Mazmanian gallery begins senior capstone showings
- Francisco Omar Fernandez Rodriguez
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
By Francisco Omar Fernandez Rodriguez
Arts & Features Editor
The Mazmanian Gallery hosted the reception for the first of the annual series of Capstone Exhibitions. It showcases the work of graduating students from the Department of Art, Design, and Art History.
Andreas Chaniotakis said his work reflects his beliefs about the universe.
“I like to combine new information discovered by science and NASA into my art and think about the extent of creativity that can be in the universe,” Chaniotakis said.
“As we discover more exoplanets and actually get to look at things like that, we’re going to learn more about what the universe actually looks like on the planetary scale,” Chaniotakis added.
Inside the gallery, below his main work are the pieces that led up to it, he said.
His creative process involves drawing the same thing repeatedly until it works, he added.
“If I want to draw something new, or create a new idea, I’ll start small and work up to big,” Chaniotakis said.
He likes to start with pens because not being able to erase keeps him from worrying too much about the piece, he added.
He chose to create new art for this exhibition, he said. Everything shown was made throughout this semester.
“It was a lot of work, but it paid off immensely I think,” Chaniotakis said.
Everyone should go to the rest of the exhibitions as well, he said.
“And leave a doodle at the Doodle Station!” he added. The Doodle Station, part of his work, lets everyone add a doodle to it.
Emily Monaco said her work is centered around childhood. In the winter of 2024 she was inspired to start illustrating a children’s book.
For her capstone, she was torn between two ideas, she said. One was a large scale painting, and the other was the page illustrations, which she settled with.
The concept for the book was teaching children how to recognize and process emotions, she said. There are four different moods shown - joy, sadness, love, and creativity.
It was Art Professor Ellie Krakow who told Monaco she should make her wallpaper, she added.
“And I thought, oh my gosh, I could just recreate my grandma’s wallpaper. So that’s what I did,” Monaco said.
“I want it to be a slice of life, and a slice of a home - which is why it has the coat rack and the lamp and all the photography,” Monaco added.
At first she thought the process would be great, but then she realized there are deadlines, she said.
She didn’t expect the experience to be so collaborative, she added. She got helpful feedback from her classmates.
She felt like she grew as an artist, but by the end of it she was burnt out, she said.
“I think it’s really important that art students have opportunities like this to display their work in a gallery setting,” Monaco said. It teaches them practical skills and it helped her figure out her career path, she said.
Ben Hurney, also known as Bench, said his original plan was to only make artwork about Sandbox, FSAB’s annual end-of-year festival. “I was just gonna try to make Framingham State themed things in Renaissance medieval aesthetics,” Hurney said. He tried to research what medieval aesthetics are, but the medieval time period lasted over 1,000 years across the world, he said. He ended up focusing more on Renaissance fairs, which he also found more interesting, he added. Hurney was surprised Renaissance fairs started as recently as the 1960s, and were inherently political, he said. The fairs had an emphasis on teaching, which made sense for FSU because of our history as a normal school, he added. “All art is political, but I wanted to be intentional with it,” Hurney said. His class met with Krakow a couple weeks into the semester, he said. “That same day she had decided when everyone was going and where in the gallery everyone’s going,” Hurney said. He hoped he would get a specific corner and the first exhibition, and Krakow somehow decided on that exact combination without knowing he wanted it, he added. It was fun to see how it developed and filled the space, because he wasn’t sure how it was going to look at first, he said. The knight, which now takes up most of his piece, was a “middle” addition, Hurney said. Until then, he was just working on the sweaters, he added. [ Editor’s Note: Ben Hurney is the Illustrations Editor for The Gatepost. Emily Monaco is an Assistant Illustrations Editor for The Gatepost. ]
