Digital media alumni share their work during reception

Hunter Wallace
News Editor

Students experienced lost hope, dream eaters, dark twists on children’s literature and more from prior Vikings during the Digital Media Program Alumni Exhibition artist reception last Thursday.
Art work featured in the exhibition belongs exclusively to 16 graduates of the Digital Media program, ranging from animation, sculpture and video, to collage, photography and digital imaging.

Digital Media Alumnus Mikey Bryant spoke on behalf of his Photoshop composite: “Dreameater.”
“My intended meaning of ‘Dreameater’ was to symbolize depression and its ability to take such a prominence over someone’s life and make it hard to see the positives, something I’ve always battled in my own life,” said Bryant.

“The bunny mask and the shape of the hand is meant to feel like your view is being blocked by a surreal antagonist, like when a character in a horror movie gets a glimpse of hope, only for the killer to appear; I feel the piece displays this tension and shows how battling with your own inner demons are like that horror scene — eventually you’ll be forced to either face them head on or run and accept them as part of yourself, and whichever happens is your choosing.”

Isaac Kautz, Digital Media alumnus, also explained the meaning behind his inkjet print: “All Hope is Lost.”

“I believe this piece comments on the current social and political climate of the United States, as well as the world. It opens a dialogue on feelings of hopelessness and disenfranchisement of younger adults, and it also plays on personal feelings of anxiety and depression,” said Kautz.

“Despite this dark tone, I don’t intend to depress or stress the viewer; instead, I hope this piece normalizes and exudes a sort of sympathy for these feelings, almost like a way of saying ‘You’re not alone,’ I suppose.”

Another Digital Media alumnus, Angela D’Amico, shared her inspiration for “Anne with An e,” her digital image.

“It is a children’s classic book, and I kind of wanted to go off a darker feeling from it, like imagination. In the book, when she reads, her imagination runs wild, and I wanted to capture that with the butterfly flying out of the book,” said D’Amico.

“I also wanted to express that childhood is very fleeting and our imaginations disappear very quickly, and I think as we grow older, we need to keep our imaginations and let it loose once in awhile.”

The two-year Digital Media A.S. degree exposes students to both traditional and digital art, including drawing, two-dimensional design, photography, digital imaging, animation, video, interactive media, web and graphic design.

Various Digital Media alumni explained how their experiences at Hudson Valley shaped their perceptions of the field and prepared them for future work.

“The Digital Media program, as cliché as it seems to say, has really set me up for success with my future,” Bryant said. “I feel confident in calling myself a digital artist, and I feel confident in the work I put out to the world. I have everything I need to be able to succeed in this field so long as I put in the effort to keep putting work out there.”

“I continue to use the skills and techniques I learned in the Digital Media program on a daily basis while working on personal projects in photography and film,” Kautz said. “I hope to either continue my education at a school of fine arts or begin a career/internship at a workplace which makes better use of my education in the near future.”

The current exhibition was curated by Digital Media Alumnus Jared Schafer and organized by Digital Media Instructor Kyra Garrigue.

Schafer was born in North Carolina and he moved to upstate New York to pursue a bartending career. After about a decade in the hospitality industry, he decided to seek a degree in Digital Media from Hudson Valley and continued his education at Sage College of Albany. Now, he is the director of Motion Graphics at Upside Collective in Albany and has taught courses in Digital Animation and Time Arts at Sage College of Albany.

Alumni included in the exhibition are: Samantha Asher, Michael Bryant, Jason Carnegie, Angela D’Amico, Carolyne Deitz, Lindsay Dingman, Laura Farrell, Dylan Friebel, Amberlea Gorkey, Hunter Harrison, Merimon Hart, Isaac Kautz, Aynur Celik Kildiz, Mia Murphy, Adams Richards and David Vahue.

The exhibition is open through Friday, Oct. 6, and is located in the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation Atrium in the Marvin Library, near the cafe.