Meraki

Reception: March 23rd, 5–8pm

Gallery Hours
M-F, 11:30am–2:30pm
Sat, 12–5pm

Featuring: Jes Banta (Norwich, CT), Lauren Carroza (Rockaway, NJ), Erin McLaughlin (Cheshire, CT), Alessandra Hansen (New Haven, CT), Samantha Wyckoff (Lawrenceville, NJ), Lynnett Perez (Boston, MA), Tessa Storm Jacques (Ellington, CT), Johnathan Good (Mansfield, MA).

Montserrat College of art is proud to announce Meraki: A senior show exhibition featuring eight graduating illustration majors. Meraki by definition means the soul, creativity or love you put into something; the essence of yourself put into your work. Each work made by the artist exhibits the passion they place within their work through their medium and subject matter.

Jes Banta creates factual pieces that are influenced by shape and form in her digital pieces. She features a lot of medical subjects geared for medical magazines and informational posters. Lauren Carozza explores the American mythology that has helped shape the culture we know today. These narratives include both obscure and classic American tall tales, alien encounters, urban legends, and folk heroes portrayed from a playful, colorful point of view. She works primarily in watercolor and gouache. Erin McLaughlin is a digital children’s illustrator focusing on narrative work and design for kid’s books and products. Driven by the relationships between kids and the world around them, Erin hopes to create children’s books that nurture young art and creativity. Samantha Wyckoff uses traditional ink with digital coloring to design book covers and patterns. Her work features horror and her passion for both insects and arachnids. She uses small marks to build texture and value while using color for mood. Lynnett Perez focuses on narrative with an emphasis on character design. Their work is designed to give viewers a sense of joy and playfulness using color and subject matter.
Alessandra Hansen is an illustrator whose work reflects their interest in both the beautiful and bizarre. Their watercolor paintings take ordinarily mundane subjects and give them a strange, paranormal twist. Their work begs the viewer to do a double take. Tessa Storm Jacques delves into the adaptation, mutation, and transformation of animals in a post-apocalyptic world. With a setting of strange and harsh climate changes, she explores the world and the challenges the creatures of earth would need to adapt to, or die. Focusing primarily on conceptual art, Tessa’s work involves hours of research and careful studying, carefully painted in gouache, ink, and watercolor. Johnathan Good is a historic-oriented illustrator. The goal of his work is to create engaging, painterly compositions that share his passion for history, and give viewers at least a twinge of curiosity about the ancient world.