Mazmanian Gallery hosts final senior capstones

Adrien Gobin / THE GATEPOST

By Francisco Omar Fernandez Rodriguez Arts & Features Editor The Mazmanian Gallery hosted the last two senior capstone showings on April 29 and May 6. It showcased the work of graduating students from the Department of Art Design and Art History. Jordan Mitri, Sarah Gatti, Ari Pagan-Colecchi, and Alex DaSilva showcased their work on April 29. Mitri made a T-shirt collection called “BASH.” It was influenced by his favorite brand, Vans, he said. He had a document full of his inspirations and ideas he wanted to emulate, he said. From that he created designs to put on the shirts. The capstone process was enjoyable, he added. “I really liked working on something I got to choose, and I got to do whatever I want,” he said. He added it was also stressful toward the end of the project. Gatti worked on a piece on emotions. She used a survey to ask people about joy, anger, and grief, and used the answers to create wall vinyls, she said. The project was very user experience focused. The capstone process was long and stressful, but also good, she added. “I think it’s good that we had a lot of creative freedom to be able to kind of do what we want,” she said. Once everyone got their ideas they received guidance from their class professor, and then worked with a secondary professor, she added. There was a lot of creative freedom but also a lot of guidance to keep everyone on track, she said. According to the plaque by her work, her interest is “in the intersection between design and psychology,” and how subtle visuals can evoke different feelings. Pagan-Colecchi worked on comic book covers. Each cover is based on the superhero character they designed, “Big Cat,” they said. Underneath them are descriptions of what the story would be if they were real comics, they added. Their inspiration came from music, they added. “It doesn’t really matter what song it was - it just felt like I should be drawing the superhero character I had,” they said. They didn’t have an idea at first, which was stressful, they said. Being able to work on it outside of class time helped. “I did cut it a little close toward the end, but everything turned out really good and we’re all happy with it, and I’m just glad that it’s up on the wall now,” they said. DaSilva worked on an extension of his previous zine work, called “M.A.N.I.A” (“Music, Art, News, Interviews, And more”). It’s a video montage of his work that’s displayed on an old TV he collaged, he said. He wanted it to reflect himself, by going segment by segment and thinking about how he wanted to get his message across, he said. Setting up the project was easy, except for moving the TV around, he added. He got it into May Hall and used the elevator to get it to the top floor, he said. But when the elevator broke for the rest of the semester, getting the TV to the gallery became a problem. “Thankfully these two guys helped me lug it down, and we got it on a cart and moved it over here,” he said. The video is on a VHS tape, which meant he had to “fiddle around with it a lot,” he added. According to the plaque by his work, “M.A.N.I.A” started as a collection of media held together by folded paper, but he wanted to evolve it to be more than that. Chris Alano, AJ Reinhardt, Matthew Boivin, and Shane Lacombe showcased their work on May 6. Alano made a concert and merch kiosk stand for a fictional shoegaze rock band “Surreal Echoes.” He listened to and researched shoegaze music for the project, he said. “This project was good. I had fun with it. It took me a lot of time and money to get all the equipment I needed,” he said. According to the plaque by his display, he has attended several concerts before and wanted to express his love for music while showcasing his graphic design skills. He wanted viewers to feel like they’re at a concert venue. Other than the band or singer performing, buying their merchandise is what he most looks forward to, the plaque read. They’re memories to him. Reinhardt made animations that focus on mental health and emotions, he said. He combined this project with his honors thesis into animations about cats and mental health, he said. According to the plaque by his work, it’s titled “Fantasy Cats.” The capstone project is a set of four animations, and when combined with the honors thesis adds up to eight in total. He wanted the animations to help people show what they’re feeling if they have trouble verbally explaining it, his plaque read. The process was challenging sometimes, he said. “Animations take a lot longer than I thought they would take,” he said. Even short clips take a lot of hand-drawn frames, he added. Boivin made a zine made out of three comics. Each comic focuses on different stages of his life, he said. They go from his childhood, to middle school, and to the present. They show different stories about himself that he thinks other people can connect with, he said. Copies of the zine were available. He’s proud of what he created, he added. “It was a very strenuous process for sure, trying to get all the layout correct, but it was definitely very fun,” he said. The capstone process was very collaborative, he said. Everyone helped each other come up with ideas and get what they wanted out of it. It was inspiring to watch other people’s processes, he added. “While sometimes it was definitely very frustrating, like trying to get certain things to work, I think we all really came together in the end and made amazing capstones,” he said. Lacombe made a series of posters to depict a dystopian cyber world, he said. He made two different perspectives of the world, he added. “There’s the very regal, large posters on good fabric that a wealthy person would see, and the more beat-up pushpin board with graffiti that a struggling lower-income person would see,” he said. It uses graphic design to tell a story, he added. He did research on movies such as “Blade Runner” and books like “1984” to create his fictional world, he said. Once he had a story and lore made, he picked out parts to find the main aspects of it, he said. He liked being able to show what he’s capable of through the project, he added.