The annual spring Fine Arts exhibition is a chance to celebrate students graduating from TRU’s Fine Arts program while giving them an opportunity to showcase their work and what they have learned. This year’s exhibition, aptly titled The Final Brushstroke, will be the last.
When enrollment in the program was cancelled in 2023, TRU provided a three-year teach-out period, allowing students currently enrolled to complete their studies. This year’s exhibition showcases the work of the final batch of graduates who will receive certificates, diplomas or degrees in Fine Arts at TRU.
“While this reality brings a sense of closure, the works gathered here remind us that endings in art are rarely simple endings. Each piece reflects the development of a distinct voice and the persistence, curiosity and commitment required to pursue creative practice,” Professor Twyla Exner said during the opening reception on April 11.
Each year, the exhibition not only showcases the talent of the graduating class but also provides them with a realistic experience in curating art shows. The scale of this show is much greater than that of typical TRU exhibitions, which are confined to the Art Gallery in Old Main. Artwork is displayed not only in the gallery, but throughout the hallways and multiple rooms in the Art Wing of the building. All of the artwork displayed was completed, many of them specifically for this exhibition. Fourth-year visual arts students are required to complete a graduating seminar course. The course takes two semesters to complete and teaches students professional practices beyond art creation, such as photographing their work, creating websites and writing artist statements.
Putting together the exhibition was a collaborative process for the graduating class that reflected these new skills they had learned. Much of the artwork on display is available for purchase, with prices and titles listed in a folder at the opening reception. Each student was responsible for pricing their own work, one of the skills they learned in their graduating year. Numerous pieces were bought by TRU for its permanent collection. A catalogue that could be purchased for $10 showed pictures of each student’s artwork, along with their artist statements. This project was also led by the students, including Sofia Marmolejo, who reached out to her classmates for photos and information, which was compiled in Adobe Premiere. Even painting the walls of the exhibition spaces was done entirely by students.
The array of mediums used in the exhibited artwork reflects the different skills the fine arts program helped develop. With paintings, drawings, photography, screen printings and digital art, each student is given the opportunity to express their unique ideas and talents.
“What you’re seeing is that each of the students’ work here looks quite different and quite individual, and that’s the nature of studies in visual arts. One of the accomplishments of this and other visual arts programs is that students are encouraged to create their own original artwork,” Professor Donald Lawrence said. “For some students, whether they intended to or not, they’ll drift away from being fully focused as an artist, but that’s ok too. I think you would see that in any undergraduate degree. But those students will be the ones who stay interested and supportive of arts and culture, so their education gives them a strong understanding and awareness of the visual arts, regardless of whether they choose to carry on as practitioners or not. And that’s how university programming works. It builds up communities that operate at different levels.”
During the reception, TRU also said goodbye to numerous Visual Arts faculty members who will be retiring, including Lawrence, Terryl Atkins and Darlene Kalynka.
The reception awarded two students, Jayde Ritcher, Chanel Sucroft and Kaitlyn Bartlet for their work at TRU. Many of Bartlett’s pieces on display were screen printings with ribbon woven into the canvas. She was the recipient of a scholarship and a one-month residency with the Kamloops Printmakers, which will begin in September. “I am so excited for that. I was actually going to go take a mentorship at the Printmakers, so I’m glad that the scholarship is up. I’m happy to stay active in the art community as well,” Bartlet said.
Although the graduating students are the main focus, students enrolled in visual arts classes were also able to showcase their semester’s projects.
“There are a lot of people who have taken arts classes in the last year or two who have really found a passion for it and a talent for it,” Ritcher told The Omega. “I’ve witnessed these students in these classes, and their work is just amazing … it’s really unfortunate to know that they can’t pursue a credential, they can’t continue taking these classes because this is the final semester that TRU is offering.”
Although this marks the end of the Fine Arts program, this exhibition showcased the passion of the young artists, and although the program may be gone, the community is still here. In a speech at the reception, alumnus of the Fine Arts program Charlie “Napcolours” Napoleon addressed the new graduates.
“Paint an apple and put teeth in it, take a picture of your friend with a cone on their head, write a song about frogs and strawberries, because in the end, we all came here for the same reason: the joy of creation. That’s what brought all of us here to this institution, to continue creating art,” Napoleon said.
The Final Brushstroke will be displayed in Old Main until April 26.