Give Up the Ghost: Student Exhibition Opens April 17
Work by seven student-artists will be on display April 17 to May 17 at The Trout Gallery. Photo by Dan Loh.
Show is culminating event for studio art majors
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
A substantial creative project evolves across stages, as its creator moves from initial idea to work in progress to fully realized creation. So it was for this year’s seven senior studio art majors: After a full academic year of conceiving of, developing and refining new bodies of work and creating artist’s statements, they’re ready to present a joint exhibition representing all they’ve learned at Dickinson.
Designed by the students and featuring a full-color catalogue, the senior studio art exhibition opens April 17 with a reception at the Trout Gallery (5-7 p.m.) and runs through May 17.
Its title is "Give Up the Ghost," and used in this context, that phrase zeroes in on a meaningful milestone. It’s the moment when the most consequential work in a student’s career “takes on new life as it moves toward its final form,” writes Professor of Art Todd Arsenault, who leads this year’s studio art seminar in collaboration with studio art faculty.
Here’s what to expect at the exhibition and during the students’ April 23 lunch and learn session.
Sarah Coates: [Relics]
Part of a series called [Relics], Coates’ paintings and clay receptacles convey nuanced examples of empathy and humanity in everyday life. Coates writes that she enjoys working in clay because it’s a medium that “remembers every touch and records hesitation as clearly as certainty,” while paint “forms a language of movement and color that communicates emotion without relying on narrative.”
Izzy Enrique: Reimagining tattoos
Fascinated by tattoos since childhood, Enrique reinterprets traditional American and Japanese designs with a focus on themes of gender, self-expression and agency. “My body of work is an expression of unabashed femininity and positivity in self-expression, a denouncement of misogynistic tradition, and a vibrant exclamation of my passion and determination,” Enrique writes.
Johnny Nguyen: Liminal experiences
Nguyen uses translucent layers of paint and softened forms to depict quickly shifting and overlapping emotions that may not be fully understood or resolved. He illuminates how emotions and recollections are shaped through revision and reinterpretation, rather than through exact recall. “I aim to create paintings with moments of ambiguity, where viewers can encounter emotional states that feel familiar yet difficult to fully define,” Nguyen writes.
Miranda Sipe: Challenging mythology
Challenging the canon of ancient mythology, Sipe creates new visual interpretations that represent nonwhite people and queerness, working against the historically Europeanized and whitewashed art canon and representing diversity in ancient Greece and Rome. “As mythological figures have an ability to transcend space and time, my use of digital technology is how I bridge the present with the past,” writes Sipe, noting that adding color and texture infuses “a newfound sense of emotion, life, and movement to a static and rigid form.”
Larry Vandyke: Dreams and waking life
Connecting dreamed and waking lives with artistic experiences, Vandyke invites viewers to consider three of the artist’s memories: A dream, in which Vandyke received a much-longed for gift; two Christmases later, when Vandyke received that gift; and the loss of that gift, when Vandyke moved to another country. (“My head has only felt heavier since,” Vandyke writes of that loss.) Then, Vandyke invites viewers to take in his works, including the fine print they contain. “Will you tell me if you end up dreaming about it?” Vandyke asks.
Chris Vill: Bodies, seen and felt
Vill’s paintings investigate the body and its systems. Thick paint evokes weighty organs, heavy strokes represent skin and bones, lively marks and textures convey movement. “I am influenced by artists who have explored human and animal forms in less conventional ways, such as Philip Guston, Jennifer Packer and Chaim Soutine,” Vill writes. “Soutine has especially helped me consider how to represent the challenging nature of our being; the relationship between form and material that can change the nature of how we understand our physical existence.”
Inés Zamora: Inspiring change
Working primarily in oil and ceramics, Zamora considers the relationship between history, artistic tradition and the contemporary political environment, tackling charged subjects such as wealth disparity, colonization, misogyny and the commodification and propagandization of art. “I consider my work a call for social and political activism, both at the governmental and individual level,” Zamora writes. “Activism is not only for the young, enjoying life is not only for the rich, and ‘global community’ is not just a concept. I hope my work can inspire the change I want to see in the world.”
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Published April 14, 2026