The art department has been rounding up its spring semester by presenting senior art exhibits in order to showcase their hard work and dedication these last four years. Brigid Morrissey and Jenny Cook are two whose pieces will be seen and both represent cultural as well as personal struggles.

Brigid Morrissey’s piece uses photography and graphic design to express the stereotypes that plague Furman’s campus. By photographing four members from her basketball team and using words that they are usually stereotyped with Morrissey showed how ingrained stereotypes can be and the judgment that revolves around them. Morrissey’s inspiration came from her freshman year photography class, when she began taking pictures of her teammates. Her interest further developed from a May X this past spring that was centered on design for social change.

“Things seem like they’ll be easy and then they turn out not to be,” Morrissey said, reflecting on the challenges she faced while creating her work. “What I was going to use, how I was going to put it together, and time” were others challenges that she said emerged during the process of creation.

Jenny Cook was similarly inspired by events that occurred on Furman’s campus. Cook’s piece was an attempt to show her overcoming her anxiety. Her piece incorporates yarn and graphic words such as stress, nervous, and anxious. The yarn is meant to resemble a sense of unraveling. The progression of the piece reflects her overcoming her anxiety as more uniform shapes and lines begin to appear as well as words like understanding, acceptance, and self-aware.

The colors reflect the feelings of the piece and move from bright and vibrant to more soothing. The piece helped Cook to “respond to anxiety, both knowing and realizing that anxiety and mental illness are real.”

Similar to Morrissey, Cook’s struggles throughout the process have been to express something and “put into art something that is so much bigger.”

Art professor Dr. Brodeur worked personally alongside each of the students and helped them to solidify and improve their ideas and work. Brodeur helped to steer the students in the right direction for their projects. He said the class was “a lovely group of students, and showed a generosity of heart that is carried through.”

The senior art pieces will be on display in the Thompson Art Gallery from April 7 to May 10. Students are encouraged to come out to the show to support their fellow students and see the culmination of four years of work.