Graduating Art Majors Offer ‘Twelvefold’

Twelve graduating art majors will display their capstone art projects from April 3^rd to May 3^rd at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. A free public reception opens Twelvefold: Westmont College Graduate Exhibition 2025 on Thursday, April 3, from 4-6 pm.

The exhibition offers diverse themes focused on identity, relationships, and place. The artists include Amélie Barrero, Creed Bauman, Mia Brooke, Jaycee Felkins, Erika Harrison, Tucker Howard, Julia Jachetta, Gray Mohon, Juliana Moore, Ryan Speight, Rebekah Steele, and Laurea Wanner.

The art projects range in media from charcoal drawings, oil paintings, watercolor, mixed media drawings, multimedia books, acrylic paintings on disassembled car parts, screen prints, and sculpture.

“The twelve artists included in the graduate exhibition have each been engaged in creating a body of artwork focused on living intentionally, using visual interpretations to explore imaginative worlds, the intersection of art and science, the ephemeral nature of memories, the impact of industrialization on the land, and identity,” says Meagan Stirling, who chairs the art department and supervised the
senior capstone.

Barrero created a series of mixed-media works, The Water We Swim In, which invites us to live intentionally with a deep awareness of our interconnectedness.

Bauman’s A Tension, Please features a series of seven sequential panels that reveal the development, tension and eventual integration of two separate forces of the artist’s dueling identities. “The works exist on a linear timeline; the middle five steps span the length of my life,” Bauman says. 

Brooke says when someone opens a book, it momentarily transports them to another realm, leaving oppressive reality behind. Brooke’s work replicates a reader’s transcendence into narratives through visual interpretations rather than words.

Felkins’ series of screen prints, Typical, features a shooting star that explores the tension between a subject designed for constant motion and the stifling reality of being confined. “When forced into unrealistic scenarios, shooting stars serve as an example of the abnormal and often difficult struggle of resisting our own nature,” she says. 

Harrison’s Lackluster and the Wrecked is a series of acrylic paintings done on car body parts. “I use industrial materials and graffiti as an act of resistance and as a means of moving toward breaking free from societal molds,” she says. 

Howard, who was diagnosed with ADHD at a young age, experiences the world through a heightened sensory lens, shaping his connection to both music and art. “My paintings, prints and accompanying music are an invitation into my mind, where sound and color merge in unexpected and mesmerizing ways,” he says. 

Jachetta’s A Waiting Space, is a personal exploration of desperation, hope and acceptance – a reflection of her journey toward self-forgiveness and the belief in hope beyond suffering. “I explore the fear of dying, but also the possibility of finding solace in the uncertainty of death,” she says. 

Mohon uses disparate objects and metaphors in his works about the act of introspection. “I play off the subtle, ironic comedy of each piece with serious subject matter, which makes a reflective, doubled-over piece,” he says. 

Moore’s Sanctuary, a large-scale replica of a Kern’s guava nectar box, serves as a metaphor for her life. “The box itself becomes a canvas for exploring my identity and themes of social justice,” she says. 

Speight’s oil paintings reflect the ephemeral nature of memories. “Using pixelated and simplified forms, I represent the distortion of memories in an attempt to capture fleeting moments,” he says. 

Steele’s self-portraits create a space of mutual vulnerability. “Some of the faces in my paintings are intentionally left blank as a way to invite the viewer to project their own emotions and experiences onto the self-portrait,” she says. 

Wanner’s Highway 395 is a series of screen prints drawn from the imagery along the iconic roadway. “The images document the impact of industrialization on the land and also offer a sense of the eternal beauty of God’s creation,” she says. 

As longtime donors to the senior show, Ken and Francie Jewesson generously sponsored the exhibition.