Senior art show showcases feminine photography

Rachel Glynn found the idea for her senior thesis by finding something that “pissed” her off and going from there. This Saturday, Glynn and five other College of Visual and Performing Arts seniors will be featuring their senior thesis artwork, titled “Girls,” at Spark Contemporary Art Space in downtown Syracuse.

The pieces will all highlight the female body and empowerment in different ways. Glynn, an art photography major, said the exhibit features a variety of different photography methods and even film installations. Glynn said the ideas for their pieces came from a project about intimacy they started junior year.

She defines intimacy as “the weird things you do when you are by yourself,” and used that concept to highlight how women’s bodies are controlled by other people. She gave the example of the stigma around tampons.

Courtesy of Liz Olsen

“People are so grossed out by it, but you would never let us walk around without them,” she said. “I feel like women are always saying sorry and attaching qualifiers. It’s about empowering the female body.”

Glynn’s work is a combination of photographs portraying the human form and feminine beauty products and items, from shaving cream to tampons to underwear. She plans to place a table of beauty projects in the middle of the room.

A year ago, Glynn started planning for the exhibit with some tentative ideas that she would jot down in a notebook during class. From there, it was a flurry of critiques, reshoots and photo editing.

“You think you have the perfect idea, and you go to your critique and your professor says you are wrong,” Glynn said.

The actual exhibition was set up with professors, but each student got to choose the layout of their installation. They also had to manage refreshments and the guest list.

She stressed that an important part of galleries are the people who attend them. She will be offering free food and wine in the room showcasing her and fellow artist Hana Katz’s work.

While Glynn may have had idea from the beginning, Katz grappled with what she wanted to do. She said she just began narrowing her idea down within the last couple of weeks.

Katz describes her work as “a timeline of past relationships.” Her work includes self portraits and profile photographs, in addition to an installation video of her and her mom telling each other things they didn’t know about each other. The overall theme of her work focuses on toxic relationships she had in her past. She wants the work to show how she is taking both her power and happiness back from men.

Steph Nelson, a sophomore environmental and interior design major, is planning on attending the event and said that as an artist herself, she enjoys attending events at Spark Contemporary Art Space. She was especially excited when she saw that Spark would be hosting a feminist exhibit.

Nelson said she hopes a lot of men attend this event and see what feminine art looks like. Hopefully from there, they can begin engaging in conversation.

“I think calling yourself a feminist is such a taboo subject, especially in college and at this age,” she said, “There is such a misconception around the word and there needs to be some enlightenment on the topic.”

Besides hoping to engage and entertain patrons such as Nelson, Katz said the six artists are simply excited to enjoy the time with family, friends and professors.

“It’s finally done,” Katz said, “I can’t believe it’s up in the gallery space.”