Until April 6, artworks from the 45th Annual Student Exhibition are on display in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. Curated by multidisciplinary artists Abdu Ali GS and Falaks Vasa MFA’23, the installation highlights student works that embody artistic experimentation, risk-taking and personal expression.
As jurors, Ali and Vasa evaluated submissions based on the artworks’ ability to challenge traditional artistic conventions and engage viewers beyond surface-level aesthetics.
“I was looking for works that took risks — whether that be materially, conceptually or formally,” Vasa, who is also a lecturer and critic at the Rhode Island School of Design, told The Herald. “These works also tended to be the ones that read as the most authentic expressions of the artists, and I was so humbled to see so many works that were pushing boundaries and taking those risks unapologetically.”
The jurors awarded first prize to alea adigweme GS for “[untitled],” a 2020 experimental short film that weaves together VHS-C footage, Snapchat videos and iPhone audio recordings. The piece explores themes of illness, trauma and memory through an intricate layering of adigweme’s personal archival material.
“‘[untitled]’ escapes description,” adigweme wrote in an email to The Herald. “It draws the viewer into a vortex — of despair and illness-made-illegible — to wait, for hell, alongside its Black protagonist and amidst the syncopated static and digital residue of her life.”
Created while adigweme was pursuing a master’s of fine arts at the University of California at Los Angeles, the film serves as a personal reckoning with her experience of being diagnosed with breast cancer in her early 30s.
The second prize was awarded to “Support for Processing My Bra Trauma” by Lauren Ward ’27, and third place went to “Engrave” by Selim Kutlu ’29. Honorable mentions included “Digital Divination” by Simone Klein ’25, “Too Scared to Try” by Nan Dickerson ’26 and “(in)dependent: Wearing as Performance” by Benjamin Rozea ’27.
In addition to the awarded works, the exhibition featured a diverse range of pieces exploring innovative techniques and interdisciplinary approaches. One such work was a sculptural coffee table created by Chloe Chow ’26, which she said is “made of plasma-cut machined steel sheet metal.”
“The piece’s reflective surface is distorted by hand-burnished swirls,” Chow said. “The negative space of various cut-out icons lets light pass through the surface, casting a shadow of a creature below the tabletop.”
Chloe Chow ’26 made a sculptural coffee table with sharply cut sheet metal “casting a shadow of a creature below the tabletop.”
“Sharp, fragmented limbs protrude from the body of the table and scamper across the floor, jabbing the viewer,” she explained. “As a mechanical engineering and visual art double-concentrator, the piece further explores my craft of sculptures at the intersection of fine artistry and technicality.”
Sulan Zhang ’28, another artist whose painting is on display, reflected on the challenge of determining when a work is truly complete.
In her painting, Sulan Zhang ’28 used loose strokes and incorporated abstract aspects, embracing “an unfinished feel — but in a finished way,” she said.
“I think that if I wanted to, I could pour over the details forever,” Zhang told The Herald. “But I kind of like how there are some places that aren’t as tight and rigid and perfect as they could have been.”
“The looser strokes with the palette knife and the more abstract aspects lend themselves to an unfinished feel — but in a finished way,” she added. “I didn’t want to keep tweaking it to the point where it’s too perfect, because then it’s not natural.”
For students hoping to see their work in future exhibitions, Vasa advised them to “continue to be honest with your work and create it to the standards you set for yourselves, as opposed to any internalized standards from the art world.”
“Only you can make the work you make, and, in my opinion, nothing gets into exhibitions quicker than work that feels fresh, authentic and you,” Vasa added.
Summer Shi is a senior staff writer and illustrator for the Brown Daily Herald. She is from Dublin, California and is currently studying design engineering and philosophy.
