By The Dozen, Whitworth’s 2024 Senior Art and Design Exhibit, was open to the public this past month. The exhibition is available for viewing April 9 to May 18 with the school year’s close. This showing featured all senior artists and designers within Whitworth’s programs, giving them an opportunity to display the culmination of their four years of development and growth.
“A lot of me and my cohort have been working on our projects all year long, and some even since junior year, so to finally get to hang them up in the gallery upstairs is honestly just such a huge accomplishment,” said senior graphic design major and volleyball and basketball athlete, Abby Hudson.
The small, tightly-knit nature of the class of 2024’s art and design students rendered them gifted by mutual feedback and encouragement throughout the process of creating their exhibition work, according to Hudson, something which served to symbiotically benefit all involved.
“We each would present our work to each other and check in as we created it, so we really got to go through the journey with each individual artist,” said Hudson. “I think there’s always this excitement when you come in as a freshman that one day your work will get to hang in the big gallery upstairs where professional artists’ work is hung, and to finally be there yourself is very surreal and exciting.”
This year, Hudson chose to showcase work which she described as both personal and honest, working to magnify and illuminate the feelings of those witnessing it. Her goal was for her work to be a catharsis of sorts for years of emotion and processing.
“For me, this is the first art I’ve ever shown that’s dealt with something deep in my life. I’ve always felt very deeply and created art in private, whether it’s poems in my notebook or drawings, or even just other ways I express myself in art, but it’s always remained there,” said Hudson.
“I’ve always shared more of my joyful, playful works, and so this work was a really good balance of myself as an artist and what I feel on the inside of always wanting to create a piece that is visually interesting, can stand alone, and hold its own in terms of visual elements and dynamic ability, but also holds deep meaning to me and is close and personal to my heart,” said Hudson.
Hudson explained that by choosing to open up a more intimate aspect of her work, one detailing her mother’s journey with cancer and the way this has affected her life as a daughter, she hoped to give exhibition attendees an immersive and personal experience of their own through the viewing of her design.
“Obviously talking about cancer is a very big and heavy subject, but I just wanted to bring light and remind people of the joy that still exists in my family and in my mom, and create a beautiful thing,” said Hudson.“[…] Although cancer is hard, everything in this life is beautiful and you don’t want to let the hard things define you.”
“I think for me to see a viewer come up and experience exactly what I hoped they would is one of the best feelings and biggest accomplishments you can have as an artist,” said Hudson.
