On April 13 the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art opened up its walls to ten seniors to display their Senior Inquiry projects in New Departures.
These projects included pieces in studio art and graphic design.
As I walked into the exhibit, I was immediately greeted with a display of woven works. The artist, Ryan Merhar, had made piece that displayed different facets of emotion. Some included “Stressed”, “Anger”, and “Happiness”.
The next piece that I took a look at was by Lauren Becker. It was a display that incorporated both photography and digital illustration. The pieces, that combined human and endangered animals, exhibited the pain of poaching in a more human form, so that we could understand the pain and suffering that comes with these unnecessary deaths.
Sydney Crumbleholme created a set piece on the pain of sexual assault. It was a normal looking dinner table with place mats and plates. However, the head seat had a clean plate and a napkin full of mascara smears.  Going down the table, the other plates were filled with words of questioning in spiral of phrases. Each plate was different and had a different meaning.
Katie Knauft then created a fracture face painting that was about “the reflection of human interaction and a reminder that we only get a glimpse into the lives of most people we interact with”. The separate parts of the painting represented the small glimpses she is referring to when we meet new people.
The next pieces were by Jacob Soukup.  The pieces displayed different forms of an adrenaline rush that he had experienced in his life: skydiving, skiing, rock climbing, surfing, and so on.  His paintings were unlike any of the other painting the museum offered, since his style included bright colors that stood out.
Creating a cool and almost alien-like piece was Holly Scholl.  She created something that represented time, “Twenty-Four Hours” of it, to be exact. It was in sections, like other artists did, and the detail was so distinct in each that every board used was beautiful by itself.
In a futuristic way, Bailey Kerschieter created landscape painting to represent the past, the present, and the future.  Inspired by the Robert Frost quote “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life, it goes on”, she created paintings to show how even though climate change is affecting the earth, time will still go on, with or without us. Kerschieter intertwined both the natural world and human word to show the fragile nature of human existence and how we need to change in order to make a lasting difference.
Tyler James then created a digital display to explore the dream world and the effects our fears have on it.  Shown on a TV screen, he created a movie-like experience, with sound and music in the background, to provide us with our own opinions on what he created and how we feel.
In sketched pieces, Nathan Gray explored “The Town” of Rock Island. He wanted to show others how beautiful and different each section of the town was, whether it be a hole-in-the-wall bar or the Augustana campus.
Finishing my walk through the museum, I came up on TJ Clifford’s creation. Writing a story to the side about a hero’s journey through different cities, TJ made digital illustrations. Each separate picture on the wall showed how this creation could easily be in a video game, movie, or animated television series.
I would recommend taking a small break and making your way to this exhibit to see these pieces. If you would like to look at these works of art, the New Departures art exhibit is open until May 22.