Opening reception held for Senior Studio Art Major's Exhibit

Andrea Mewhinney ’16 stands in front of her artwork.

Andrea Mewhinney ’16 is using her Senior Studio Art Exhibit to raise awareness about endangered animals across the world.

Friends and colleagues visit at Andrea Mewhinney’s Senior Art Exhibit reception.

On Thursday afternoon, Mewhinney welcomed friends and colleagues to a reception for her exhibit at the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College. Her work features photographs that demonstrate the human footprint on natural habitats as well as a world map that spans the length of the Gallery 4 wall. Faces of endangered animals are painted onto each continent.

“It shows that our world is much bigger than we might think, and a lot of the beautiful creatures we have here have become endangered or even extinct,” she said.

Mewhinney said she came up with the idea for the exhibit as a first-year at Randolph, but never imagined it would come to fruition. However, with encouragement from her professors—particularly art professors Jim Muehlemann and Kathy Muehlemann—she spent most of her senior year creating the exhibit and making her dream a reality.

Mewhinney has always enjoyed drawing, but during her time at Randolph she has also found a passion for graphic design and photography. She even completed an internship with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, where she helped create 3-D graphics for a training video game for the U.S. Army.

Charley Gorman ’16 delivers a presentation about her senior paper.

“I definitely found my passion for art here,” she said. “I came to Randolph because of volleyball, and I originally wanted to major in history. I didn’t take an art class until my second semester of sophomore year, and that was an animal drawing class, so that’s when I really started to move forward with this idea. My experience here as an art major has really assured me that this is what I want to do, and I love it.”

Mewhinney’s work will be on view at the Maier through May 15.

Following Mewhinney’s reception, art history majors Elisabeth Price ’16 and Charley Gorman ’16 presented their senior papers. Price’s paper was entitled “Church Architecture and its Response to Medieval Pilgrimage” and Gorman’s was “The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux and Expectations of the Queen.”

Elisabeth Price ’16 delivers a presentation about her senior paper.