The Lemonis Center for Student Success welcomed students, parents and faculty to view eight student art pieces centered around the themes of “Culture & Career,” “Inclusivity at Marquette” and “Defining Success.”
Courtney Hanson, director of the Career Center at Marquette, organized the event which was also sponsored by the Lemonis Center, the Office of Inclusion and Belonging and Enterprise Mobility.
“Our space was kind of bland, and we wanted to draw students into the space more and make them feel like they belong … and see a representation of themselves,” Hanson said.
The exhibition featured work from Bailee Barton, a sophomore in the College of Communication; Kyra Carviou, a senior in the College of Nursing; Indira Kahate Desouza, a first-year in the College of Engineering; Nicole Gant, a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences; Kayla Puangco, a senior in the College of Nursing, Jia Kamin, a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences; Fiona Mulloney, a first-year in the College of Engineering and Elyse Kaitson, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences.
“Artists were asked to submit a proposal, and then we had a committee decide who the artists were that we were gonna ask to make the paintings,” Hanson said. “They get a $500 stipend for when they win, and then they have a period of time where they make their art and then they write their own titles, descriptions, all of that.”
The art from this year’s exhibition seemed to depict a wide array of scenes – from a dorm room titled “Friday Night In” created by Mulloney to an oak tree “Rooted in Marquette,” created by Kaitson to a nurse and their patient in a “A Moment of Compassion,” created by Carviou – but each was connected by the artist’s chosen theme.
Carviou, the artist behind “A Moment of Compassion,” said she just began her journey as an artist a year ago and has found it to be an outlet for her in the stressful major of nursing.
“I decided to choose [the theme] ‘Culture and Career’ because nursing is so diverse and we work with so many patients, so I really wanted to bring that in my art piece,” Carviou said. “I wanted the two people in my art to have two different races to show how diverse and how many people we work with in the nursing career. You can see the anatomical features of the old man, so that’s showing that we’re all the same under our skin and I added a heartbeat, the symbol for health care, and a ton more colors.”
Each piece of art had a short description written by the artist attached to it, describing their work and how it connects to the theme that they chose to work off.
“What I really liked about this year that I noticed is that the artists are from a variety of colleges – we have nursing, arts and sciences, engineering,” Hanson said. “We’re finding artists from across the entire university, lots of different backgrounds and the stories that they tell in their descriptions are really personal. I would love to see students walking around the center and really reading them and seeing themselves in some of these.”
The 10 other paintings from the past two years of Student Art Exhibitions are displayed throughout the Lemonis Center, and the eight paintings from this year are soon to join them.
“Honestly, I’m really excited about this and I imagine retiring or coming back years from now and there just being art all over,” Hanson said. “It really is about belonging at Marquette, being able to see yourself in the art or being able to express yourself in the art or being able to express yourself as one of the artists, knowing that this is really appreciated and we really value the story of the individual student.”
This story was written by Annie Goode. She can be reached at annie.goode@marquette.edu.
