Rachel Wortman
A&E Editor
As we students of Wooster all know, Senior Independent Study at the College is a year-long project with one-on-one support and guidance from a faculty advisor. For studio art majors, the culmination of this in-depth experience is an individual exhibition. From those exhibits, works will be selected for the group exhibition at the College of Wooster Art Museum (CWAM). Since March 22, two senior studio art majors at a time have shared their exhibit spaces with the public to show off unique works that encapsulate their talent and hard work.
Currently sharing the space in CWAM are Lauren Perrino ’15 and Bjorn Olsen ’15. I visited the exhibit to admire their work and got a chance to sit down with one of the artists to discuss his pieces. Olsen’s work explores the process of nature reclaiming man-made structures and features sculpted moments of the process of degradation.
He cited the process of Metamorphosis as an influence: “Metamorphosis has always intrigued me … how something is broken down completely and becomes something new. Everyone thinks about the caterpillar becoming the butterfly, but they often overlook the in-between process that makes that happen.” His work reflects this in-between stage; just as the cocoon wraps itself around the caterpillar, Olsen’s work shows the power of nature to do the same to man-made objects. Olsen further explained, “The process may be long, but it is beautiful and in the end we are left with something new, a space for something else to grow.”
Hurry and you can observe his and Perrino’s work at CWAM, which will close today. Watch out for more seniors’ work to be debuted each week for the next month. If you don’t have time to check it out during their individual exhibitions, don’t miss the chance to see works from all the seniors on display during the Senior Research Symposium, a day-long, campus-wide celebration of Independent Study. The studio art majors will be present in CWAM’s Sussel Gallery from 1-3 p.m. on Friday, April 24 to discuss their projects.