On Friday, Oct. 3, The Hart Gallery at the College of William and Mary’s Sadler Center held its opening reception for its gallery “Roots.” Along with the new artwork, a speaker played music, and food and drinks rested on tables outside of the room. The event ran from about 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Gibran Adnan ’27, one of the two student curators for the Hart Gallery, described what the theme “Roots” meant to him.
“We wanted to make it about community, about family, about nature,” Adnan said.
Rebecca Graber ’27, the other student curator, mentioned the ongoing Family Weekend as an influence on the gallery topic with students’ families visit campus.
“I suggested the theme ‘Roots’ because I thought it would relate to family and the year of the environment in a really nice way that ties everything together,” Graber said.
Student curators worked with supervisor Jenna Venable to put the theme together. Graber listed a series of steps to developing the gallery showcase: determining the showcase’s themes and duration, asking for and selecting submissions, displaying pieces and advertising with flyers.
Graber’s interest in the gallery developed after submitting her art last year, and she was offered a curator role when it became vacant.
“I thought it would just be a really good, interesting experience,” Graber said.
Adnan described the curator’s responsibilities with the gallery’s art pieces.
“We frame them, put them up, write all the labels for it and speak to all the artists just to get to know them and their pieces as well,” Adnan said.
Each piece in the gallery is labeled with the student’s name and class year, the medium (or media) of the work and the title of the piece.
When asked to summarize his job in one sentence, Adnan emphasized visibility.
“I would say, helping promote non-art students’ artwork and other artistic endeavors,” Adnan said.
The pieces selected for the Gallery reflect both aspects of “Roots” — human connections, and nature. An ink piece by Kara Park ’26 titled “Captured” depicted two owls fighting, one beneath the other, their talons close. A work by Lydia Thomas ’27 entitled “Mother Nature on Canvas” included media such as acrylic and shell. Andre Adams ’26 submitted a piece called “A Moment from when Father Tom Baptized Me in the Local Swimming Pool. I Did Not Go Willingly.” “Cinco Minutos: a collection” by Elijah Glassford ’28 consisted of three photographs set in black frames. The uppermost photo depicted an international telephone that, for $1.00, would give you a five-minute call to Mexico.
Both curators discussed how they chose pieces for the “Roots” showcase, indicating how many pieces made it in and the thought process behind the decisions.
“When we were selecting the pieces, we kind of were going about it in a way of, okay, does it adhere to the theme in a way that we think works, and does it pair well with another piece that we want to include?” Graber said.
Adnan noted that most of the pieces that were submitted were put on display, the only ones excluded being non-student art.
Multiple showcased artists attended the gallery opening, including Bhavya Devarsu M.S. ’27, who created the painting “Kuchipudi, Echoes of Telugu Tradition”. Her family also arrived with her to the gallery.
Devarsu, who is working towards a masters in computer science, explained what art means to her. She has experience with and enjoys oil painting, the medium she chose for this piece.
“Art is like my hobby,” Devarsu said. “It has been for my whole life.”
She decided to submit her piece to the Hart Gallery to try out the experience of a showcase. Her painting, filled with golds, oranges and reds, depicts a Kuchipudi dancer, a form of traditional South Indian dance.
“So the prompt was Roots, like something connected to your background, and I just thought that doing a painting about Kuchipudi would be good because I’m Telugu, so I also did Kuchipudi for 10 years when I was little,” Devarsu said.
Graber had photographs from an in-class critique on display in the gallery.
“I made that kind of just to explore myself creatively, figure out what kind of photos I wanted to take,” Graber said. “I picked a theme involving death and rebirth, specifically regarding humans and nature and our relationship with it.”
Graber’s piece included three photographs, all black and white, each featuring flowers.
“I thought it would be most thematic, but I just like the visual motif of flowers against humans and comparing them,” Graber said.
As for the medium she chose, Graber admires film photography for its effort and lack of immediacy, both of which she believes teach deliberation that can also aid in digital photography.
“I like film photography because you can’t review it in the moment. It feels very final, so it makes you consider the composition a lot more carefully,” Graber said.
According to Adnan, the showcase will be up until Oct. 26. Find the Hart Gallery on the second floor of the Sadler Center at the front of the Slice.
