CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Seniors from the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will show the work that is the culmination of their undergraduate education in an exhibition at Krannert Art Museum.
The School of Art and Design Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition will show the work of nearly 100 students in all disciplines of the school — art education, art history, graphic design, industrial design and studio art, which includes fashion, new media, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture. The exhibition opens May 10, with a reception at 4 p.m., and runs through May 17.
Grace Althaus, a senior in graphic design, was instrumental in creating the branding for the BFA exhibition. She was one of the designers who created the logo, chose the typeface and designed the primary color scheme with retro geometric forms reflecting the Bauhaus art movement to represent the exhibition theme of “Go With the Flow.” The theme reflects how the Class of 2025 must face the uncertainty of the art industry and recent world events, she said. Althaus developed the design for the exhibition catalog as well.
Althaus is a sports fan and a member of the Block I football student section and the Illini Pride organization, which oversees all the student fan groups for Illinois sports. She designed a new Block I logo and then created new logos for the student sections for Olympic sports such as swimming, gymnastics, wrestling and soccer, creating visual identities to help in promoting them.
Her capstone project featured in the exhibition reflects her love for a new sport, Formula 1 racing.
“It’s superfast cars, very competitive. I turned it into a 16-week project. I had a blast with it, and I learned a ton of different things,” Althaus said.
She created a motorsport industry brand for the Ford Motor Co., using the look of the branding from Ford advertising campaigns, including its blue and white colors, in creating a Ford Formula 1 team logo. She painted a model RC car and a driver’s helmet, and she designed a set of posters, a jacket and a hat to reflect the Ford team brand.
Althaus said she chose Ford because she wanted to design a brand for an American company. All the sponsors she used in her Formula 1 campaign are American-based companies.
William Hohe, a senior who is graduating with degrees in photography and advertising, collaborated with Charlotte Watson, a senior in graphic design, on a capstone project titled “The Interstates Project.” The two took a 12-day, 5,000-mile road trip through 14 states, mostly along Route 66, in October 2024.
Their multimedia installation includes photographs from 50 photo shoots they made during the trip. The photos are both documentary work showing road signs, highway memorials, roadside stops and landscapes, and performance pieces featuring different personas they might meet on a road trip, such as a Waffle House waitress. They made a 192-page photo book of their work, which will be part of the exhibition.
Hohe said he wanted to explore travel, the state of the nation, its infrastructure and the mythology of Route 66. He had never been west of St. Louis before the trip.
“I was so attracted to how large and expansive our country is. I couldn’t believe I was in the same country when I was in Arizona, with its red sand desert. The geographical diversity is incredibly inspiring to witness,” he said.
The installation is in the form of a kitschy roadside stop that includes a vintage vending machine. Hohe and Watson created zines featuring their photographs and mock Route 66 souvenirs in the form of stickers and small photo prints. The project’s text uses the Highway Gothic font that is used on road signs across the country.
Hohe and Watson have a series of pop-up gallery events, including a residency at Gallery Art Bar in Urbana and an exhibition at the Ricker Library, both running through June 2. They played on the idea of gas stations offering road maps by creating pamphlets for each gallery event and a map with an overview of all the stops.
Hohe said he and Watson hope to exhibit their work next year to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Route 66.
Giselle Mancera is a senior in photography whose work is mainly portraiture. Mancera said she tries to find a balance between a staged photograph and authentic emotion. She said she uses photography as a means of storytelling, to express her identity, experiences and feelings. Her goal is to explore vulnerability and connect with the viewers of her work.
She likes to focus on the theatrics of expression and experiment with improvisation. Mancera said she often has an idea of what or how she wants to express something, but then she relies on improvisation during a photo shoot.
“As much as I can have a script of what I want to express, nothing ever will feel same as it way did when I wrote it,” she said.
Mancera has three photos in the exhibition, all of them self-portraits. One is a black-and-white photograph shot with a 4X5 large format film camera. The other two are color photos shot with a digital camera.
She made the color photos to explore how she felt after a heartbreak and to rediscover herself. She is seminude and painted blue in the photographs, which were shot at night. She said the photos are an expression of a poem she wrote to portray her state of mind, and making the photos pushed her out of her comfort zone.
“It was all new and scary and something I needed to do. Stepping into those layers of vulnerability and putting myself out there more was a way of saying goodbye to college,” she said.
In addition to the BFA exhibition, Mancera has a solo exhibition at Flagg Hall on campus that runs through May 11.
Editor’s notes: More information about the School of Art and Design Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition is available online. For information about Krannert Art Museum, contact Evelyn Shapiro at esha@illinois.edu.
