Muhlenberg Art Department

Muhlenberg Alumni, there is an opportunity to join an art related Summer Deep Dive:

Photographic Deception: From Daguerreotypes to Deepfakes
Instructor: Susan Morelock
Description: Consider how photography, a medium often associated with notions of truth, has always been a powerful tool for manipulation and illusion.
Dates: July 9 to July 30, Wednesdays, 7-8:15 PM
Register by: July 2
URL: www.muhlenbergconnect.com/deepdivephoto

Nicolas Calá (he/him) , is a studio art major with a concentration in painting. His thesis is a series of 28 individual portraits of his friends and family. Each one is painted in a specific color, and together, they form a mosaic in rainbow order. He created this series to surround himself with the people he has been unable to laugh, cry, and in general, hang out with since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Through this series, he strived to combat the loneliness he’s been feeling, and to celebrate the people who add color to his life.

Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas

Kelly Steltz ‘21 (.starrr) is inspired by surrealism, collage, and repetition to imagine the formal possibilities of their work. This semester, they began bringing their studies of light, color, the figure, and skeletal forms into conversation with Labyrinth (1986), drawing upon the film’s motifs of portals and nonsensical architecture. They believe that desire can be made a portal through which we bring ourselves to one another and to our dreams. Kelly uses this collection of imagery, with themself posing as the figure model, to build the bodies and worlds they live in and at the edges of.

Kayla Niemasz, oil paint, ink, and watercolor. I am creating a series of visual narratives to bring awareness to mental health, and to shed light on emotions that may be underrepresented in media. Each painting is based off a real person’s journey through mental illness.

Elliot Ohnmacht is an artist working primarily in acrylic, oil, and digital paintings. Their thesis is a series of works revolving around the idea of death. What does it mean to die, and what is left behind? They are exploring this through various subjects, including a diverse assortment of (legally) collected bones, dead bugs, and images of and about their grandfather who passed earlier this year. Many of these works are still unfinished, but you can see works as they finish on Elliot’s personal instagram,

Mia Mulin ‘21 has created a digital storybook telling the narrative of her experiences dealing with the uncertainty of COVID-19. Through the eyes of a student-athlete, COVID-19 has impacted her in many ways forcing her to make difficult decisions about her future ranging in topics about family, friends, soccer and schooling. Through the combination of digital images and hand drawn pictures, Mia creates a reflection piece of this year’s past events.

My name is Chloe Buergenthal , a sculpture and sociology double major with a concentration in sculpture. My thesis is composed of a combination of materials including plaster and recycled materials. The above series is a mixed media collection of vessels created to represent my own emotional turmoil and the chaos that has become so commonplace within the past year of COVID-19 and political unrest. Through this series, I aim to actively document, preserve, and categorize how society looks and feels in this current moment.

Medium: Mixed Media, Plaster

Jaelyn Blonder ‘21 (.sahara.art), is working with photography and sculpture for her thesis. Operating from an ecofeminist lens, she is sewing garments and photographing the process and products, to explore how realities of femininity and feminism manifest within herself, her mother, and her grandmothers. Ecofeminism recognizes that all oppressive forces are inextricably linked (Greta Gaard 1997), and concentrates on gendered issues within human domination over nature. This domination manifests in oppressive forces such as patriarchy, materialism, capitalism, and climate change. Within this context of ecofeminism, she is investigating the roles that traditions of sewing and fashion play in the formation and maintenance of personhood and relationships – particularly her own matrilineal relationships.

Jessica Ruggieri ‘21 is working on a series of oil paintings of real life objects that investigate the process of seeing unexpected realities in the ordinary. These unexpected realities are revealed, as she curiously explores what the natural world provides her within an object. A single object can reveal a multitude of information: distortions, reflections, patterns, and even combinations. As a language enthusiast, who is double majoring in Art and Russian, each object she paints has a special connection to her history of language learning and documents this experience from the past to the present.

The students in ARS 401, CUE Senior Seminar: Portfolio Development, are taking over the Art Department's Instagram feed this week! We will be featuring a selection of work from one student each day. This work has been made over the course of a semester long thesis project in studio art. Students who will be featured: Jaelyn Blonder, Chloe Buergenthal, Nicolas Calá, Mia Mulin, Kayla Niemasz, Elliot Ohnmacht, Jessica Ruggieri, Kelly Steltz. ,