Senior art exhibitions allow graduating seniors to present the fruits of their labor and reflect on how they have grown as artists since beginning their education.

The Fall 2013 Senior Exhibition saw its opening reception on Thursday, Nov. 21 in the Contemporary Art Gallery.

Upon entering the gallery, viewers were confronted with a dismal series of photographs mounted on the wall, depicting contorted figures cast in shadows. These works were the self-portraits of Heather Vallaire, a senior sculpting major who lives with a disability that affects her hands.

“I was inspired to do this work because I live with physical limitation, and I wanted to express the grouping of stereotypes and identity labels,” said Vallaire. “I felt that rendering my anatomy in multiplied piles would kind of express what I felt as far as my alienation from society.”

Vallaire first crafted replicas of her hands for the photograph. She then duplicated the sculptures, creating a pile of her hands. With the combination of dark lighting and the piece’s placement in the gallery, the powerful emotions depicted in Vallaire’s work impacted students greatly.

“The pieces are photographs of these molds that she casts of her hands, printed at an extremely large scale, and they’re the first thing you see in the gallery,” said Megan Sanders, senior new media and animation major and CAG employee. “So you’re just confronted with the image of her hands, which are not what we would consider normal. The purpose of her work is to push that and to confront the viewer, and I think, as an installation, it’s extremely effective.”

Other artists whose work was featured in the exhibit used the opportunity to experiment with artistic concepts. Natalie Hartzell, senior photography major, emphasized the concept of lighting in her photography series entitled “Surfacing.”

“It’s based off of the daily basis of a life and how you cope with certain things in life,” said Hartzell. “[This body of work is] showing those emotions through body language, lighting and tones in the pictures.”

Sierra Geiger, senior graphic design major, could not help but critique her own work that was displayed in the exhibition as she reflected on her time as a student and contemplated the future of her career in graphic design.

“I can stand here and look at it, like ‘I wish this was smoother,'” said Geiger. “I can see just a few things that went wrong in cutting, stuff like that. Really, this is a labor of love, so you’re never actually going to be done with it, because you’re always going to see yourself as below par and wanting to raise the bar.”

The Senior Exhibition will be open to students until Dec. 14. For more information on CAG exhibits, call 985-549-5080.