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BLOOMFIELD HILLS — The 2023 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art will open April 9, showcasing a culmination of two years of studio work from 68 students who are anticipating graduating in May. ArtMembers are invited to a preview day, Saturday, April 8.
The exhibition takes place in the upper galleries of Cranbrook Academy of Art and will be open until May 14.
Curator Kat Goffnett said there is typically a broad range of styles, themes and practices. There is no set theme for the exhibition, since it is made up of work students have created during their time at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
“I am really proud to be able to have the opportunity to work with so many great emerging, talented, artists and just know them, spend time with them and create a show collaboratively with them that not only marks their time but is something the museum can be proud of as well,” Goffnett said.
Graduating ceramics student Erika NJ Allen will be showcasing a mural in which she has painted abstract forms of banana leaves on the wall. Instead of just using paint on the wall, she also included different colored bananas made out of clay, which appear to get longer and more out of shape.
“When you see them you don’t recognize that there are bananas, because they are triple the size and they are wavy. Many people believe that they are made out of fabric because they look very soft, but in fact, they are made out of clay,” Allen said.
Her piece also includes banana towers of yellow, green and red bananas. Allen compared some of the bananas to a snake. Some even have an organic banana glaze that she developed while she was at Cranbrook.
Allen said a lot of the work she creates is based on fruits and vegetables that are in her diet. She said the reason she started working with this subject is that in the senior year of her undergraduate degree, she had a hysterectomy.
“The aftermath was very intense for me mentally and physically, and I wish that somebody had told me how it was going to affect me,” Allen said.
She said that while she was working towards her degree, she had never touched clay in her life. Her background was in photography, design, social practice and muralism. She received her bachelor’s in fine arts in photography from the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
“It wasn’t until maybe four or five months after I started working with clay that I realized how deep into this hole of depression I was and, thankfully because of clay, it just helped me survive, because I was in a pretty bad state,” Allen said. “I put all the effort, all the passion, all my emotions and my trauma into the material.”
Allen said she is looking forward to being in the museum next to artists who she respects, and she hopes her work is inspiring to people.
Tickets for the 2023 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art can be purchased at cranbrookartmuseum.org.
