16 Clark artists featured in ArtsWorcester College Show

Sixteen Clark artists, representing 12 majors, have artworks featured in the 20th Annual ArtsWorcester College Show, an exhibition open to all undergraduate college students studying or residing in Massachusetts that seeks to highlight the next generation of regional artists.

Nora Rueffer ’24, a studio art and art history major, won an honorable mention at the exhibition’s award ceremony on Feb. 16, and Eve DeLeon ’24, a geography major, and Wynne Dromey ’25, a studio art and marketing major, were awarded Youth Committee prizes for their pieces.

Rueffer’s piece, titled “Zooming Out,” (2023) is one of a series of three pop-up books, each of a different view of a house, created for her senior capstone in the studio art major. She says that she is inspired by what brought her joy as a child and strives for her process and work to provide as much of a visual narrative as possible.

“I really wanted to give a general audience the same experience that I had as a child and the same opportunity to invent a narrative from a piece of art,” she says. The piece features little doors throughout, with Easter eggs such as a knife in the cabinet and a cat and mouse chase behind the dishwasher.

Rueffer says the exhibition has been a great opportunity to see what other college students are doing. She’s enjoyed being able to see her piece in the context of the work of others.

The College Show was juried by Chloe Zaug, associate director of the MassArt Art Museum, who selected 71 works by 58 artists representing 10 Massachusetts institutions from more than 230 submissions.

Jay Lam, MFA ’24, took inspiration from a digital game and infused it into his 2D art style for his piece, titled “F L I G H T,” (2022). It features a series of comic panels of an abandoned chick rescued by a kind human, the concept adopted from an animated Flash game of the same name on the platform Deviantart.

Lam’s piece draws visual inspiration from the color themes of risograph prints, which use limited but bright pigments to create bold images. His goal is to spark empathy within the viewer, and he uses these bright colors and sympathetic images to do so.

The exhibition showcases various techniques and media, including filmmaking, printmaking, digital art, sculpture, and more.

“I liked seeing the work of all of the artists around me,” Lam says. “I found it very inspiring.”

“It’s nice to see the work of a variety of people, at roughly the same stage in life, all displayed next to one another,” Rueffer adds.

The College Show runs through April 21. ArtsWorcester galleries are free and open Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. at 44 Portland St. in Worcester.