurative depictions with ironic or satirical elements to poke fun at various facets of masculinity.

Chloe Ottenhoff, of Alma, Mich., has used ink and paint on burlap in self-portraits that explore identity, mood and intimacy in ways that are familiar and disturbing.

Constanze Pirch, of Hartberg, Austria, has painted monochromatic abstract images in a large square format. Her work combines symmetrical Islamic patterns, handwriting and bright color.

Nathan Rogers, of San Anselmo, Calif., makes mixed-media paintings that focus on natural forces and the passage of time in everyday life.

Coming to Bates from Surrey, England, Shana Small uses portraiture as a means to make dramatic, visually intense paintings. These use black and white to focus on the planar structure of the face and to simplify form.

Julia Stawiski, of Grand Rapids, Mich., shows abstract paintings and drawings focusing on the rhythmic unification of color and line.

Jane Marshall, a painter from Boise, Idaho, has grappled to find a fresh way of depicting classical Greek statuary. She combines geometric compositional elements, painterly surfaces and drawings from classical sculptures.

Two students are showing photographs. Katherine Austin, of Shaker Heights, Ohio, has made large color images of friends and family that emphasize unguarded, intimate moments.

For his thesis project, Robert Hyde, of Gloucester, Mass., has made 12 black and white photographs of Lewiston-area locations that invoke an atmosphere of commercial and industrial abandonment.

In sculpture and ceramics, Ryan Champagne, of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has made pieces that combine body casts with thrown pottery. He will also show photographs that abstract the human figure.

In her modular sculpture Mollie Holt, of Sun Valley, Idaho, uses transparent images of doors that she photographed locally. She hangs the images in otherwise empty Plexiglas cubes.

Kathrene Tiffany, of Boston, bases her ceramics on classic forms from Asian ceramics. Her work includes bowls and vases in porcelain and stoneware.

The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Sundays. For additional information, please call 207-786-6158.

“This year’s senior thesis exhibition includes photographs, sculptural reliefs, geometric abstractions, digitized prints, text-based paintings, sculptures and an installation with an audio component,” says Robert Feintuch, a lecturer in the art department and the seniors’ adviser. “The work addresses a range of subjects and the exhibition reflects the variety of students’ interests. I think it looks terrific in the museum.”

The artists are:
• Krista Chase of Milwaukie, Ore. who made a series of paintings and drawings that investigate natural light, geometric abstraction and a color palette derived from the observation of clouds.

• Elizabeth Coulson of Devon, Pa., with sculptures made from unusual materials such as plungers, peanut butter, feathers and jelly beans.

• Kelly Jackson of York, Pa., who exhibits abstract paintings and drawings that explore the use of printed and handwritten texts as compositional elements.

• Adina Mori of Los Angeles, Calif., who has created a series of black & white photographs depicting Barbie nude. The doll is shown in a variety of poses ranging from a classical nude to a contemporary porn star.

• Megan Simmons of Buffalo, N.Y., whose wall sculptures in silver wire are based on close observations of branches; a related group of prints is based on branches and leaves.

• Jay Surdukowski of Concord, N.H., who has created a multimedia installation from photo-mechanical images, a piano with music floating out, and elements drawn onto the museum wall. The work is a comment on genocide and is based on the structure of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” with 32 graphic pairings that correspond to the musical score.

• Jillian Welenc of Beverly, Mass., who has made enlarged laser prints in response to a note she received from a one-hour photo developer that labeled some of her photographs “unsuitable.” She combines images of the photographs with text to comment on the concept of “unsuitable” in relation to the male and female forms.

Meanwhile, the museum’s Lower Gallery is given over to highlights from the museum collection. Among them are eight Marsden Hartley drawings from the Hartley holdings that the museum was founded to preserve. There are also recent acquisitions, several by Maine artists such as Brett Bigbee, William Thon and Winslow Homer.

Also on display is a work by the 19th-century French artist Jean-Baptiste Corot — a “cliché-verre,” created by scratching an image into a coated glass plate that was then placed on photo-sensitive paper and exposed to light.

The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. and 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Sun. For additional information, please call 207-786-6158.