B.F.A. Senior Exhibition 2022
The Plattsburgh State Art Museum invites you to join us in celebrating the academic and artistic achievements of the graduating class of 2022.
Jocelyn Acosta
My artwork is a mixture of graphic design and printmaking. With these mediums, I create images that pertain to my heritage and the beliefs I hold. Art is now a way for me to express myself without being verbal, and learning about art therapy has made me realize how helpful this can be for mental growth. Much of my inspiration is from things I learn along the way or topics I am passionate about and want to share. Something unique about my prints is that each one has an image of a close family member, and although others might not know who they are, it is a personal connection for me. My family has helped shape the person I am now and this is something I am grateful for, so this is a way to let them know that they are always on my mind. In my digital prints, I am advocating for a cause I have been struggling to express to my family and not succeeding at. Coming from a Mexican household, meat has been a source of protein for us and choosing to stop eating animals has been tough on my family. I hope that these images will get them and others more aware of these issues I am passionate about, such as animal abuse. Watch Jocelyn Acosta’s introduction.
Morin Bissonette
The physical creation of my artwork is as important to me as the final product. Having my hands moving in wet clay, plaster, and with physical objects is soothing, satisfying, and stimulating. It creates an environment of experimentation where I can dive deeper into my interests in science, the metaphysics of rocks, and psychedelics. In my studio practice I can express in a physical manner what I see in my mind. Watch Morin Bissonette’s introduction.
Sareem Jabbar
My artwork is a reflection of my fluctuating emotional life. I’ve always struggled with understanding my internal self. Creating has helped me recognize and combat my emotions, be it happy, anxious, or frustrated. The work I create embodies the person I want to be. My brighter toned work can represent a fun and positive part of my life, while a darker tone in my work can be a reflection of my difficulties and the progression in learning something about myself. My graphic design and photography allow me to reach both ends of that spectrum in my life. Creating photos is therapeutic, as it’s a chance to access and understand parts of my life I am uncertain about. Graphic design is an enjoyable way to share all the creative ideas I consistently have. Both mediums have become a healthy expression of my feelings, creating an outlet for my emotions. My work is essentially a self-portrait, even if I’m not a literal subject in the piece. Watch Sareem Jabbar’s introduction.
Brian Keach
My drawings and paintings have become more interrelated this past year. I choose to work from direct observation because it allows me to be more responsive, and capture the psychology of the individual through their physical presence. The treatment of the figures is focused on their individual personalities. The people represented all share a personal connection that allows me to depict them as I see them. The still life offers me a more compositional space that emphasizes the sense of atmosphere and movement in the environment. Watch Brian Keach’s introduction.
Kailey Maher
My artwork mirrors a twin-flame magnetic polarity of mediums; stone and ceramics, pushing against and pulling within. They allow for the expression of my form — an undulating essence of consciousness, a beginning and a beginning-again. Each work reflects the effects of time — shaping and reshaping, not in minutes and seconds, but a living lifetime of transformative movements of contractions and expansions intertwined in the nature of the self; ever-exposing the causeways of a life lived, unlived and yet-lived. In these veins of life, my raison d'etre runs, giving way to what is hidden within and what is exposed without. Watch Kailey Maher’s introduction.
Elara Martin
I am a visual storyteller. What drives me to create stories stems from a passion to connect with and understand the world around me. It is fueled by memory, emotion, and is inspired by the diversity of the human experience. With my paintings, I bridge the relationship between line and form, creating a juxtaposition of my internal dialogue with reality. Similarly, my printmaking and book-making process focuses on illustrative art, centered around a particular concept or feeling. One theme that transcends all my art is a cinematic narrative, rooted in the psychology of the figure in a given environment. Overall, my art helps me express ideas, thoughts, and feelings that are difficult to articulate. With it, I hope to inspire others to reflect on what it is that makes them feel alive. Watch Elara Martin’s introduction.
Kelsey Rambach
My art is dystopian mirror on how the world around us affects our mental state of being. Now more than ever our world has seen numerous crisis that have changed everyone’s perspective whether we understand it or not. Fear and anxiety can cause one to hesitate in our interaction with the world around us, and I want to capture that moment of hesitation.
While my design and painting may be different on the surface, with my painting being more portraiture based and my design more illustrative, there is an underlying thread that connects them. Whether this is through the emotions I am feeling at the time of making each piece or something more obvious like color palette, each piece tells a story and is a reminder to the viewer that they are not alone in what they are going through. Watch Kelsey Rambach’s introduction.
Nghi To
Through my art, I aim to explore the emotions and experiences tied to my childhood, family, and home. I believe that these aspects of my life reflect the truest and most crucial part of my identity.
With graphic design, I utilize playful colors, lines, and visual storytelling to build empathetic, human-driven products for children and child-like adults. Through my work, I revisit and celebrate the vulnerability and creativity of my childhood by allowing myself to play, to express emotions and to find joy in the process.
With printmaking, I employ a meditative reduction process to create tender images that reflect my Vietnamese roots. These images allow me to build a home thousands of miles away from home, come to terms with my grief and longing for family, and honor my country by representing our traditions.
Although different, the mediums shown in this exhibition are my way of creating space for my culture, my family, my history, for everything I have loved and lost, for myself, and for everything I will become. I look both inward and outward to find my place within the world and to bring positivity to it, little by little. Watch Nghi To’s introduction.
Mollie Ward
This collection of work is an examination of my relationship with my body and the parts of myself I feel insecure about. My studio practice is driven by these feelings. The two mediums I work with offer different iterations of the same internal conversation. With varying levels of description and abstraction, this work is self referential. While I draw from content from my experiences, the process of self reflection allows the pieces to shift and become an acknowledgement and a celebration of what I struggle with as a woman in contemporary culture. I am creating objects to hold this discomfort, removing it from my physical body altogether, ultimately creating an object of celebration. Watch Mollie Ward’s introduction.
