2016-2017 Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Student Exhibitions

Kansas State University Department of Art will present the last of five BFA Exhibitions of the fall season featuring artists Ben Dodge, Emily Hogan, Anna Hutchison, and Matthew Waters. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from May 8 through 12, 2017 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery Hours are 10am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a closing reception for the artists on Friday evening, May 12, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Multi-Discipline artist, Ben Dodge, of Everest, Kansas, creates multi-media works on unseen issues. His works are based on the entertainment he enjoyed as a young child. His pieces point out the environmental or social issues that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Emily Hogan is a digital media artist from Marysville, Kansas, whose work is focused on ending the stigma of mental illness and helping people become mindful. Her dragon themed screen touch display was inspired by her own experiences with panic disorder, and she wants people to understand what it's like to live with it and how she gets herself to stay calm. "It's hard to explain what goes on inside my head, I would like to make a way to show people so they can relate to me better."

Anna Hutchison, a ceramicist from Topeka, Kansas, sculpts small organic forms, such as leaves, to create large-scale sculpture. Her ceramic forms draw inspiration from nature through the use of texture and color. She says, "I don't aim to achieve perfectly smooth vessels and sculptures but instead enjoy the expressiveness of having a textured surface."

Sculptor, Matthew Waters, of Manhattan, Kansas creates situational dioramas using cast metal. His castings borrow from everyday life to create somewhat satirical scenes of the physical interaction of people, or lack thereof. His dioramas reveal a need for us to put down the mobile devices and create genuine face to face connections.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Kansas State University Department of Art will present the fourth of five BFA Exhibitions of the spring season featuring artists Monica Disberger, Tanner Hall, Madalyn McNally, Patricia Melton, and Victoria Vontz. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from May 1 through 5, 2017 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery Hours are 10am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a closing reception for the artists on Friday evening, May 5, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Monica Disberger is a ceramicist from Aurora, Illinois who creates fluid, primarily porcelain vessels on the potter's wheel. Each with their own personality, she works to capture a sense of controlled chaos using mixed clay, mason stains, and other colorful mediums. Growing up travelling around the world, art has always been a tool of self-expression and a reflection of what she has seen. "There is beauty to be found everywhere in life, and my ultimate goal, as an artist, is to capture and share it using colors and surreal forms working to evoke wonder."
Tanner Hall of Olathe, Kansas creates charcoal drawings using a large range of greys. Through the sensitivity of his use of material on paper, he works to render soft human forms that combat the "cookie cutter" nature of the images of the human male we are confronted with every day. He portrays images of real men with varying body types and weight to reveal the true beauty of the male figure. He says, "I want to confront the viewer with the raw male form, to provide a different view on what beauty truly is."

Madalyn McNally, of Shawnee, Kansas, makes sculptural forms by attaching handmade porcelain roses to wire structures. Her delicately made flowers and sculptural forms create symbolism when put together. Her sculptures reveal the desire for love, the fear of death, and the strive for creativity.

Multi-disciplinary artist, Patricia Melton, of Manhattan, Kansas, creates activated objects that combine computer coding with tangibility. Her digital artworks are abstractions of exhibits that can be found in natural history or science museums. She says, " I aim to create art driven by ephemeral instances, because unique viewer experience is at the core of interactive art." Her art combines organic textures and materials with digital techniques to create work directed towards how humans understand the world.

Victoria Vontz, a photographer from Wamego, Kansas, creates wet collodion tintype prints using public domain images collected from various online archives. Her work explores the concepts of memory and loss and their relationship to the photograph itself and its significance. She says, "There are countless images of people out there sitting and collecting in archives that were full of significance at one point in time, therefore my work aims to explore how the importance of these images as well as the people in these images, has altered over time."

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Kansas State University Department of Art will present the third of five BFA Exhibitions of the Spring season featuring artists Jacob Brooks, Zachery VanDorn, Clayton Walter, and Timmy Wolfe. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from April 24 through 28, 2017 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery Hours are 10am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, April 28, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Jacob Brooks is a painter from Kansas City, Kansas whose work centers around the figure. His paintings combine bitter humor and comfort objects with hospital settings and trauma patients as a way of exploring his own mortality. The combination of dark subject matter and playful colors and perspective is a pleasure to experience.

Zachery Aaron VanDorn, raised in McPherson, Kansas, is a ceramic artist focusing on the idea of childlike wonder and ignorance through the recreation of his "original toys." These quickly crafted curios are inspired and derived from adolescent creativity and curiosity during a new experience. "The first time I snuck into my grandfather's woodshop I was awestruck; every tool was a grand new discovery, every creation, an addition to the seven wonders of the world," says Zach. The recreation of his childhood experiences and ideas are represented in known-unknown objects. Tools recreated to serve an unknown purpose are created to cause confusion and curiosity as a child would experience sneaking through a woodshop.

Clayton Walter is a non-traditional metalsmithing student from Manhattan, Kansas. He creates his art through the process of reduction and textured molding, incorporating the durability and stability of metal into otherwise temporary organic forms. His work currently centers on fauna, the male anatomy, and the way these subjects can invoke conversation when presented in these non-traditional media. When asked about the design process, he advises, "Never have your heart set on a particular design, the metal will ultimately make the final decision for you, just go with the flow and see what beauty comes forth."

Timmy Wolfe is an interdisciplinary artist currently working primarily in clay. He is originally from Michigan City, Indiana. He produces a range of wall hung ceramic tiles and mixed media sculptures. Wolfe's tiles and sculptures contain imagery hinting towards the rejection of traditional values.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Kansas State University Department of Art will present the second of five BFA Exhibitions of the Spring season featuring artists Anthony Acosta, Anna Grauer, Carly Haight, and Griffin McCabe. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from April 17 through 21, 2017 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery Hours are 10AM-5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a closing reception for the artists on Friday evening, April 21, from 5:30pm to 7:30 pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Anthony Acosta, an artist from San Antonio, Texas, makes digital and experimental installations. He uses small slices of humor in his pieces of art in order to achieve a positive reaction from the viewer. "If someone cracks a smile then I have done my job," he says. His video installations take you along a journey onto the Kansas River, and bring up dialogue about the privatization of land.

Anna Grauer, a ceramicist from Marysville, Kansas, explores permanence, legacy, and time through her video work. Inspired by her grandmother, she looks for ways to explore this conversation of existence and draws the viewer in to question these ideas themselves. Her fascination with time stems from her need to be in control, and her want to make sense of the unknown, which is something she struggles with every day. The purpose of her work is to communicate the idea that this world will exist, and continue on, with or without us.

Carly Haight is an artist from Olathe, Kansas. She primarily makes ceramic sculpture that explore ways of meshing process and aesthetics. Intuition, spirituality, and chance are all incorporated into her process as she works to communicate her excitement about the properties of materials. She says, "Events that are characterized by the clay directly responding to touch, whether they are unintentional or snuck in by my unconscious, will always hold more significance to me than events that are planned and purposeful." Her self-indulgent methods are exercises in staying fresh, child-like, and appreciative of the often over-looked beauty of
unintended by-products

Griffin McCabe, a sculpture student from Overland Park, Kansas, likes to explore the ideas of artificially created breakfast foods that look idealistic. After years of cutting corners on his breakfast meals, he came to realize that not everything that looks good for you is. His work dives into the ideas of appetizing foods produced out of cheap and affordable materials.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Kansas State University Department of Art will present its first of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring semester featuring artists Andrea Benge, Shade Bornemann, Emily Eggert, Lea Heryford, and Hannah Jennings. The artists will be presenting an exhibition of their work from April 10 through 14, 2017 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, April 14, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Andrea Benge, from Mission Viejo, California, makes paintings where Pre-Raphaelite meets Camp. She combines romanticism and over-the -op theatricality by placing sensual female figures in ambiguous landscapes while utilizing bright colors, mica, glitter, and even stickers. She says, "I'm having fun breaking a lot of rules with these paintings, challenging the idea that you have to be boring and solemn to make anything of merit or importance."

Shade Bornemann, from Fort Riley, Kansas, creates detailed, mixed-media drawings inspired by body issues and eating disorders in the black community. She says, "Every drawing depicts jumbled thoughts and concerns faced by black women with body issues that are often only associated with young, white women." Her drawings depict the repetitive cycle of self-hate, harm, and denial experienced through the process of using mixed media, color, and pattern, creating a sense of irrational and disordered thinking in the viewer.

Emily Eggert, from Denver, Colorado, makes live castings that are finished in metal, plaster, and ceramic. Her sculptures freeze profound embraces to uncover the joys and concerns that come with tethering two people. Her use of metal shows the strength between lovers and the time it takes to get to that security, plaster to explore how delicate merging of two can be, and ceramic to discuss the longevity these connections can have when given the proper care.

Lea Heryford is completing her concentration in Printmaking this semester, after having completed her concentration in Painting last semester. Having dealt with depression for the majority of her life, Lea invented Monster Land in her journals to help her cope and help better understand her own psyche. Her prints describe the world that she has created and the joy that she now finds in living. Lea says, "Monsters live inside all of us. How we treat these monsters and how we deal with them defines who we are as a person." Lea's prints use a large variety of color to evoke hope and wonder, while lines and forms describe struggle, confusion, and ambition.

Hannah Jennings, a Sculptor from Onaga, Kansas, makes large-scale beauty objects. Her graceful objects reflect ideas of obsession and desire. She states, "I attempt to articulate ideas about a person's yearnings through my pieces, while the size is indicative of how oppressive a person's lusts can be." Her sculptures use scale as well as a huge variety of materials in order to speak to the enormity of desires, the incapacitating effect that they can have, as well as the variety that branches out from the generic.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

MANHATTAN -- Kansas State Department of Art will be presenting its fifth and final BFA Thesis Exhibition of the fall semester featuring artists Lea Heryford, Robert Pifer, and Meghan Sullivan. The artists will be presenting an exhibition of their work from December 12 through 16, 2016 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor of Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception with the artists on Friday evening, December 16, from 5:30 to 7:30pm in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Lea Heryford is receiving her BFA with a concentration in Painting this fall semester and will complete her concentration in Printmaking the following spring semester. Her paintings describe Monster Land. Having dealt with depression a majority of her life, Lea invented Monster Land in her journals to help her cope and help better understand her own psyche. Her paintings help describe the world that she has created and the joy that she now finds in living. Lea says, "Monsters live inside all of us. how we treat these monsters and how we deal with them defines who we are as a person." Lea's paintings use a large variation of color to evoke hope and wonder;she uses lines and forms to describe struggle, confusion, and ambition.

Digital artist, Robert Pifer, of Los Angeles, California makes digital paintings using Adobe programs such as Photoshop and InDesign. He uses these tools to create ideas of places, people, animals, and environments. He states that "most of my inspiration in art comes from real world observations and fantastical ideas, which I then take to either an abstract or representational form." His artworks attempt to conceptualize these ideas created from his personal experiences and observations and bring forth light, natural, or darker aspects.

Meghan Sullivan is a Drawing student from Leavenworth, Kansas. Her drawings show her interest in expressing accuracy of proportion and shading of the human figure. She strives to bring the form to life with a range of values reflecting the light source. She says "The human form fascinates me so I try to convey this interest in my work."

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

MANHATTAN - Kansas State University Department of Art will present the fourth of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the fall season featuring Magan Carry, Maxwell Fillingam, and Kyle Van Vogelpoel. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from December 5 through 9, 2016 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, December 9, from 5:30 to 7:30pm in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Digital and experimental artist, Megan Carry, of Flint, Michigan, creates glitched animations from her own illustrations. Her set four short animations delve into the mind of someone with suicidal ideation, exploring how although debilitation these thoughts may be, it is still possible to overcome them. She states, "Implementing glitches within my piece offers a unique way to discuss the topic of suicidal ideation, as the glitches show a departure from normative human thinking." Her process of carefully making digital illustrations only to glitch them out numerous times shows the line many walk between creation and destruction.

Digital media artist Maxwell Fillingim is from Coppell, TX. He works with photography, drawing, and digital animation. His constant observation of people and the human form is repetitive in his works. His exhibition features three short animations created from digital drawings and photography. These drawings focus on three different addictions perceived in everyday life.

Artist Kyle Van Vogelpoel, from White City, Kansas, uses cold casting to show the human condition of mental and emotional perspectives through body language. The sculptures are cold casting, a mixture of resin and metal powder. It has the ability to appear like the metal it imitates but with different properties.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Manhattan - Kansas State University Department of Art will present the third of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the fall semester featuring Samuel Fillingim, Timothy Folkins, and Kerry Titterton. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from November 28 through December 2, 2016 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor of Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm, Monday through Friday. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening, December 2, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Digital and Experimental Media student Samuel Fillingim, from Coppell, TX, creates digitally illustrated prints from portraiture photography. In his series, he photographs students, illustrating their portrait based off traits the models say about themselves. The prints represent each model's studies, personality, and interests. He says, "what began as an exploration student sand their majors ended up being a personal analysis of self identity and reflection." Samuel's prints take a literal and personal approach to putting someone in to their work, while still presenting an individual.

From Kansas City, Kansas, Timothy Folkins is a Digital Artist who enjoys making unique and thought provoking works, Growing up interested in how digital video and photography works, he taught himself how to use digital techniques to make his abstract masterpiece about racism and their experiences. The video focuses on their faces to show that it is connected to the viewer and to show that it's a personal matter. He says, "I wish to really get into matters as serious as these and touch the raw things people ignore. I want to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." His work takes a critical view of social and cultural issues and helps the viewer know what experiences people of different races encounter.

Kerry Titterton is a printmaker from Manhattan, Kansas who creates artwork in the traditional sense using the techniques involved in wood reduction and intaglio printmaking. Her work incorporates elements of the interaction of both animals and humans in natural and surreal environments. She attempts, by utilizing a combination of colors and textures, to add an additional effect to her prints. she says, "No matter which process I work with, the most enjoyable part is the unpredictability in achieving the end result. Sometimes, I have achieved unique results which have enhanced the finished product." The opportunity to reproduce drawings which end with unique results fueled her ambition to delve deeper into this form of artwork.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Manhattan - Kansas State University Department of Art will present the second of five BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the fall semester featuring Marcus Gilbert, Kelsey Green, Tarina MacDonell, and Lathan Maastellar. The artists will showcase an exhibition of their undergraduate artwork from November 14 through 18, 2016 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor of Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm, Monday through Friday. Please feel free to attend the reception with the artists on Friday evening, November 18, from 5:30 to 7:30pm in the gallery.

Admission is free and open to the public.

Marcus Gilbert, is a non-traditional student from Dallas, Texas, who creates artwork in the traditional methods of woodcut and intaglio printmaking. His work reflects the human figure, and surrealist elements that best describe his everyday struggles and joys as a father, husband, and an artist. He states this about his first printmaking experience: "The first time I pulled the damp paper away from the copper plate and it revealed the mirrored image of my drawing, it was like Christmas morning, I was hooked," The ability to reproduce drawings that have 40 plus hours invested is the reason he wanted to pursue and delve further into the endless opportunities that printmaking provides.

Kelsey Green is a metalsmith from Kona, Hawaii. Using traditional metalsmithing techniques, Kelsey converts memories into three-dimensional objects. His unique vessels are hammered out of a single sheet of copper, using his childhood memories of Hawaii as inspiration. He says, "my vessels hold more than physical objects, they hold memories. My vessels represent snapshots of my childhood."

Photographer, Tarina MacDonell, was born in Ontario, Canada. She has traveled extensively throughout the United States and Canada, as well as abroad. With family in two different countries and her time spent in the military, she found that photography was a way of holding onto the moment and exploring new cultures. Her current body of work is an abstract concept, using light and shadow, that asks the viewer to experience it in his or her own way.

DX Media artist Lathan Mastellar from Liberal, Kansas, creates virtual reality experiences with Unreal Engine and digital projects inspired by linguistic philosophies. The two projects featured in this exhibition are inspired from similar concepts, to behold language visually. Logos is a virtual reality experience laid out on an axial plan. The viewer begins in a material realm of defined objects and experiences more vivid and abstract environments as they continue deeper into the space. He says, "Virtual realities' strength lies in its ability to embed the audience within the art as a direct experience, rather than gazing upon an artifact." The second project, Visual Language, is a collection of four linguistic objects, emerging from a variety of verbal styles by other artist such as lecture, stage reading, poetry, and acoustic music. His aim is not to escape language, but to possibly transcend language to a more visually beheld syntax.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.

Manhattan, KS, Oct. 24, 2016 - Kansas State University Department of Art will be presenting the first of five BFA Exhibtions of the fall season featuring artists Andrea Benge and Molly McEwan. The artists will present an exhibition of their work from November 7 through the 11, 2016 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 10am-5pm, Monday-Friday. There will be a closing reception for the artists on Friday evening, November 11, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Andrea Benge, an artist from Mission Viejo, California, makes large-scale, self-portrait drawings on paper, transporting the figures to imaginary ambiguous spaces. Strongly influenced by her time as a tattoo artist apprentice, her drawings have an intensely powerful presence that lures visitors to look past the initial impression and engage more closely. She says, "My drawings reflect both willingness to reveal myself completely while simultaneously acknowledging that it makes me vulnerable at the same time."

Molly McEwan, a photographer from Moran, Kansas, explores the connection between personhood and body image through her photographic work. Inspired by her own journey, she looks for subtle ways to question the way people think of themselves. While not everyone is unhealthy, treating your body nicely doesn't mean you feel comfortable in it. Her photographs explore the female form and all its natural grace and beauty.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 sq. ft. long with 400 sq. ft dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Fine Arts student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibitions purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.