UTC Senior Thesis Art Exhibition Goes Online
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) Department of Art, along with the Contemporary Cress, announce the annual 2020 BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition—online-only this year at utcbfa.com—and celebrate thirty-seven graduates from the Department of Art.
The annual spring BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition is the capstone achievements of graduating BFA studio majors, and usually celebrated with an exhibition, public artist talks and widely-attended receptions at UTC and the Cress Gallery of Art.
Due to necessary campus and facilities closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic in mid-semester, art students and faculty in the Department of Art navigated circumstances that many in similar academic art institutions are negotiating currently, including lost physical access to senior studio spaces—a critical student resource to create artwork—as well as the loss of the Contemporary Cress gallery as public exhibition venue to share their work.
Under the leadership of Matt Greenwell, UC Foundation Professor teaching the senior course Professional Preparation for the Visual Artist, the BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition was reconsidered and materialized as an online exhibition on the website utcbfa.com.
“Identity, perception, spirituality, and justice are just a few of the themes that shape the 2020 BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition, continuing a tradition of critical engagement, material exploration, and the testing of conventional boundaries of form and content," Greenwell explains.
"Despite our physical separation from one another, this is truly one of the most collaborative thesis exhibitions that I’ve been involved with in 20 years of teaching at UTC. More importantly, the adaptation and reconceptualization of their artworks for an online exhibition demonstrates resourcefulness, determination, and hope that will be the hallmark of the graduating class of 2020.”
Professor Aggie Toppins, Head of the Department of Art, asserts that, “the BFA capstone is an important experiential learning opportunity for our students and it cultivates professional skills. While it is disappointing that there won’t be physical exhibitions this year, the Department of Art has tried to be adaptive and flexible in order to find the best way to serve our students. We look forward to showing our BFA students’ outstanding work online and we are committed to promoting their careers as part of our alumni community.”
Additionally, the BFA Senior Thesis students’ work will be published in a forthcoming print catalogue, produced locally in Chattanooga by Wonderpress, and released in May 2020. Please inquire for how to receive a copy through UTC Department of Art.