Sonder unveiled: Exploring human experience at the 51st Senior Undergraduate Exhibition

Step into the 51st Senior Undergraduate Exhibition, hosted by the University of Waterloo Art Gallery and presented by the Department of Fine Arts. The annual showcase unveils the bold creativity and diverse practices of fourth-year students from the fine arts program. This year’s exhibition, which took place from March 20 to April 5, was inspired by the concept of sonder — it invites visitors to explore the interconnected stories of human existence through a striking collection of paintings, sculptures, and prints, with each piece revealing the universal threads that bind us all.

Amy Carr, one of the exhibition liaisons, said that the process and structure of the show is quite similar every year. However, the professors change, which always shapes how the art comes together. “This year we were mainly a female based class which shaped a lot of our themes, which was important for us because we wanted to represent the different ways our stories interconnect together instead of us as individuals,” Carr said. She explained how last year’s group focused on the individual pieces but that “we wanted to show us as a group.” 

Watching Murder, an oil on masonite painting by Carr, examines her nuanced relationship with her own mental health. Carr mentioned that the inspiration behind her piece was an exploration of her own mental illness. “I use the crows pulling on my skin as a representation of that because they are often seen as these evil creatures that loom and destroy but they’re really just highly intelligent creatures that are just part of our ecosystem,” she said. Crows appear frequently and are a potent emblem of anxiety. Through the self-portraiture, she explores her own experiences, emphasizing the thin line separating her relationship with worry from chaos and acceptance. The crows are depicted in a variety of ways, from completely independent entities to symbols of her inner conflict, illustrating how her mental health has influenced the way she sees the world. 

Gill Brook’s mixed media piece, called Dance Maps, was an embroidered quilt made from acrylic paint. The acrylic paint sheets on each square are tailored using the same thread Brook used to sew ribbons on her pointe shoes throughout her dancing career. Brook expressed how her artwork is a way of combining her art with her passion for dance. “Each pink square is embroidered with a floor map of floor patterns from dances I’ve choreographed as a dance teacher and I turned it into a bit of a quilt using colours you typically imagine when you think of ballet and like pinks and whites.” Brook explained how she used a ballet ribbon to put the pieces together and added the pair of ballet shoes on the side to help add context to the piece. 

Isabelle Trask’s paper and mixed media piece, called All That I Am, is a self-portrait and wearable structure made of hand-woven photographic prints from scans of the artist’s external figure. Trask expressed how she hopes that people see the body as a kind of resilient and mutable figure that can change over time. “I look at the body as a personal circumstance that you don’t always have control of, so it’s also like finding the strength in your own personal experience, which oftentimes is unchangeable,” she said. Trask emphasized how her inspiration for the piece came from her own connection to her own body. “I’ve been working through a lot of body dysmorphia and dealing with what it means to have a woman’s body in today’s culture. Feeling like something is wrong with it and it’s not what it should be.” Trask expressed how her goal is to always invite viewers to accept uncomfortable representations of the body so they’re more comfortable with different experiences.

Xuemei Lu’s ceramic piece, called Moth to a Flame, focuses on the manipulation of texture to achieve storytelling by looking at emotions, tactile experiences, and the beauty of nature. Lu expressed how her inspiration behind the piece came from a conflict between different perspectives. “When you think something is very valuable but some people may think that thing is just a waste of time. I admire and respect people who choose to do it regardless. I think that’s the way to live a very fulfilling life,” she said. 

Ashlee King’s oil painting It All Begins with Blue is one of a number of pieces that illustrate her ever-growing universe. The paintings are a combination of oil on canvas and digital prints. The “Dewrose,” a mysterious pod-like plant that drastically changes the local ecology and its inhabitants, is the focus of the piece. The work showcases how nature transforms into an unfamiliar and fantastical scene as new roles emerge, moving beyond the well-known green hues of life. King stated, “I wanted to create a world that other people can expand upon and that they can find some sort of relationship within a dark story. I want people to take these creatures that I make and I want them to see the melancholy, and I want them to try to find some sort of relationship or meaning behind it.”