Senior Thesis: Senior Studio Arts Seminar Group 2

All Galleries

March 31 – April 5, 2025

Opening reception, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 5:00-7:00pm

Montserrat Gallery

disgusting // divine

• Spencer Kall
• Rebecca Killion
• Abigail Phelps
• Julia Siegert
• Louis Staffieri

Shlosberg Gallery

disgusting//divine

• Finnley Lewis

301 Windows Gallery

Autoromanticism

• Erin Survilas

Bare Gallery

We Couldn’t Think of a Title

• Casper Childs
• Domenic Karis

Storage Container

disgusting//divine

• Nik Barry

Montserrat Gallery: disgusting//divine

Our work reimagines traditional techniques through a modern lens, utilizing materials as a means of self-reflection and personal expression. By pushing the boundaries of painting and sculpture, we challenge expectations, questioning how material and form can reflect both individual and collective experience.

Shlosberg Gallery: disgusting//divine

My identity is something that has been permanently formed and shaped by everyone I’ve ever interacted with. I make art to reverse that control–I allow people to interact with a part of myself, and leave an impact on them. I am not the rock on the shore, battered and smoothed by the waves; I am the ocean itself–ever-shifting and impossible to contain. Each piece discusses a different aspect of my identity, and the different ways I have been formed into who I am today.

Take the time to get to know me, and maybe you’ll get to know yourself too.

This exhibition is entirely interactive.

301 Windows Gallery: Autoromanticism

I am a feminist oil painter who focuses on painting the figure in a contemporary sense with historical references. With this show in particular I focused on themes of self-care, mental health, womanhood, and body neutrality. I wanted these works to convince the public to view their bodies with romanticism towards themselves, instead of viewing their body as “good” or “bad”. Bodily neutrality expresses a type of satisfaction within themselves instead of making the attempt to live up to the pressure of constant body positivity and allowing ourselves to feel a sense of normality within ourselves and our bodies functions. I  also referenced traditionally “female” mediums like fabric and ribbon to frame my works. 

Erin Survilas is a feminist oil painter receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Montserrat College of Art in Spring 2025. With her concentration in painting, she also holds minors in curatorial studies, art history, and entrepreneurship. She focuses much of her paintings on ideas of womanhood, femininity, and romanticism. Erin has been a member of the Salem Art Association since 2017 and is currently the Student Liaison Board member. 

This exhibition is visible from the street at 301 Cabot St. Beverly, MA 

Bare Gallery: We Couldn’t Think of a Title

I am continuously terrified of failure. I think this might loop around into the clown infatuation. A clown is meant to fail. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be funny. Even in the case where he fails at failure (i.e. stepping on a rake that fails to rise from the ground) is it now doubly funny for a clown? If it was yourself in your backyard it wouldn’t be particularly funny at all would it? A clown needn’t fear failure, or even failure to fail, as it is his most desirable outcome. A fear of failure is easily linked to fear of the future, and the way my estimated loan payments are shaping up the future definitely seems scary. Maybe this adjacent fear of time passing is what brings me back to the time when I was very young and technology was three-letter acronyms, CRT, VHS, DVD. Maybe that’s why I gravitate toward hours of wrestling outdated wires and wire adaptors to display my work when I could instead live-cast a video from my smartphone to just about any modern television in about 30 seconds. Or maybe I just made all of this up because I needed to write something that sounded smart.

This show portrays the emotions and mental experiences I went through as a child not knowing and discovering I am transgender. Growing up going to all girls camps and doing non-coed sports and activities. I felt like an alien and an outsider. I knew there was something different about me but I could not tell. 

Storage Container: disgusting//divine

You might not know it but right now you are attending a funeral. Take this as a chance to explore what she might have been like. This is the funeral of someone who never was but always will be.  A lady who is nothing but a disappointment; she can’t clean or cook, let alone take care of herself.  She waits for her lover but he never calls. In her fits of madness she creates artwork that feels as crazed and disorganized as she does. Take this chance to get to know her. See her flaws, embarrassing acts. See her love and desperation. See her pain. Let her fail you.