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B.F.A. Senior Thesis Exhibition

The B.F.A. Senior Thesis Exhibition is an event where students completing their B.F.A. in Studio Art showcase their capstone body of artwork.

The �鶹ӰԺ School of Art B.F.A. Senior Thesis Exhibition takes place over two weeks in the Center for Visual Arts in the spring. The opening reception(s) are TBD, in which the entire faculty, university and local art community will be invited to attend. All participating students will have an individual postcard made for them and be part of the opening reception.

Current BFA. candidates need to apply for the BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition. To apply for the BFA exhibition, please visit the School of Art Collection and Galleries website.

Student Annual Juried Exhibition

The annual exhibition of both graduate and undergraduate work is juried by guest curators representing visual arts professions throughout the region. Work is reviewed “in the flesh” and rapidly mounted for exhibition; first- and second-place prizes as well as Best in Show award are made during the opening reception, which has increasingly become a party to look forward to!

You can plan to submit work in any medium in late February or early March by bringing it to the School Gallery, along with completed application form (dates and specific instructions will be posted on the website). The exhibition typically runs for three weeks and the director of galleries encourages students to price works and list them for sale to interested gallery attendees.

Contact Anderson Turner, haturner@kent.edu, director of galleries, for further information.

Foundations Show

In the final week of the fall semester, every student in all sections of Foundations classes (Drawing I & II, 2-D composition, 3-D composition, Digital Media) choose their strongest work to exhibit in the Center for the Visual Arts. This Foundations Show celebrates the achievements, growth and exploration that students attain in these intensive courses and serves to introduce their talents to the School of Art community. Participation in organizing, installing, labeling and lighting the work becomes a laboratory for mounting a professional exhibition and moving creative output from the classroom to the wider public.

Each fall instructors award Outstanding Student Recognition at this exhibition to those students who have shown exceptional potential, achieved extraordinary growth or demonstrated unwavering commitment to their discipline. In addition, faculty jurors select from submitted work to award the Tippens Scholarship, made possible by a generous donation by Jack and Dora Tippens.

Please, check with your instructors for further details or contact Mark Schatz, mschatz@kent.edu, coordinator of the Foundations Program for further information.

GAR Foundation Exhibition

Each year, beginning in 2011, the  has hired a graduate student in the School of Art at �鶹ӰԺ to curate a long-term exhibition of undergraduate art work by students at the University of Akron Myers School of Art and the �鶹ӰԺ School of Art. Works selected, mostly but not exclusively wall pieces, are exhibited in the renovated Andrew Jackson House near downtown Akron, location of the corporate offices of the GAR Foundation. Exhibitors receive a $100 honorarium for each work selected for exhibition, and each year the staff of the Foundation chooses a “Best in Show” that they then purchase for their permanent collection.

Call for submissions usually comes late in the fall semester (by about mid-November), with a mid-January deadline for review. This show is open to junior and senior undergraduates enrolled full time or part time in the School of Art at �鶹ӰԺ or the Myers School of Art at the University of Akron. The curator works directly with both schools in collecting submissions.

When the call for entries is announced, keep your eyes peeled -- fliers are posted around the Art Building listing the deadlines and submission requirements. Students pick up an application form, load their images onto a CD and turn in the completed form with CD to the designated drop-off point (usually a box in front of the Gallery bulletin board is labeled for dropping off entries). The curator typically selects about 20 works of art: 10 from �鶹ӰԺ and 10 from the University of Akron.

The graduate curator then works with exhibitors to display works most effectively in the GAR offices, with a reception and celebration of the year’s artists in late February or early March. Works remain on display, with a color handlist of all those exhibited including prices of those for sale, through November, when they are brought back to �鶹ӰԺ State for pickup by each artist.  

For further information, contact Anderson Turner, haturner@kent.edu, director of galleries.