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An Invitation to Art

The 2021 Senior Thesis Exhibition celebrates the vision of eight artists

By Bates College

May 13^th, 2021

Live and in person

Tucked into the corner of the Bates College Museum of Art is a small sign with an invitation from Christopher Barker ’21. The soon-to-be graduate from Burlington, Vt., has placed four pieces of his ceramic artwork there, adjacent to his full exhibit, and he wants visitors to pick up these ghostly, serene-looking vessels.

Just use the bottle of Purell nearby before and after, his sign says, but please, go ahead and touch. We do, and the artwork feels cool and balanced, like the antidote to 14 months of chaos and confusion.

His artist’s statement tells you that Barker, one of eight studio art majors in the Class of 2021, is inspired by the artwork of Terry Winters, Jasper Johns and Brice Marden, and that the sciences he has studied at Bates — he is also a physics major, and president of the High Altitude Ballooning Club — while working on his studio art thesis have made him want to play with the forces of gravity, to build cups that rest elegantly on a point, or on a base that seems to levitate.

At a tiny opening (a few faculty, museum staff, student artists, and significant others) for this year’s Senior Thesis Exhibition, on May 7, these physically distanced guests move around the Upper Gallery, looking at Barker’s work as well as that of two other ceramicists, Alex Paton ’21 of Charlotte, Vt., and Laila Stevens ’21 of Norwich, Vt.

Paton has created a striking wall assemblage of ceramic shelves to hold cups of varying sizes; nearby, a farmhouse-style table is filled with squared off teapots and carafes. Stevens’ organic-looking sculptures stand on podiums across the room, like a magical pastel-hued boneyard.

Artist Blaise Marceau '21 and museum attendant Carol St. Pierre speak at the entrance to the Museum.

Let the show begin

Faculty thesis advisers Pamela Johnson and Susan Dewsnap with artist Laila Stevens '21

Bates Museum of Art Director Dan Mills with artist Laila Stevens '21

Blaise Marceau '21 with Elke Morris, senior lecturer in photography

Carlo Crimonini '21 ascends the Museum staircase with Elke Morris, senior lecturer in photography.

A film festival in the Lower Gallery

The intimate Lower Gallery was turned into separate screening rooms for the three thesis projects that feature video.

Mari Sato ’21 of McMinnville, Ore., went for a living-room arrangement, with a rug, a comfortable chair, and pillows in front of the screen showing her short film, Sakura. In this setting you can better imagine Sato’s process into the escape of animation: “I read, watch, and listen as I go about my life with my art in mind. In the mornings, after drinking coffee and considering the day ahead, I go to the studio or to my desk, and I pick up a pen.” Projected in this setting, the colorful images pop, animated butterflies darting on and off the screen.

Sit with But at Least We Remember and dip into the family history of Eli Eshaghpour ’21 of New York City, who uses oral histories from his grandmother, uncle, and a distant cousin — Persians who emigrated from Iran decades ago — as an audio track to illuminate news footage from Iran, both before and after the 1979 revolution, some of it iconic, some of it winningly quirky.

The last film is the mesmerizingly naturalistic work of Wenjing Zheng ’21, who has been studying remotely from home in Wuhan, China, during 2020–21. Her Old Home is heavily influenced by legendary French filmmaker Agnes Varda as well as Zheng’s own deep exploration of her grandparents’ lives in Qiankeng Village, the “old home” of the film’s title, a Chinese idea describing the “place where your family and previous generations originated.”

Only five minutes long, it is transfixing, a moving glimpse into her grandmother’s quiet, focused, and challenging life of subsistence farming. Watching it just once does not feel like enough, but again, the museum offers an invitation to stay as the flim — and life — loops again.