Montserrat College of Art

Montserrat Alumni Reunion Weekend
2025-09-19 - 2025-09-20 | Massachusetts
Montserrat College of Art is excited to announce an alumni reunion the weekend of September 19-20, 2025.
We’re planning a weekend full of opportunities to reconnect with fellow alumni, faculty, and students, and we’d love for you to be a part of it.
Friday, Sept 19th, 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
A welcome reception will kick off the weekend!
Saturday, September 20th, 8:30 AM – 7:00 PM
Activities all day across campus including:

Engaging workshops
A special lunch at Bonefish Harry’s
Campus tours
Meet and greets/networking opportunities
A closing reception with drinks and music

WEEKEND SCHEDULE
Sign-ups for specific workshops/activities will follow closer to the weekend. Attendees can participate in the full weekend or sign up for specific activities of interest.
Friday, Sept 19, 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM – 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA

04:00 PM – 7:00 PM Welcome Reception Begins with cocktails and a special gift

05:30 PM: Campus Tours – Check out old stomping grounds and see what’s changed in Beverly!

Saturday 8:30 AM – 7:00 PM – Activities all over campus

08:30 – 09:00 AM: Check in– 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA
09:00 – 11:00 AM: Workshops with Montserrat Faculty Session 1*
11:30 – 01:00 PM: Lunch – Private buffet at Bonefish Harry’s, a Montserrat hot spot just steps away from campus!

$20 per person – Feel free to buy tickets for partners or friends!

01:30 – 02:30 PM: Pick and choose activities – Campus Tours, Meet and Greets, Panels/speakers
02:45 – 04:45 PM: Workshops with Montserrat Faculty Session 2*
05:00 – 07:00 PM Closing reception with music and drinks!

*Saturday Workshops: Faculty members will host a variety of workshops in the Hardie Building. Get ready to explore your creativity with sessions such as:

Career Design with Beth Price Morgan
Printmaking with Len Thomas-Vickory
Toy Making with Blyth Hazen
Painting with Judy Brown
Life Drawing with Tim Harney

REGISTER HERE

Faculty in Conversation: Hannah Brooks
2025-09-16 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
In “…but make it funny” Hannah will discuss how her work addresses coping, craft, and catharsis using humor and absurdity. She will highlight a broad body of work including installation images, prints, textiles, writing, and 3D fabricated objects.

Ron DiRito – Beyond Time: The Simultaneity of Now
2025-08-20 - 2025-10-04 | Library Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Artist Talk: Wednesday, October 1, 11am, H101
Reception and light refreshments to follow in the library.

What happens when the act of reading is disrupted—when the page, that thin sheet of paper, is gone?
Yet the words remain.
This question is at the center of Beyond Time: The Simultaneity of Now, an exhibition by Ron DiRito.
In these works, DiRito creates palimpsests—texts layered upon texts—where the page no longer separates one thought from another, no longer orders language in time.
Instead, each panel becomes a site of compression: words collapsing into words,
sentences folding into themselves, forming images made entirely of language.
Meaning no longer resides in narrative
but in the autonomous forms of the text itself.
Stacked and layered, the palimpsest pages present everything all at once.
For viewers, they resolve not as text to be read but as pure visual experience.
These images blot out the world. They have no past. There is no next.
They live entirely in the present.
This is The Simultaneity of Now.

Earthen Clay: As the apple disappears into water and sweetness in our bodies
2025-08-19 - 2025-09-27 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Artist talk: Monday, September 22, 11-12PM, H101
Artist Reception: Wednesday, September 24, 5-7PM
Free and open to the public

As the apple disappears into water and sweetness in our bodies, Earthen Clay’s first solo exhibition in Massachusetts, includes paintings and sculptures made in the last two years. Clay’s site-responsive installation for the Montserrat Gallery is concerned with the space that is generated from the proximity of beings and objects and the experiences that unfold from these encounters. Folds, stacks, and stains contain embedded material and ask for prolonged acts of looking across unstable ground. Wooden scaffolding hold, fix and bind, allowing for spaces to exist within fragments of exuberant color and texture.
The exhibition’s title is taken from the book, The Wise Heart, by the American writer Jack Kornfield. Clay’s deeply personal work responds to Kornfield’s visual theorization of objects. Kornfield perceives that something like an apple, is on the one hand, a merely static thing in thought. But directly seeing, holding, or eating an apple is a succession of minute and ever-changing colors, shapes, and perceptions that are never still for a moment. Through a series of interrelated works that call to each other, Clay is interested in questioning an unchanging, fixed view that forecloses alternate potential liberatory futures.
Earthen Clay was born in 1988 in Anchorage, Alaska. He received his BFA from Watkins College of Art in Nashville in 2013 and his MFA from Yale School of Art in Painting and Printmaking in 2024. He attended Skowhegan in 2018 and was recently a teaching fellow at Norfolk Yale Summer School in Norfolk, CT. His work has been shown most recently at SUPRS in Beijing, Yossi Milo in New York, and David Castillo in Miami, FL. He works across disciplines including collage, painting, sculpture and site-responsive installation.
Read the exhibition review in The Brooklyn Rail.

Danielle Krcmar: Teasing Gravity
2025-07-16 - 2025-09-20 | Frame 301 Gallery, 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
The rocks of New England are over 500 million years old. Across Massachusetts we dispose of over 230,000 tons of textiles annually. Somerville artist Danielle Krcmar creates objects that mimic the region’s landscapes using second-hand clothing, including worn and moth-eaten sweaters, yarn, and miscellaneous threads. Krcmar cuts, pieces, and sews to create soft sculpted rocks, velvety mosses, grasses and other greenery. In what Krcmar calls Post Consumer Terrain sculptures, these soft objects tease gravity, compressing geological epochs with textile weightlessness, slow formation with consumer velocity. Krcmar’s installation for the 301 Frame Gallery, Teasing Gravity, holds the tension between persistence and play, inviting viewers to reconsider both the enduring and the disposable in the landscapes we inhabit.
Danielle Krcmar is an artist and curator of the RSM Gallery at Bentley University. She earned her BFA in Sculpture from SUNY Binghamton and an MFA in sculpture from UMASS Amherst. She has received grants from the St Botolph Club Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Blanche Colman Foundation, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. She has completed architectural sculpture commissions in Ridgeway, Illinois and Knoxville TN, and created outdoor installations for the Dartmouth Natural Resources Trust, Forest Hills Cemetery, and the Fort Point Channel area of Boston. Her work has been featured in Ocean State Review and Quilting with a Modern Slant in addition to having been reviewed in Sculpture Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, and Arts Media.

The Self Imagined
2025-07-14 - 2025-09-27 | Carol Schlosberg Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Curator/Artists Talk + Reception: Friday, September 19, 5-8 PM
Composed entirely of Gen-Z artists, this exhibition pushes the boundaries of self-expression and portraiture as shaped by the internet and new technologies. Growing up with unrestricted access to the internet, the online world is just as influential to Gen-Z as is the AFK (Away from keyboard) world. The Self Imagined believes it’s time to confront this reality.
While the selected works build upon developments in the contemporary art world, they also serve to inhabit their niches online. Using painting, sculpture, and video, these young artists illustrate Gen-Z’s ability to navigate inside and outside cyberspace. Themes explored in this exhibition include emergent ideas of digital skins as tools to understand ourselves; interrogating the societal effect of face filters; art disguised as memes and “brain rot”; and furry art as a form of artmaking and a functional part of a lifestyle.
By utilizing our familiarity with the internet for creative expression, this group declares that this can be the vanguard for 21st-century art.
Artists are Aubrie Testa, Bun, Dozzy and Baycun, Elan Warren, Elliott Moore, Ivy Howard, Katie Dobberpuhl, Lauryn Tyler, Madeline McGann, meowgirl300, Michel Darling, Niko Mlynarčík, Noah Peairson, Oscar Hunt, Paola Silva, Piero Roque, and scrawnyraccoon.
The Self Imagined is curated by Piero Roque, Montserrat Galleries Curatorial Assistant.

Pre-College Program
2025-07-13 - 2025-08-02 | Massachusetts
Montserrat offers a 3-week residential Pre-College Program for students 16 years and older, which provides an intensive introduction to life at an art college.
Click here for more information and to apply!

S.T.E.A.M. Youth Arts Academy
2025-07-07 - 2025-08-01 | Massachusetts
Montserrat is offering a S.T.E.A.M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) youth program this summer consisting of four, one-week programs of one to three classes per day.
Click here for more information!

Art Educator Summer Institute – Beverly
2025-06-22 - 2025-06-28 | Massachusetts
Montserrat’s Art Educator Summer Institute offers a week-long session to reconnect with your artist self. Participants will be immersed in our studio spaces, building on their art practice while learning new skills to bring back to the classroom.
Click here for more information and to register!

Japan Institute – International Residency
2025-06-18 - 2025-07-04 | Massachusetts
Take advantage of Montserrat’s long-running relationships in Japan with a 14-day artmaking and museum-going experience. Montserrat faculty will introduce Japanese-style printmaking and bookbinding techniques to experiment with and incorporate into your teaching. There will be daily opportunities to tour historic and contemporary Japanese culture in the seaside city of Niigata. The trip ends with a few days in Tokyo.

Click here for more information and to register!

Threads of Inquiry
2025-06-16 - 2025-08-09 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Opening Reception Sunday, June 22, 4–6pm.
This immersive and interactive art and learning exhibition features work created and curated by Meagan Grant and Alicia Gray. Drawing inspiration from their own artistic and educational practices, travel and research, Grant and Gray invite viewers to physically and metaphorically weave together an understanding of education through the lens of accessibility, equity and dialogue.

Commencement
2025-05-16 10:00 - 12:00 | The Cabot, 286 Cabot St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States

All Senior Show
2025-05-14 - 2025-05-17 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Montserrat + Schlosberg Galleries
May 14th – 17th

Awards Ceremony
Wednesday, May 14, 1:00pm
Guest Juror
Loretta Park, Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor and the Director of the Trustman Art Gallery, Simmons University

Between the Lines: Graphic Design Senior Thesis
2025-05-07 - 2025-05-10 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Reception: Wednesday, May 7, 5–7pm
Between The Lines is an exhibition showcasing the work of seven graphic designers and their explorations, pushing the boundaries of their creative practice. Emphasizing the stories, processes, and ideas that emerge in the subtle spaces between concept and execution.
Project Statements:
Inherited Legacy

Jorielle Arlock
Inherited Legacy explores long term and short term impacts of collective consumption and culture. Through the exploration of commonly wasted ephemera, I embodied the narrative of what represents us and what we value as society. I collected remnants of consumer culture and started to curate a collection of metaphors about how that impacts us as people. Eventually, I came to the idea that you can unearth your own legacy based on what you value, and not what has been impressed upon you.
Under Construction
Mikayla Bogus
Under Construction is an amalgamation of bits and bobs of early web design. It is inspired by a time before the web was so overly corporate, when people would create their own sites compiling their interests with an abundance of gifs, images, comic sans, and blinking buttons. It takes a look into the spaces between content as well, such as error pages, fun uses of html, and the forever unfinished webpages archived from sites such as Geocities.
Inside the Mind
Lyllian Caporuscio
Focusing on the psychology behind design, and how that influences the work. I looked at common everyday objects and how I could use them in my work. That is when I focused on the spoon, and how I had perceived it. Finding meaning, I have categorized how spoons in literature and pop culture exist, for means of nourishment, as a metaphor for privilege, and a tool for measurement. Looking at nourishment, I searched for what that means, and how it ultimately relates to the spoon.
Intuitivity within Design
Jillian De Paolo
Experiments with concrete poetry and free association tests led me to explore language. Hard definitions and etymologies are the rational and objective application of language. I am interested in intuitively interpreting words, symbols, and phrases with multiple meanings. Through tests and surveys, I found the idiosyncrasy within the results posed that particular vernacular or personal bias can have an extraordinary impact on how we view the world and communicate. The vast antinomy within our ideas, languages, systems, and intuitions reflect the semantics of our language. To prove our intuition’s validity, I use empirical data to visualize infographics to show that anything can seem plausible with the right design.
Danger in Beauty
Brandon Hale-Montminy
Lately I’ve had an interest in the lengths people go for beauty and how beauty seems to be one of the most important things to a lot of people. That’s crazy to me so I tried to find a way to describe the absurdity of that in a way I can relate to. This landed me on the topic of poisonous flowers seeing as flowers are most known and sought after for their beauty but at the same time they can be an extreme danger for the owner and/or their pets and children. I find that this danger makes these flowers even more beautiful and this danger is why I’m drawn to them. I’m well aware this makes no sense but many people are like this regarding other things so I’m here to show the beauty without ever letting people forget about the danger.
Make AI Your Bytch
Dylan Maher
Make AI Your Bytch confronts the possibility of AI-generated design taking over the world. Common signage is used as a reference for visual solutions that are nonsensical when placed in the real-world. The goal is to demonstrate why designers shouldn’t rely on algorithms to communicate an intended message. The project is not concerned with changing minds regarding the ethics of AI. The reality is that the technology isn’t going away anytime soon; which means it’s up to the next generation of creatives to learn how to use it responsibly.
Escapism
Marina Stagliola
My project focuses on escapism and how I use the act of decorating cookies to serve as my therapeutic process. It creates a state of mind that makes it possible for me to forget about the outside world. My attention is set on the task, while awareness of my surroundings fades in and out of focus. Throughout this process I use royal icing as both a medium and a muse to relax and relieve stress.

MASh: Media & Animation Showcase
2025-05-06 19:00 - 21:30 | The Cabot, 286 Cabot St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Montserrat College of Art is proud to announce the dates for the annual Media and Animation Showcase (MASh)! This year’s MASh will premiere on May 6th at The Cabot. Doors will open at 7:00 pm and the show will start at 7:30 pm with a roughly two-hour runtime. Admission is free to the public.
For nearly a decade, The Cabot has hosted the time-based work of Montserrat students, alumni, and community members. This showcase reel demonstrates the artistic passion of the Montserrat community. While admission is free to all, the purchase of concessions is encouraged to support future events.
For more information, please email mash@montserrat.edu.
This event is proudly sponsored by the Beverly Cultural Council and hosted by Montserrat College of Art.

Compendium: Illustration Senior Thesis
2025-04-30 - 2025-05-03 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Montserrat Gallery and Schlosberg Gallery
Dates: April 30th – May 3rd
Reception: Wednesday, April 30th, 5–7pm
The Seniors of the Montserrat College of Art Illustration department announce their final show entitled COMPENDIUM, opening in the Hardie Main Gallery and the Schlosberg at 23 Essex St in Beverly, April 30 and continuing through May 3. The opening reception for COMPENDIUM takes place Wednesday, April 30, from 5–7pm
The work displayed in COMPENDIUM is from a collection of seventeen illustrators with a wide variety of approaches, styles, applications and backgrounds. Despite the range of both conceptual and narrative subject matter, as well as distinctly different materials and displays, all of the work comes together nicely to form a physical manifestation of the time and effort dedicated to this show. COMPENDIUM has roots in many facets of illustration. From sophisticated collage to traditional paintings with acrylic, ink, and watercolor, the presence of fine art is strong in the show. Many featured artists make use of multimedia to explore new and innovative ways of art making and self-expression. There is physical work, sculpture combining paper craft with illustrative elements, as well as more commercial items like garments with hand-printed designs. Including sizes ranging from delicate holiday cards and intricate book jackets to impressively large movie posters and tapestries, there is no shortage of diversity in projects. Exploring narrative and concept design, there are examples of imagined environments, game assets, character design, and an abundance of sequential art in the form of comics and children’s books.
About the Artists:
Rose Aggi is an independent illustrator living in Massachusetts with their sweet cat named Zinnia. Dabbling in many things, Rose gravitates towards silly and cute aesthetics in digital art, usually with an emphasis on animals.
Kailani Banasik views their work as a window into the world of their stories, captivating their audience with whimsy. Taking narratives and concepts and giving them life with color and silliness is their goal as an illustrator, with hopes to enter the kidlit world. They take inspiration from everything around them, from video games to the people and animals in their lives, morphing it into something fantastical and fun.
Grace Cantalini was born and raised in western Massachusetts. With indulgence in escapist fantasy and a nod to classic science fiction, her work places an emphasis on vibrant colors and intricate line work. Inspired by the natural world and the limitless possibilities of outer space, her focus is on environmental and figurative illustration.
Cat Cheseldine is a New England based illustrator who concentrates on delicate details, fluid states of movement and evolutionary qualities in her subjects. Cat‘s work uses flora and fauna as both subjects and symbolism to create meaning in her pieces.
“The natural world around us offers so much to be admired, the delicate blade-like feathers on the birds, the vibrant colors of beetle shells, and the shapes of stems that swirl and build according to the circumstances of their environment,” Cheseldine states.
Ana Chirinos is a Venezuelan-American illustrator raised in Texas and currently based in the North Shore of Massachusetts. Inspired by the Golden Age of Illustration and the unique visual qualities of printmaking, her work combines intricate linework and texture with grandiose, almost theatrical compositions. Through careful symbolism, framing, and color, her pieces highlight the humanity at the core of every story.
Alexis Defranc is a self-described mix of an artist with an unhinged fascination for the ‘Modern Era’, a passionate writer, and an 80s rock mixtape. Born and based in Southeastern Massachusetts, they strive to make their work feel as alive as the next song they have on shuffle.
Lucas dos Santos is a Brazilian Illustrator who utilizes printmaking and photography in order to create work that takes inspiration from the media he grew up with, mainly derived from Japanese Live-Action superhero shows.
Jessica Ganino is an artist based in Saugus, MA. Their work is offbeat and mixes bubbly cuteness with macabre elements. Primarily digital and heavily detail focused, their work reflects a sophisticated contrast.
Rebecca Jordan is an artist living and working in Massachusetts. Her work is rooted in quiet rhythms of personal experiences, inviting the viewer into a space where moments unfold with tenderness. Through soft, fluid strokes and muted hues, the work speaks in a gentle whisper, offering a window into her world while leaving room for the viewer to engage on their own terms.
Cicey Labella is an Illustration major and Art Education minor at Montserrat College of Art. They are a painter and printmaker who creates work based on their life, identity, and making people laugh.
Jasmyn Mall is an illustrator based in Massachusetts despite originally hailing from a small, peculiar New Jersey town. Her upbringing in Jersey has instilled a fascination and appreciation for the strange and folkloric, which has led her to create work focusing on these subjects.
Abigail Monson is a Massachusetts-based interdisciplinary artist working in a variety of mediums, including collage, painting, printmaking, and fiber arts. Informed by her past career in computer science and her interest in biology, architecture, and science fiction, her work explores our relationship with everyday technology, the tension between the past and the future, and the overlooked beauty of the natural world.
Adrian Persaud is an Indo-Guyanese and Brazilian artist working towards racial diversity in the media. His works explore life as a mixed-race individual, reaching out to help others feel heard. His pieces blur the lines between fine art and illustration, having process and material take the spotlight.
Newt Ryan is known for creating creepy, disturbing, and intentionally perverse art with religious overtones that often features contorted figures, muted colors, and an abundance of insects.
Quin Schaeffer is a narrative artist whose work draws influence from queer history and culture, combined with the aesthetics of the film noir era, and the golden age of Hollywood. Coming from a family who values creativity and enjoys old-school suspense and thriller films, those two themes come together in Quin’s art making, from their teens into their current young adult years as they finish their college degree.
Ari Varney is an illustrator living in Massachusetts. Ari is constantly intrigued by the concept of nostalgia, trying to illustrate human experiences and emotions. They also enjoy making art that is warm and a bit silly at times.
Vivi Young is an Illustrator based in New England, working in watercolor, graphite and acrylic. Her art focuses on fantasy and horror themes viewed through a whimsical lens.

Artrageous: The Emerald Ball
2025-04-25 18:00 - 21:30 | Massachusetts
Danversport
161 Elliott St, Danvers, MA
Join us for an Artrageous unlike any other as we take a trip over the rainbow!
2025 celebrates Montserrat College of Art’s 55th anniversary, known as the emerald anniversary! To mark this occasion, we are hosting an Emerald Ball for this year’s auction while bringing the same creativity and excitement Artrageous is known for. Join us for a night of art, music, costumes, and of course, a chance to support the next generation of creative talent.
Emerald ensembles and creative costumes are encouraged but not required.
Get all the details here!

Dreamland: Lagoon to Foredune
2025-04-24 11:00 - 12:00 | Paul M. Scott Library, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Celebrate Earth Day with Anna Clem and learn about the Dreamland: Lagoon to Foredune artist book project currently on display in the library.
Artist Statement: Dreamland began with years of observing the Basin Head sand dune system at the edge of the Northumberland Strait in Canada. My mother and I called this place “Dreamland” many years before we commenced this collaborative project: The dunes are other-worldly with many personalities, partially generated by the weather or time of day, but also dependent upon the visitor.
Lagoon to Foredune is a set of six one-of-a-kind cyanotype books made in Dreamland. On six separate outings, I walked across the heathland, stopping to place an open book in branches and under brush, turning to a new page each time, until all pages were exposed. This process allowed the sun, wind, and other elements to interact with the light-sensitive paper without further mediation from me. Back on the beach, I plunged the book into the waves, resulting in its development. Each soft cover was printed with a photograph made in Dreamland, and the books were toned with different botanicals that can be found there, resulting in colors varying from cyanotype’s usual Prussian blue.

Pick Your Prize! Animation and Interactive Media Senior Thesis
2025-04-23 - 2025-04-26 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Dates: April 23 – 26
Reception: Wednesday, April 23, 5–7pm
Pick your Prize! A 2025 Animation and GTP (Games, Toys and Play) thesis exhibition. If you like comedy, horror, emotional films, or playing games with your friends, this show is the place to be! Showcasing a wide variety of media ranging from board games, video games, and short films, there is something for everyone. Take advantage of this opportunity to see up-and-coming animators and game designers show the culmination of their four years at Montserrat College of Art. Mark your calendars and enjoy the show… and be sure to Pick your Prize!

Deon Agyeman
Deon Agyeman is an illustrator and tabletop game designer based in Massachusetts and the founder of DevilDegg Games. Deon carries fond memories of very intense games of Uno, Connect 4, Sorry, and Monopoly that allowed them to be both strategic and cutthroat without totally ruining their relationship with friends or family. Deon aspires to replicate the same level of friendly ruthlessness in the board games they design. Deon’s repertoire of tabletop games includes Crooked Collectors, Pre-Diction, Live From Station 45, and Solar Derby.
Kaylee Blandin
Kaylee Blandin was born and raised in Dover, Delaware. Kaylee spent two years at Delaware College of Art and Design, before moving up to Massachusetts to attend Montserrat College of Art. From a young age, Kaylee was highly inspired and drawn to fantasy works like “How to Train Your Dragon” and “One Piece.” Kaylee likes to incorporate fantastical elements into her work and focuses on creating people, creatures and scenarios that exist outside of real life. More recently, Kaylee has taken the role of producer on different projects and has gained an appreciation and passion for the role.
Justin Christian
Justin Christian is an American-born animator with a heritage found in India. Though he likes to doodle, draw and paint, Justin’s main field of expertise is animation and cartooning. His program of choice is Blender where 3D and 2D come together to make interesting and unique animations. Outside of animating, Justin loves to go to the movie theaters with his friends and likes to read comic books where some of his inspirations come from.
Briana Costa
Briana Costa, as known as Starjellyfish, is a fantasy narrative storyteller, who uses her skills to create whimsical Illustrations and animations. She mainly focuses on creating storyboards and concept art. When she is not working on art, she probably has her nose in a book, playing video games or watching her favorite shows.
Lily Courtemanche
Lily Courtemanche is a 2D animator focusing on character development and color design. Lily’s goal with her work is to develop the character and personality through symbolism. She does this by utilizing particular imagery, such as flower symbolism, and color theory throughout her work. She enjoys creating characters that have more than two dimensions, creating a vast world that has a wide variety of characters. Lily specializes in character design and 2D animation.
Erin Cox
As an artist, Erin Cox loves experimental art, multimedia animation, and storyboarding. Growing up watching Cartoon Network shows such as Adventure Time and Regular Show and movies like Alice in Wonderland and My Neighbor Totoro greatly inspired her. Her goal is to give people an experience that relieves them from reality. Erin’s works center around themes of love, nostalgia, and surrealism.
Jack Hollis DuBois
Jack Hollis DuBois is an interdisciplinary artist who works in game design, digital illustration, poetry, and music composition. Jack uses his many creative outlets and love of research to navigate modern life’s infinite wiles and whims. Jack’s dream is to use artistically minded video games as a medium to explore the human experience, all that’s wickedly joyous, beautifully sorrowful, and deliciously bittersweet.
Scott Homer
Scott Homer is a 2D animator and illustrator who uses geometric shapes and digital tools to craft dynamic, expressive characters. Living in Massachusetts, he enjoys walking through local communities to admire the interconnectedness of natural and human-modified material. He uses these experiences to develop worlds that are either grounded in reality or illuminated by sci-fi or supernatural elements.
Wendy Morrison
Wendy Morrison is a 2D Animator and Character Designer who occasionally experiments with different mediums, including painting and stop-motion. Growing up in Mansfield, Massachusetts, she became entranced by various animated movies and shows that touch upon fairy tales/fantasy, adventure, and musicals. But her view of interests changed when she, at a very young age, accidentally stumbled upon media that fell into the horror genre, scaring her in the process upon first viewing. It was from there that those memories started to bleed into her innocence and nostalgia, inspiring her to create endearing, yet unsettling stories that are translated through her art.
Giulianna Nota
Born and raised in Burlington, Massachusetts, Giulianna Nota attended Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica, MA, where she pursued her love of art in the Design and Visual Communications program. Her passion for art began in childhood when she would often doodle on the back of worksheets in elementary school. In middle school, Giulianna discovered several cartoons which inspired her to create fan art and explore character design. By high school, she was developing her own original characters and stories, with a growing dedication to cartooning and animation. Now, as a passionate artist, Giulianna dreams of creating shows that bring the same sense of comfort and joy to others that her favorite series gave to her during hard times.
Quinn Schuyler
Quinn Schuyler is an intermediate programmer and 2D animator striving to create punchy, independent video games. He primarily works inside the Unity game engine, coding under the hood in C#, and creating pixel art assets using Aseprite. A vast majority of Quinn’s programming skills and understanding of his preferred engine are self-taught. When he’s not actively creating assets for his work, he enjoys playing/studying his favorite titles.
Ethan Smith
Ethan Smith is an art director and storyboard animator known for his dynamic use of forced perspectives and inventive character interactions. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Ethan grew up immersed in the vibrant energy of early 90s and 2000s Cartoon Network shows. His passion for skateboarding, inspired by Tony Hawk, and love for bold, animated storytelling have carried him through his creative journey, fueling a unique approach to his work.
Aikira Taylor
Aikira Taylor was adopted and raised in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Aikira (she/they) is a Storyboard and Character Design artist. Her art-making began when she was about six years old and self-published a book about who she wanted to be when she grew up. When she was growing up she watched a lot of cartoons and always wondered how each of her favorite shows were made. She thought maybe she could do that too. Within the animation pipeline, she would like to be a storyboard artist in the genre realm of fantasy, thriller, and comedy. In addition to creating digital work, she paints with acrylic, watercolor, and gouache. She likes to style her art using gore, thriller, fantasy, and a hint of mystery.
Unniqorn (Bella Unni)
Bella Unni, eponymously known as Unniqorn, is a traditional 2D animator who primarily specializes in character design and storytelling. She developed an interest in animation and cartoons at a young age, which has since influenced her art style, original characters and stories, and her lifelong goal to pursue a career in animation or a similar field. Unniqorn’s character designs and stories are influenced by her love for animals, sci-fi and fantasy genres, graphic novels and manga, and her desire to empathize, sympathize, and share her ideas with others; in addition to television cartoons and the animated works of studios such as Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks, among others.
Taylor Whitcomb
Taylor Whitcomb is an animator, 3D modeler, and background artist who utilizes both digital and traditional mediums to produce his animations. His work places heavy concern on action in perspective, consistently defined and compositionally intriguing spaces, warped perspective, and the prospect of traveling through a vast location via the medium of animation. Themes present within his latest work, Animalia 5, include elements of science fiction, body horror, and apocalyptic progression.

Faculty in Conversation: Hannah O'Neal
2025-04-17 11:00 - 12:00 | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Join Hannah O’Neal for a discussion on how the landscape of animated film has recently been changing in new and exciting ways. Hannah will be using the most recent Oscar award winner Flow, an independent feature film, as a recent example of how these changes are taking place and turning long-held industry beliefs on their heads.

Light Waves: A Senior Thesis MidWay Show
2025-04-16 - 2025-06-30 | 301 Gallery, 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Featuring Alex Mirante, Eliot Mason, and Jay Granniss

Student Showcase
2025-04-12 13:00 - 16:00 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Open House, Saturday, April 12th, 1–4pm
Awards Ceremony: Saturday, April 12, 1pm at the First Parish Unitarian Church at 225 Cabot Street.
Show Dates: April 11th-16th
All Montserrat College of Art galleries will be showcasing student work on these dates.
The mission of Student Showcase is to recognize and honor the accomplishments of student artists and scholars. Student Showcase includes visual and literary art forms to present student work and Montserrat’s creative spirit—with our community at large. It is open to the public.

Poets in Your Neighborhood
2025-04-09 - 2025-04-29 | Paul M. Scott Library, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Kevin Carey & JD Debris
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
2:50–3:40pm

Kevin Carey‘s books include the poetry collections: The One Fifteen to Penn Station, Jesus Was a Homeboy, Set in Stone, the co-written Olympus Heights, and the collaboration Revere Beach Stories: Poems and Photographs. He has published three works of fiction: The Beach People, Murder in the Marsh and a new novel Junior Miles and the Junkman (Regal House / Fitzroy Books) which won the Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers and has been chosen tor the Pen Faulkner Writers in the Schools Program in Washington, DC. Kevin is the co-founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag. A new co-directed film MFA: The Terminal Degree, a murder mystery comedy, will premiere April 30th at Cinema Salem, Salem, MA. Kevincareywriter.com

JD Debris is a poet, fiction writer, and musician. His debut book of poems, THE SCORPION’S QUESTION MARK, was selected by Cornelius Eady for the Donald Justice Prize. He received his MFA from New York University, where he was a Goldwater Fellow. He has received the DISQUIET Luso-American Fellowship, and has been named to several “Best New Writers” lists, including Ploughshares’ Emerging Writers and Narrative’s 30 Below 30. His poetry and fiction appears in outlets such as Kenyon Review and Poetry Daily, as well as in the anthology 9×5 ( Only Human Press, 2022) alongside his friends from Salem State University. He leads the indie-jazz band JD Debris & The Melee, whose single, WHO SHOT ALEXIS ARGUELLO? is available on all streaming platforms.

M.P. Carver & Jack Giaour
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
2:50–3:40pm
M.P. Carver is a poet and visual artist from Salem, MA. She is Director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, miCrO-Founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag, and teaches creative and digital writing at Salem State University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, Mantis, Jubilat, and Love’s Executive Order, among others. She has received funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Essex Community Foundation. In 2023 her poem “In Vitro” was named a finalist in the Connecticut River Review’s Experimental Poetry Contest, and in 2022 her poem “You & God & I” was awarded the New England Poetry Club’s E.E. Cummings Prize. Her chapbook, Selachipmorpha, was published by Incessant Pipe in 2015, and a chapbook with Lily Poetry Review Books, Hard Up, was released in 2025. More at mpcarver.com.

Jack Giaour (he/him/his) is a gay, trans male poet and writer. His manuscript hunting the bugs won the 2023/2024 BOOM Chapbook Contest, hosted by Bateau Press, and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Happy Little Poetry Comix, theHythe, and Nixes Mate Review, among other journals. He has been a reader tor Abode Press, Uncharted Magazine, and TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, taught workshops for MassPoetry and the Belgrade Art Studio, and is a member of the all-trans poetry collective Relatively Queer. He sunlights as software manager for a steel fabricator just north of Boston. Visit him virtually at jackgiaour.com.

Dawn Paul & Laurie Rosen
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
2:50–3:40pm
Dawn Paul is currently at work on a series of poems about North Shore’s Great Salt Marsh. She is the author of the novels The Country of Loneliness and Still River. Her poetry chapbook What We Still Don’t Know examines the contradictions in the life of scientist Carl Linnaeus, originator of the Linnaean biological naming system used worldwide today. Paul has been a recipient of residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Ragdale Foundation, the Spring Creek Project, Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories and Isles of Shoals Marine Labs. Her poetry has been published in anthologies, journals and most recently, Orion Magazine. Also look for it engraved in the sidewalk on Cabot Street in downtown Beverly!

Laurie Rosen divides her time between the Massachusetts coast and a home tucked into a Vermont hollow. Her poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Peregrine, Gyroscope Review, Zig Zag Lit Mag, OddBall magazine, The Inquisitive Eater, a journal of The New School, One Art a journal of poetry and elsewhere. Laurie won first place in poetry at the 2023 Marblehead, MA Festival of the Arts. Recently she had three poems published online with The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders, a companion to the First National Nature Assessment (NNAl) that was to be released in a final report in 2026. NNAl has now been discontinued per order of our current administration.

Montserrat Community Poetry Reading
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
2:50–3:40pm
Sign up for the Open Mic, celebrate Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day, or just cheer on the readers!

Senior Thesis: Senior Studio Arts Seminar Group 2
2025-04-02 - 2025-04-05 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
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.

Senior Thesis Show: Senior Studio Arts Seminar Group 1
2025-03-26 - 2025-03-29 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
All Galleries
Reception: Wednesday, March 26th, 6-8pm
The first of Montserrat’s annual Thesis Exhibitions: Inter/Intra, an exhibition by nine of the college’s Studio Arts students, opens on March 24th at 23 Essex Street in Beverly. The show celebrates with an opening reception on March 26.
Inter/Intra
Inter- prefix meaning between : among : in the midst
Intra- prefix meaning within : during : between layers of
Inter/Intra is a collection of work produced in the examination of the self and the connections with natural and urban environments, religion, and others. Using fiber, paint, photography, print, and writing, the artists seek to translate and transpose these examinations into the physical world. Memory, grief, nostalgia, and tenderness are made manifest through each artists’ respective work, seeking innately connect.
FEATURING:
Montserrat Gallery (23 Essex Street, Beverly)

Maggie Burns
Frederic Cafarella
Whitney Farnsworth
Skylar Lafleur
Krystian Lanza
Sam Sorrento

Schlosberg Gallery (23 Essex Street, Beverly)

Aoife Bergeron
Nev Fernandez

Congressional Art Show
2025-03-15 15:30 - 17:00 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
The 6th District Congressional Art Show, sponsored by Congressman Seth Moulton is hosted annually at Montserrat College of Art.
The exhibition and competition is open to students in grades 10–12 in public and private high schools and students being home-schooled in the Sixth Essex Massachusetts Congressional District. Up to 6 pieces may be permitted per school.
Drop-off dates:
Friday, March 7, 3–5 pm
Saturday, March 8, 11am–3 pm
23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA
Exhibition: March 13–14, 10am–5pm
Reception: March 15, 3:30–5 pm
More information here

Riso Show
2025-03-06 - 2025-03-28 | Library Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Reception March 6, 11am–12pm
First Floor Library
This exhibition brings together artists exploring the possibilities of the risograph printer through books, zines, photographs, and drawings. Known for its bold colors and layered textures, risograph printing blends the tactile qualities of traditional printmaking with the mechanics of mass production.

Faculty in Conversation: Meg Grant and Alicia Gray: 100 Ways of Thinking
2025-03-05 11:00 - 12:00 | Massachusetts
Meg and Alicia will share about their experiences in Reggio Emilia Italy. Presenters will discuss ways in which this extraordinary approach to thinking, learning and creating transcends the borders of Italy and can transform education right here at Montserrat.

In Stitches: Fiber Art and Garment Show
2025-03-03 - 2025-03-21 | Bare Gallery, 275 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Come see the Bare Gallery’s newest show, In Stitches, featuring fiber arts from members of the Montserrat community!
A closing reception will be held on March 19th at 11am–12pm.

Faculty in Conversation: Ena Kantardžić
2025-02-20 11:00 - 12:00 | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Ena Kantardžić will be reading from their Cranbrook Academy of Art Master’s Statement, sharing the book and its design alongside more dynamic documentation of installations from that two year period. Combining research, texted notes, photography, anecdotes, and programming code, the book is an attempt to bridge language and physical space in an intimate and vulnerable way.
