SENIOR EXHIBITION PROPOSAL
This proposal is intended to help you establish a professional-level studio practice that will carry you through your senior year capstone experience. The capstone experience begins immediately following the successful completion of your Junior Portfolio Review, with significant research and production expected to take place over the summer months preceding the fall semester of your senior year. The two-semester capstone experience assumes a high level of proficiency in both the materials and content you plan to engage with. Because of this, establishing a coherent framework for your practice early on is essential for the successful completion of the capstone, culminating in the Senior Exhibition in the Cornell Fine Arts Museum (contingent upon the production of quality works deemed to be of exhibition quality by museum staff and Studio Art faculty).
This proposal must be completed in advance of your Junior Portfolio Review. Please take time to carefully and thoughtfully respond to each and every prompt as you work through this form. It is expected that you will meet with your advisor or other studio faculty for help along the way. Multiple drafts will likely be produced.
THE SENIOR EXHIBITION
The capstone experience for the Studio Art major involves a sustained period of research and production resulting in the creation of original works in consideration for exhibition in the annual Senior Exhibition at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum. To be accepted into this exhibition, students must create a body of work that demonstrates a high level of critical and creative thinking, builds on their current knowledge of techniques and materials and involves an appropriate level of mastery of one or more fine art media. No one is guaranteed acceptance; a professional jurying process determines which students have earned the right to display their work in the museum.
WHAT IS A BODY OF WORK?
A body of work is a grouping, series, or installation of works that explore a topic, related themes, a concept or an idea. The individual pieces in a body of work are related to one another through overlapping similarities in one or more of the following components:
Subject matter; Formal elements (color, shape, line, value, etc.); Process/technique; Overall concepts explored.
Part One: The Role of the Artist and the Big Idea
Visual artists provoke viewers to respond to their work’s content through various formal strategies that relate to the conceptual concerns. But, in order for the artist to effectively convey their ideas, they must start from a coherent and authentic foundation. Establishing this primary framework is a fundamental first step. Sometimes this process begins with a series of questions. What/who is my work in conversation with? Why do I do what I do? What am I repeatedly drawn to? What/how might my work contribute to the local or global community?
Artists act as selective observers to call attention to overlooked aspects of the world and find themselves playing different roles as communicators through their work.
PROMPT #1:
Keeping in mind that you will be engaging with your content for a prolonged period, what ideas will sustain your engaged, enthusiastic interest for a long-term project, culminating in a coherent body of work? As an artist, what forms of communication interest you (humor, irony, activism, beauty, etc.)? What BIG IDEAS do you want to communicate to your viewers through your work?
PROMPT #2:
Spend some time thinking about pieces you have created during the last three years that you were really pleased with or which gained attention from your peers or your professors. What was it about those particular works that made them successful? What did you enjoy about the process of creating them? Are these works that may give you an idea of what direction you’d like to take during your capstone year? Why?
Part Two: Influence and Inspiration
PROMPT #3:
List at least three examples of contemporary artists (those working from 1965-present) that have influenced your work, or that you draw inspiration from. (PLEASE NOTE: The artists you list should have significant, professional exhibition records at highly regarded venues - major museums or well-known contemporary art spaces). Provide URL links to particular works or bodies of work by each artist. Underneath each link, describe how the concept and/or process interests you, and explain how it might impact your emerging practice. In addition to the three visual artists, you may also make note of writers, activists, philosophers and other individuals or works that are strong influences, if relevant and necessary.
Part Three: Media and Imagery
As you begin to explore your ideas in the studio, consider which materials and processes might best communicate the ideas you’ve outlined above. Be particularly mindful of media and materials with which you have some level of familiarity. In other words, this is not the best moment to begin figuring out how to work with a medium or process that is completely new to you.
PROMPT #4
With the above in mind, consider whether you will engage in painting, printmaking, mixed media, sculpture, photography, video, drawing or some combination of these. Your response should include a rationale for your intended use of particular media/approaches.
Part Four: Research
Research for a visual artist can take many forms, and serves as a means of locating material to help your ideas develop. A good start for researching is to make a list of keywords for yourself that you can use to search on-line contemporary arts journals and databases, etc. Your research might also necessitate engaging with content from other disciplines such as the sciences or the humanities in order to gain a fuller comprehension of information that is particularly technical, conceptual, cultural, political, etc. This mode of research may necessitate more pointed keywords and could begin with a basic Internet search, followed by a more thorough look at library databases.
PROMPT #5
Before you begin this process of building a new body of work, consider which disciplines and ideas you need to research. Define your research agenda below, and indicate how each area/item might contribute to your work.