Senior Studio Art Majors ’20

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Rebecca Pempek ’20
Understory
On View: January 31-February 4, 2020
Reception: Monday, February 3, 4:30-5:30pm

Rebecca Pempek is a senior studio art major from Putnam, CT. Her large-scale mixed media works on paper explore the current state of anxiety in the world directly related to climate change.

Pempek has had two previous solo exhibition at the Silver Circle Gallery in Putnam, CT. She received the Fujita Art Grant in 2018 and travelled to Iceland where she studied the relationship between the changing landscape and native folklore. Since her sophomore year at Davidson, Rebecca has been a fellow for Davidson Arts and Creative Engagement. Most recently, Rebecca received the Douglas Houchens Studio Art Award.

Lindsey Owen ’20
House of the Rising None
On View: February 7-11, 2020
Reception: Friday, February 7, 4-5pm

After working several summers in the interior design industry, Lindsey Owen, incorporates her experience with her studio art work. The combination of interiors, art, and pattern come to life in her final senior show House of the Rising None featuring several pieces of furniture.

Coco Peng ’20
Far Flung
On View: February 13-17, 2020
Reception: Thursday, February 13, 11am-12pm

Using mixed media including oil, spray paint, and organic solvent on canvas, Coco Peng is exploring her experience of leaving home at the age of thirteen.

Peng is pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree as a Chemistry and Studio Arts double major at Davidson.

Jared McElveen ’20
Before You Know It
On View: February 20-24, 2020
Reception: Thursday, February 20, 4:30 – 5:30pm

McElveen is currently working with animation, primarily creating small snippets or clips of an event or time and place. Using themes of mass negligence and irresponsibility, specifically inaction towards rectifying the effects of climate change, he attempts to capture a moment of the future and freeze it. He begins by trying to depict feelings of dread, though ultimately, the results vary, perhaps in part due to the artist’s reflection on an uncertain future. He asks, “Will we be content with the future we create?”

Ella Sams ’20 
Fight, Flight, and the Memory of Life
On View: March 11-15, 2020
Reception: Tuesday, March 12, 11am-12pm

Ella Sams work examines the “struggle for existence” as described in the third chapter of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. She uses thin layers of paint and charcoal to capture the struggle between life and destruction within and between the human race, alongside motifs of feathers and light to suggest the persistence of memories.

Since attending the Governor’s Honor’s Program in 2015 for studio art, Sams has used studio art as a tool for a deeper exploration of philosophy and environmental science. Her work with Davidson Outdoors and the Ada Jenkins Resource Center helps inform her studio practice. After Davidson, she plans to combine the outdoors and studio art to teach.

Allison Hoerler ’20 
On View: March 18-22, 2020
Reception: Thursday, March 19, 11am-12pm

Through manipulating traditional and found fabrics, Allison Hoerler creates fashion-inspired textile pieces that uncover processes of cultural navigation and the concept of home.

Hoerler is pursuing a BA in fine arts with a communications minor.

Addie Clark ’20
Limits
On View: March 25-29, 2020
Reception: Friday, March 27, 4:30-5:30pm

Using color and form, Addie expresses what it means to live with ADHD in a world composed of boundaries, rules, and limits.

Helen Duffy ’20
womxn
On View: April 1-5, 2020
Reception: Thursday, April 2, 3:30-5pm

Helen Duffy came to Davidson College to swim, but began painting her first semester here and could not stop. She utilizes acrylic, oil and spray paint combined with collage and other found materials to experimentally create large-scale abstract works.

Duffy was awarded the Logan Art Grant this past summer to intern at Penland School of Craft. She will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and a minor in Educational Studies.

Makayla Binter ’20
Colorful Happenings – Painted Moments
On View: April 8-18, 2020 (gallery closed April 10-14)
Reception: Wednesday, April 8, 6-7pm

A culmination of moments in time representing the experience of being a black student on a stark white background. Through performance, photographs, and sculpture, these works will ask you to engage, question, and take a new perspective looking outside the main focus. Utilizing moments of interjection and emphasizing natural moments within black culture to decentralize our immediate perceptions. These moments of time are frozen with the depiction of what was and what has been, creating an interpretation of what is next. Experiences drive the creative curiosity to be present and participate in the normalcy that is the Black experience. In viewing these moments, becoming part of the exhibit as an active participant leads to the requirement of questioning your existence in spaces.

Welcome discomfort.

Maura Tangum ’20
Tug-of-War
On View: April 22-26, 2020
Reception: TBD

Maura Tangum employs a diverse array of materials (textiles, plaster, bronze, recycled wood, etc.) and range of processes (sewing, welding, casting) to examining the intersection between fashion and sculpture. Her work aims to engage elements of both sculpture and fashion while refusing to fall firmly into either category.

Tangum is earning a dual-degree in English and Studio Art and was awarded a Fujita Travel Grant to work as a sculptor’s apprentice in Indonesia during the summer of 2018. In previous student art exhibitions at the Van Every/Smith Galleries Maura won the Juror’s Award for Sculpture and received an Honorable Mention Award for digital photography.