IAC closing Spring Senior Thesis Exhibit next week

Senior thesis displays in the Huo Bao Zhu Gallery, Sydnee Pennington photo

The International Arts Center will be removing the Spring 2026 Senior Thesis Projects Exhibition from the Huo Bao Zhu Gallery on Aug. 23, giving visitors less than a week to view the project displays of 13 graphic design and studio arts graduates.

Originally opened in May, the exhibition showcases the artistic efforts of Spring graduates from the graphic design and studio arts programs. Each designer produced a unique graphical display to showcase their creative talents and personal commitment to the craft.

Among the projects, students can find intricate branding concepts, fully developed artbooks and even designs for a miniature golf course. These examples reflect the sheer variety of creative directions the seniors pursued while drafting their final projects.

Working closely with the graduates throughout the development process was Associate Professor of Design Chris Stagl, who not only helped set expectations for the thesis exhibition, but also gave them ample freedom when formulating a design with their chosen medium.

“The projects that we do in the fall and spring thesis are representative of the students’ maximum capacity to be a creative,” Stagl said. “That could be anything from a photographic series, to paintings, to posters, to websites and videos.

“Anything that they want to target, they can target, as long as we feel comfortable that they have the wheelhouse to really finish that project.”

The ability to express creative talent can seem daunting to some student artists, especially when tasked to deftly carry their ideas over a 16-week design process. Given the gallery’s bimestrial presentation of their collected projects, it is evident that the mutual confidence between the designers and instructors has matured into a prosperous reality.

Though the dedication of the art and design program guaranteed the exhibition’s cast, the characters themselves guaranteed that the spring designs would be truly successful; a detail clarified by examining a few of the artworks within. Isabella Stokes, a graphic design graduate and Troy, Alabama, native, reflected on her role as the creator of “Bella Blue,” a pair of type-one diabetes subscription boxes that granted her a Dean’s Choice Award.

Stokes informed “Bella Blue’s” design with her own experiences with the condition.

“Two of the most important times in a type-one’s life are when they are newly diagnosed, and when they get to the point where they don’t want to take care of it anymore,” Stokes said.

The latter was of particular concern to Stokes, who confided that during her time at Troy, a close friend of hers passed away due to the mismanagement of his diabetes.

While these experiences fueled Stokes’s passion to support others with type-one, she only committed to the topic after receiving guidance from the creatives of semesters past.

“I walked through the gallery the night before the ideas were due, and I was looking at other past projects,” Stokes said. “These projects had such personal meaning, and I sat there thinking about things that were personal to me.”

On the opposite side of the gallery, “Bella Blue" is complemented by the likewise humanitarian “Seeing Beyond Circumstances,” a mixed-media display on the realities of homelessness. The display comes from the mind of Emily Robbins, a graphic design graduate from Homewood, Alabama, who shared reflections on her display.

“I wanted to bring awareness to the reality that homeless individuals face without presenting them through a statistical lens,” Robbins said.

To accomplish this goal, Robbins made impressive use of oil-painted portraits and 3D printed frames to endow her subjects with stately and veristic qualities. Likewise, Robbins emphasized the creative freedom given to participants while exploring their projects.

“So many students had different projects that they were very passionate about – even though we were pretty much all graphic designers, we came at it from so many different approaches – seeing their personality as a designer shine in this gallery was so cool,”

Robbins said.

Senior thesis displays in the Huo Bao Zhu Gallery, Sydnee Pennington photo

“Seeing Beyond Circumstances” and “Bella Blue” are accompanied by eleven other fully-realized displays, each deriving from the creative machinery of a talented graphic artist.

Within the gallery, Trojans can appreciate “Power Putts,” the aforementioned rock-ballad mini-golf course, created by Dylan Blackmore or take a walk through Icie Wallace’s “Walnut and Ochre,” an exploration of natural pigments accumulated throughout the Southeast. They can even read excerpts from “The Starving Ocean,” a visually dynamic horror novella written and organized by designer Walker Duncan.

These listed works provide only a sampling of the exhibit’s full display of creative talent. Until the exhibition is removed on Sunday, students are encouraged to explore the vast showcase offered by the 2026 spring seniors and take inspiration to produce artworks of their own.