From April 17 to May 17, the Neidorff Art Gallery will showcase the senior art exhibition Fragments, kicking off with an opening reception from 5–7 p.m. on the first day, April 17. Ten Trinity seniors will present their work in various media, including painting, printmaking and photography. Senior art majors at Trinity planned, organized and created works for this public exhibition as part of their major requirement for the past two semesters. During the first semester, seniors chose the title and theme, “Fragments,” as a reflection of who they are as a group of artists. Madison Haxton, art and communication double-major, was part of the process and explained how the seniors decided on“Fragments” as the theme.

“We decided to work in this theme of everybody being different and everybody having different perspectives that they bring to the table and then weaving it together in this tapestry of very different and vibrant and beautiful colorful ideas,” Haxton said.

Students choose the theme to allow a variety of works, and each artist had their unique interpretation using their medium. For example, Michaela Bosco, senior art and communication double-major, used her printmaking to explore the theme.

“With printing, you have each individual layer, which might not look like a piece of art in itself, but whenever you layer them on top of each other, it becomes a sort of whole, so each of the layers are fragments themselves,” Bosco said.

According to Bosco, her works are a series where each part can be viewed separately as a fragment, or all together as a whole when placed together. In addition to the medium of printmaking itself, Bosco also used themes of fragments in the subjects of her painting.

“My work deals with both the natural environment and nostalgia,” Bosco said. “My work is definitely more on colors and textiles, and those fragments of nostalgia in our life that can come together to create a whole piece.”

Seniors were active in all steps of planning the exhibition, such as hanging their work, public relations and organizing the exhibition layout. Melina Tierrablanca-Vasquez, senior art and computer science double-major, talked about how it felt preparing for the exhibition.

“It was kind of stressful, but it was really fun. I’ve never done something like this before,” Tierrablanca-Vasquez said. “There’s so much thought put into the planning of something like this, and it was really cool to be a part of it.”

Unlike art assignments in classes, the broad theme of Fragments allowed the artists more creative control over their own works. According to Tierrablanca-Vasquez, how she viewed preparing for the gallery changed over the semester.

“I think in the beginning, I had that pressure to where I was trying to make this for the people when they came into the gallery. I wanted them to be like, ‘Oh, like this is so cool,’” Tierrablanca-Vasquez said. “As the process went on, I really just wanted to make something that I was proud of. I just had so much freedom to make whatever I wanted, that it was just so fun to do it.”

*Correction: This story was updated on 4/21 to correct Madison Haxton’s name in the story and photo captions.