Graduating seniors in the Fine Arts department exhibited their work Thursday, April 30 in the lobby of Spingold theater, with the majority of the pieces on display in the downstairs gallery. Works by three seniors were also displayed in the lobby of Slosberg.The pieces in Spingold were impressive works of art, but the exhibition itself was lacking in organization. The only attempt at continuity was employed in keeping works by one particular artist together, but even then it was difficult to tell which pieces were by which artists. Many of the artists featured showed impressive talent, but the exhibit itself seemed to be geared exclusively for the students and for the faculty, not for disinterested art appreciators outside of the Fine Arts community.

One of the most notable works of the evening was the graffitied sculpture of a woman made out of paper mache and U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail stickers by Matt Lu '03. Lu incorporated a keen sense of color and space into this piece. His other two installation - sculptures, which included a human-fetus form floating in air and a human body with tangled wires and disassembled limbs, were provocative, but aesthetically unappealing.

A large oil painting by Rachel Weber '03 with several nude human forms, akin to the Tahitian objects of Gauguin's affection, was not especially notable for the artist's technical talent, but of her keen sense of form placement and positioning. Like an intuitive theater director, Weber placed the figures to successfully depict many interpersonal relationships in families and communities.

Jane Ro's '03 painting of a nude young girl conveyed the same sense of sexual naivete, curiosity and fear that is evident in Munch's "Adolescent." The painting frames around the form isolate her even more in a very symbolic way which many could relate.

A blue nocturnal piece by Natasha Bowdoin '03 of a nude form in a chair appeared to be heavily influenced by El Greco, because of the model's elongated form, and Picasso, with the model in a pose quite similar to Picasso's slumped guitarist. The work lacked a strong sense of originality, but it did depict Bowdoin's impressive eye for color.

Several works by Tam Le '03 were tied together by themes of isolation and hope. His oil painting of a notably small figure kneeling as the sun rises in the looming background portrays both the "boy who is lost in the emotions that encompass him," as the artist describes himself in the show's program, and the man who has lost his childish naivete and must face his own sense of mortality and insignificance in the universe. His painting of a naked prisoner sitting, half-illuminated by a ray of sunlight, depicts a very similar theme. Le's works were perhaps the most poetic and emotionally vulnerable pieces of the entire exhibit.

Another expressive painter whose works were on exhibit that day was Abraham Storer '03. His self-portrait looking into a bathroom mirror against a long row of sinks conveyed a similar sense of self-reflection and isolation. The juxtaposition of the almost adolescent figure with a second self-portrait of himself with facial hair indicates the artist's coming-of-age and his commencement and entrance into the "real world." His fallen boxer paintings might convey a fear of failure outside the walls of Brandeis.

The Senior Studio Show must have seemed like the closing of a chapter for the student artists whose works were exhibited. The lost and contemplative expression of Storer's figure as he stares at himself in the mirror perhaps captures the essence of the entire exhibit, in which students presented their best works, reflecting on their pasts and looking ahead into the future.