Eros and Logos: Between Reason and Pleasure

SPRING 2020

FINE ARTS STUDENTS

FINAL EXHIBIT

EROS AND LOGOS BETWEEN REASON AND PLEASURE

SAS School of Arts and Sciences

GANZO School Rest aurant Creative Learning Lab

Cover by Lydia Aveson Spring 2020 FUA - AUF Florence University of the Arts - The American University of Florence

SPRING 2020

FINE ARTS STUDENTS

FINAL EXHIBIT

EROS AND LOGOS BETWEEN REASON AND PLEASURE

Florence University of the Arts – The American University of Florence (FUA-AUF) will open online, on ganzoflorence. it, the Fine Arts f inal Spring 2020 Semester student exhibit Eros and Logos: Between Reason and Pleasure. The exhibit will inaugurate on Wednesday May 13, 2020.

Eros and logos are concepts created by Carl Jung’s writings on analytical psychology.

The terms originated f rom classical Greek mythology – Eros is def ined as impulses and desires that circle around love. Logos is def ined as “a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in humanity.” Jung considers logos to be a masculine principle and eros a feminine principle, they are each other’s counterpart. This exhibit demonstrates this difference between the hard and the soft, or the differences between reason and pleasure.

Brooke Blanchette, an artist in the upcoming exhibition, describes the relation in eros/logos to her submission as “The contrast between the light and dark that allows the person to be the main focus of the composition.

Emphasizing the facial expression, the composition displays a cheerful woman who has blocked out all the negativity in order to f ind herself. The use of black and white also represents the ego, which is part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious while also being responsible for testing reality and a sense of personal identity.”

The artworks represent watercolor, portraits made through f ine arts and graphic techniques, drawings, paintings, and mixed media. The medias utilized highlight the many talents of the students of Watercolor and Tempera/ Gouache Techniques, Art Therapy, Foundation Painting, Advanced Painting, Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity , Intermediate Drawing, and Introduction to Mixed Media courses of the Spring 2020 academic season.

Florence University of the Arts – The American University of Florence (FUA-AUF) aprirà online, su ganzoflorence. it, Eros and Logos. Between Reason and Pleasure, la mostra degli studenti di Fine Arts che conclude lo Spring Semester 2020. Tutti i lavori saranno online da mercoledì 13 maggio 2020.

Eros e Logos sono concetti sviluppati da Carl Jung in psicologia analitica.

L’eros e il logos hanno avuto origine nella mitologia greca classica.: Eros è def inito come l’insieme di impulsi e desideri che caratterizzano l’amore. Il logos è def inito come “una ragione divina universale, immanente in natura, che trascende tuttavia tutte le opposizioni e le imperfezioni nell’umanità”. Carl Jung considera il logos un principio maschile ed eros un principio femminile. Sono l’uno la controparte dell’altra.

Questa mostra intende rappresentare la contrapposizione tra duro e morbido e le differenze tra ragione e piacere.

Brooke Blanchette, studentessa che partecipa all’esposizione, descrive la relazione tra eros / logos e la sua arte come “Il contrasto tra luce e buio, che permette alla persona di essere il focus principale della composizione.

Enfatizzando l’espressione facciale, la composizione mostra una donna allegra che ha bloccato tutta la negatività per ritrovare se stessa. L’uso del bianco e nero rappresenta anche l’ego, che fa parte della mente che i media intercorrono tra il conscio e l’inconscio, mentre sono anche responsabili delle prove della realtà e del senso di identità personale”.

Le opere, 27 in tutto, si compongono di acquerelli, ritratti realizzati con tecniche pittoriche e graf iche, disegni, dipinti e tecniche miste. I corsi di Fine Arts che hanno partecipato sono Watercolor and Tempera/Gouache Techniques, Art Therapy, Foundation Painting, Advanced Painting, Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity , Intermediate Drawing e Introduction to Mixed Media.

Nicoletta Salomon

ADVANCED PAINTING At the origins of the philosophical thinking, Logos and Eros were not conflicting, they complemented each other instead, assisting the philosopher in his search for truth.

According to Socrates and his pupil Plato, logos provides one way to reach the metaphysical truth (an electively negative philosophical way, though, which states what truth “is not”). The other way is falling in love with beauty – of a body, of an artwork, of an idea –, which acts on the positive side: Eros is not love for beauty, it is love for generating in beauty (Plato, Symp., 206e-207a).

Eros is therefore the daimon of artists.

In Plato’s Symposion, Socrates states that all artists (in ancient Greek, poietai) are intermediaries between the gods and us, the same way as the daimon Eros is the great intermediary: Eros who inspires love, the divine feeling, in us.

Like Eros, artists are poor creatures who feel in perpetual need and spend life in search for something that will be always missing. But, much like Eros, artists are skilled and inspired to enchant us through their creations (poiemata). Poietai fly back and forth from the honey sources of the Muses, from their gardens and forests, where they find inspiration to do art, and their inspired art translates the metaphysical truth for us the public (Plato, Ion, 534a-b). Through this complementarity of Logos and Eros we have traveled this semesters with students in the Foundation Drawing course, Advanced Painting, Art Therapy, and Words, Painting and Emotion course.

Building up skills (logos) and leaving space to inspiration (eros), filling up sketchbooks with notes and exercises (logos) as well as jumping into the unknown of emotions and inspirations (eros).

Students in the Words, Painting and Emotion course explored their own relationship to art: both to the part of it that they were learning through study and practice, as well as to that subtle uncatchable element that could turn their use of skills into art. Through both guided and free painting students in the Art Therapy course have been experiencing art as a way to enjoy life and to help coping with difficult times: the quarantine has been for them an exceptional case study.

Advanced Painting students combined different painting styles and technical skills to convey a visual research about the psychology of love. And students in the Foundation Drawing course studied in depth the traditional genre of still life, ruled by ethic symbolisms and spiritual allegories, in order to twist it into narrating a contemporary story about love and its excitements, delusions, expectations, and betrayals. Through well thought out arrangements of everyday objects alluding to a “Breakfast for two”, students have been able to speak of love in the silent language of the most intellectual and logic of the art techniques: drawing.

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Advanced Painting Anel Tulegenova Almaty, Kazakhstan | DOS Education Golden Tears (diptych) Oil on canvas and acqua bronze 3 paintings, each 35x45 cm

The central theme of my works is to show the side of the human soul. Every person is unique, with on her own character, worldview, emotional mood. In my paintings, “golden tears� are an interpretation of vitality and soul.

I want to show that our emotions are vital energy and a precious thing to be protected.

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Advanced Painting Anel Tulegenova Almaty, Kazakhstan | DOS Education Love is Blind (triptych) Oil on canvas 2 paintings, each 41Ń…50 cm

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Advanced Painting Lydia Aveson Richmond, Virginia USA | Christopher Newport University Moon Dance oil on canvas grain 48,6 x 61,4 cm

My inspiration comes from the night sky, specifically the stars and moon. The moon has come to be seen as something romantic, a thing of beauty. It uses the darkness surrounding it as a reason to shine brighter and illuminate the universe around it. It is something that connects us all together. No matter how far we are all over the world, we all share the same moon. It is humbling, beautiful, and uniting. My guide artist is Degas. I am mainly inspired by ballerinas due to their elegance and grace, as well as their versatility when it comes to their poses and position in the painting. Dance is one of oldest arts known to bring joy and unite one another. Like the moon, dance is something that unites us all, regardless of age, race, culture, gender, or sexuality. Dance can have a different effect on different people and is associated with love, erotica, passion, art, music, desire, grace, and so much more. I chose to use multiple dancers in order for them to interact to represent the theme of eros. I wanted to show both passion in dance as well as passion in love. This love does not always have to be romantic, it can be love in friendship, companionship, or the love you feel for someone you just met but share a common interest with. There are multiple different types of love in the world.

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Andrea Mancini

Watercolor and Tempera-Gouache Technique

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Watercolor and Tempera-Gouache Technique Maeve Fittz Boston, Massachusetts, USA | Endicott College Flower and pot Oil Paints 8x10 inches

This was the first artwork I did of flowers in class

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Andi Nufer

Intermediate Drawing This semester, Intermediate Painting & Drawing students read from Rollo May’s The Courage to Create, where he proposes that the true creative act as possible not just in the art of making an image, but also in building an intimate relationship. Students have learned about and practiced May’s principles that courage and struggle are required in all true creativity, along with full engagement, or what he calls intensity of encounter. So, too, is a dynamic between two tensions: the Dionysian - the emotional pull of ecstatic union, the flow of emotion/inspiration in creation, and on the other hand, the Apollonian - the need to stop, think, step back, asses, and recalibrate.

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Intermediate Drawing Floor Bosman Rotterdam, The Netherlands | FUA-AUF Selfportrait

Ink on paper 31,5 x 15

With this self portrait I researched the way I long for my surroundings to feel complete. It is an attempt to visualize and structure my position in nature. I chose ink, since it is permanent, bold comparatively to pencil which is softer, erasable.

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Intermediate Drawing Floor Bosman Rotterdam, The Netherlands | FUA-AUF Family portrait

Ink on paper 31,5 x 15

I drew the first two portraits of my mother and father when I was in quarantine with them, because one of them was ill. They were my only subjects for my art for almost two weeks. I made the last one, of my twin brother, when we got out of quarantine and he could visit.

I have spent a lot of time with my family since I left Florence and have had a lot of time to reflect on my relations with them and how they have changed.

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Intermediate Drawing Emma Wawrzynek Berkeley, California, USA | University of California Bubbles Colored pencils on paper 90 x 50 cm

After spending the last couple of years healing from an eating disorder, I’ve found that my experiences with body dysmorphia have influenced the way in which I see and chose to depict the human body. This self portrait portrays myself in a state of transition. While my body is healthy, my mind has yet to escape from the self-constructed and delusional reality of an eating disorder. Ultimately, I am entangled in an internal battle between my body and my mind, my need for survival and my need for beauty. Eros and logos clash as I attempt to reconcile my image of the ideal body with the body I know to be healthy and functioning. When I am in the depth of an eating disorder, I feel as if I am a bubble: beautiful and limitless, yet fragile and insubstantial. I use colored pencils and hatching to emulate the iridescent and undulating nature of the bubbly world I feel trapped within.

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Andi Nufer

Foundation Painting These student artists have been exploring this balance and continuallylooping pathway between learning to trust and claim the intelligences of Eros in transcending even language, mere logic, or linear thinking to open up to their supra-rational and intuitive, analogical, synthetic capacities, and then, alternately, learning to step back — physically as well as metaphorically — to Logos’ critique, measurement, and articulating in words and reasoning their creative process. The results are these images of self, whether depicted exclusively through surrogate objects, or in a synthesis of symbolic and fantastical twists on the figure, or in the self of a beloved family member rendered in distractedly doodle-like portraits that belie their commitment to precious commemoration.

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Foundation Painting Tara Foley Pembroke, Massachusetts, USA | University of Maine Is Makeup Two Faced?

Oil Paint 14 X 20 (inches)

When you think about make up the first word that usually comes to mind is beauty. But does makeup actually make you beautiful? Does it really make you feel beautiful on the inside? Or does it mask the way you really look? Makeup is mainly worn for either camouflage or seduction. The fear of not looking “good enough” or “perfect” drives women to wear makeup, so they can make themselves feel more attractive or present themselves the way they want. Makeup is used to cover up insecurities and fears. Especially today, there is the constant need to compare yourself and the pressure of needing to look amazing. Makeup yes has the power to make you look different, but is it for you to present yourself in another way? Is it for others? Is it to make yourself feel beautiful? Some people use makeup because they like it, some in hopes feel more beautiful, and some to try to cover themselves up. Using oil paints I created an image of some of the cosmetics I used to use almost everyday. But during this quarantine I’ve barely worn makeup in almost two months. This has forced me to ask myself, why do I use makeup? Personally when I wear makeup I do feel that I look better. But since I haven’t been wearing it I now ask myself, is that because I’m not going out and seeing people? So do I wear make up for myself like I thought or for others? If makeup is supposed to help you feel more beautiful than why is it that there is so much worry for what others think? Makeup in a lot of ways is either aimed to make yourself feel beautiful or to make others think it, so is makeup two faced? I’ll leave that up to you.

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Nicoletta Salomon

Art Therapy

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Art Therapy Tara Foley Pembroke, Massachusetts, USA | University of Maine Self Love in Quarantine mixed media on paper cm. 35 x 51

Making art during this quarantine has been one of the main activities that have kept me grounded, especially when quarantine first began. Creating art was one of the only things I still had control over. Through art I am able to process, understand, express, and even escape what’s going on around me and inside of me. My daily routine now consists of working out, eating healthy, doing work (mainly art related), taking time for myself, and remembering to take everything one day at a time. Although this is a scary time, it’s important to remember this is temporary and will pass. I believe that this is an opportunity for everyone to grow in many different and unique ways that we otherwise may not have without being put in this situation.

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Art Therapy Isabel Kaufmann Collingswood, New Jersey, USA | Muhlenberg College Caged Free mixed media on paper 30x40 cm

My painting is of butterflies trapped in a cage. The inside of the cage is colorful and the outside is dark and stormy. The inside of the cage represents my life trapped inside quarantine in my house. I am not able to spread my wings, but I am able to use art to express my creativity. The colors in the cage represent my creativity, while the darkness outside represents the craziness of COVID going on outside. I also included collaged phrases and words that represent what I have been feeling/doing while in quarantine.

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Art Therapy Jessica Orofino Sudbury, Massachusetts, USA | Muhlenberg College As it is mixed media on paper 22.9 x 30.5 cm

It is often a daunting task to try to outwardly express one’s internal environment, but love for art, paired with a touch of rational commitment, can be the right way to try to express whatever feels right. Art Therapy does not need to seem rational because meaning and understanding can develop later through interpretation. In the current state of this pandemic, there is much fear, anger, and loss, and limited ways to cope. As Jack Whitten once said, “In painting we discover demons; if we don’t exercise them they devour your ass!”

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Art Therapy Kylie Festen Wheaton, Illinois, USA | Olivet Nazarene University Love for Art Ink and watercolor on paper 35 x 43,5 cm

I love doing art. I work slowly and carefully, paying attention to each and every moment without worrying about the final product but only on the part of the line my pen is at. Over the past semester, this is the role art has played in my life, and I love it. In the midst of this quarantine there have been a lot of distractions and unknowns but art has really become a part of my life that helps me slow down, focus on the moment, and regain control over anxieties and fears.

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Art Therapy Kylie Festen Wheaton, Illinois, USA | Olivet Nazarene University Love for Life mixed media on paper 30 x 46 cm

A collage of images and memories from my life A calm and joyful process that absorbed my attention for a several consecutive hours.

The process of taking the time to thoroughly think back on my entire life and work to visually represent it, gave me a unique and unified narrative. Though some years in my life have been difficult, this life quilt gave me a creative, safe and beautiful way to visually summarize every piece of my life, showing me that even those memories which I’d rather not remember, have meaning and purpose.

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Art Therapy Ashley Goldstein Flat Rock, North Carolina, USA | The University of South Carolina Love Through Art: A Garden of Stress Relief Watercolor and markers on paper 21,7 x 28 cm.

Art Therapy has helped to improve my mental health during quarantine and all of the stressors that come with it. Partaking in art making on a weekly basis has helped me to grow and flourish as a person. Creating art has protected me while also pushing me outside of my comfort zone. The figure in the center hugging him/herself represents the level of nurturing that art can result in.

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Art Therapy SL Caylyn Downey Mahwah, New Jersey, USA | Muhlenberg College The Lion Beside Me acrylic and ink pen on canvas 28 cm x 35 cm

In the process of creating this painting, I planned to have the woman as the main focus. The lion emerged unintentionally, which represents the part of art that allows me to express myself. Creating art is a process including intent (rationality) but it also involves expressing yourself (love).

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Nicoletta Salomon

Foundation Drawing

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Foundation Drawing Ashley Frank Somerset, Massachusetts, USA | Springfield College Sunday Morning Pencil on paper 17.5 x 25 cm

Fear and insecurity subside, replaced with memories of burnt toast and warm coffee. Where once there was only room for pain and lonesomeness, you now find room for one another. Now someone is there with you come Sunday morning, and breakfast is time spent together.

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Foundation Drawing Carrie Neville Owensboro, Kentucky | Belmont University And then there were two

Pencil on paper 23,04 x 28,16

The balance of life seen in a lazy Sunday morning breakfast. Only two individuals, a parent and child, were in attendance at breakfast, having already finished their meal. A third plate was set out neatly‌ never touched.This breakfast for two tells the most heartbreaking tale of all: one of the juxtaposition between reason, what we know to be true, and the outcome we desire the most anyway. Sometimes, that hope and desire overwhelms reason, no matter how heartbreaking the result. This plate has been set out many times before and will continue to wait at the other end of the table for someone to join, even if they never come.

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Nicoletta Salomon

Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity

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Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity Madeleine Wick Tucson, Arizona, USA | Bradley University Colored Vision watercolor & colored pencil on paper 51 x 62 cm

Color is sensational by nature. Through color, we are able to communicate a variety of emotions evoke pure, sensational bliss. Mixing together vibrant yellows with ribbons of pastel pinks and grainy blues form their own abstracted language; a complexity emulated through colorful bliss. Abstraction disrupts the divine order of logos with bold certainty, yet color exemplifies sensuality, working in lively tandem.

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Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity Gabrielle Biseinere West Springfield, Massachusetts, USA |Westfield State University Me and Art Acrylic on canvas grain 22.9 cm x 30 cm

I am not typically one that expresses their vulnerability to others they do not know. One of the first artists we studied was Grace Hartigan, a proponent for letting the subconscious take over while painting, and I allowed myself to do the same in the creation of this piece. The image and colors came to me unexpectedly and suddenly. It brings forth those inner struggles I experience for all to see, and while it feels uncomfortable to do, it simultaneously becomes a liberating experience.

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Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity Erin Obermayer Freehold, New Jersey, USA | The College of New Jersey Taken watercolor on paper 23 x 31 cm

Revealing the chaos of the mind after being taken off of a planned path. Dealing with the unknown and unanticipated circumstances.

Style inspired by Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract paintings.

Art Therapy has helped to improve my mental health during quarantine and all of the stressors that come with it. Partaking in art making on a weekly basis has helped me to grow and flourish as a person. Creating art has protected me while also pushing me outside of my comfort zone. The figure in the center hugging him/herself represents the level of nurturing that art can result in.

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Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity Olivia Howley Exeter, Rhode Island, USA | Springfield College The Debate acrylic on canvas 40 x 51 cm

This is what I visualize when thinking about eros and logos: a human in the middle observing everything around her, trying to make a choice. Both sides are fighting and clashing with each other. No choice is made.

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Paride Moretti

Introduction to Mixed Media Approaching art by exploring the different means of expression is a task that involves the rational aspect in the phase of understanding materials and techniques, but it is equally important for the student to finalize the research towards a creative goal. For this reason, one could say poetically that creativity is a compromise between logic and heart and that this encounter can be stimulated by an unusual use of materials which can also be very simple and common. For example, gypsum, cardboard, salt, paper or sand can give us, when correctly combined, results rich in tactile quality. Often it is the same materials that suggest a methodology: modeling, printing, gluing, doodling. Through experimentation sometimes not only do we create very original and beautiful images from an aesthetic point of view, but we are able to “see� and better understand the technical and expressive characteristics of the works created by the artists.

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Introduction to Mixed Media Jillian Curd Manhasset New York, USA | University of Wisconsin Hidden Pain Collage 21.59 X 27.94

The topic that I decided to do is to use the collage technique. I chose this because I think it is extremely intriguing and cool to combine various different images that had no intention of being placed together, to make a whole new image. I think that this is what clearly explains mixed media through the use of various materials to create one form. I’m also interested in choosing different textures and materials to create contrast and to create a themes of colors and fluidity. I tried to portray privilege versus poverty in my collage. It is crazy to see how fame, fashion and money can be the focus of news and drama when there is abuse and poverty. There are clippings from victims if police violence placed within the lush pink dresses and flowers. I placed one of them over the face of a celebrity to emphasis what should be the focus of the news.

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Introduction to Mixed Media Brooke Blanchette Rochester Hills, Michiga, USA | University of Kentucky Submersion Sharpie/Pen 20x28

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GANZO Art Gallery GANZO ART GALLERY is the interactive gallery of Ganzo School Restaurant. All GANZO exhibitions are planned, organized, and managed by gallery and curating course students under the supervision of the FUA faculty. Exhibitions feature the works of artists from the local community from both Italian and international backgrounds.

Artists and Collectors, to propose exhibitions or to inquire about the pricing of displayed works, please see the contact info below.

Ganzo Art Gallery è lo spazio espositivo di Ganzo School Restaurant. Tutte le mostre in esposizione al suo interno sono progettate e organizzate dagli studenti dei corsi di gallery and curating presso la FUA Florence University of The Arts, sotto l’attenta supervisione dei docenti di FUA. Le mostre presentano opere di artisti della comunità locale, sia italiana che internazionale.

Per artisti e collezionisti, per proporre mostre o per avere informazioni sui prezzi delle opere esposte, scrivici:

exhibitions@fua.it facebook.com/GanzoFlorence

ganzoflorence.it

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS/RINGRAZIAMENTI

EXHIBITORS

CATALOG AND EXHIBIT CURATION

Advanced Painting

Gallery Exhibition and Curating

Anel Tulegenova Lydia Aveson

Instructor: Nicoletta Salomon Art Therapy

Tara Foley Isabel Kaufmann Jessica Orofino Kylie Festen Ashley Goldstein Art Therapy Service Learning

Caylyn Downey

Instructor: Nicoletta Salomon Foundation Drawing

Ashley Frank Carrie Neville

Instructor: Nicoletta Salomon Intermediate Drawing

Floor Bosman Emma Wawrzynek

Instructor: Andi Nufer Introduction to Mixed Media

Jillian Curd Brooke Blanchette

Instructor: Paride Moretti Watercolor and Tempera-Gouache Technique

Maeve Fittz

Instructor: Andrea Mancini Words, Painting, and Emotions: The Mind Map of Creativity

Madeleine Wick Gabrielle Biseinere Erin Obermayer Olivia Howley

Instructor: Nicoletta Salomon

Maggie Bolinger Andrea Brito Rosado Sydney Casley Madeleine Fancher Grace Fanning Sabrina Grassi Olivia Griffin Healey Junker Lauren Meoli Natalie Petras Rebecca Sturm Madeleine Wick Seth Young

Gallery Exhibition and Curating + EL

Lydia Aveson Gillian Byrnes Berenice Cadet Caleb England Mariah Magee Emalee Reijlian

Instructor: Andrea Mancini COVER IMAGE: Lydia Aveson SAS - FINE ARTS | FUA-AUF Florence University of the Arts - The American University of Florence