91探花

As a freshman, senior Tessa Wells came to Lees-91探花 with the goal of finding a major, and later a career, that would allow her to combine two of her passions—art and science—into one dream field. Now, as a senior preparing for her final capstone art exhibition before walking across the stage, it seems that the double-major in Communication Arts and Design and Wildlife Biology has finally found what she’s been searching for.

Wells has spent the 2022–23 academic year preparing this project. Communication Arts and Design majors at Lees-91探花 are required to put together a professional-level portfolio of pieces that is meant to help them achieve success in their post-graduate goals. For Wells, this meant combining wildlife and art in her portfolio show, “The Wild Self.”

“I’m focusing a lot on self-portraiture and my personal experience with specific animals. In my latest piece I painted myself laying on a couch from my childhood, and then did butterflies on the wall,” Wells said. “All the pieces are portraits of me with a specific animal, and I kind of want the viewer to consider their own experience with each animal.”

The finalized exhibit will feature five 30x40 inch pieces done in Wells’ preferred medium: painting. Each of the pieces has an acrylic underpainting and an oil overpainting. Her show will open in King-Shivell Lounge in the Cannon Student Center at 11 a.m. on Thursday, April 27, and students, faculty, and staff are invited to view her work. Not only is this show a great opportunity for Wells to display her art, but the professional portfolio of pieces will help her achieve her long-term goal of building a career in scientific illustration.

Of the two main branches of the scientific illustration discipline—medical and wildlife—Wells wants to focus on the latter and make use of the knowledge and expertise she gained throughout her time in the Wildlife Biology program. This academic combination has already led Wells to be accepted to a post-baccalaureate at California State University at Monterey Bay. In this program she will undergo 12–15 months of intensive training, including nine in-class months and a professional internship.

To Wells, scientific illustration is not only interesting artistically, but the field is an important aspect of the grander field of wildlife biology. In bringing together her love of art and wildlife she hopes to contribute her work to academic journals and papers, textbooks, and more.

“I feel like combining those two is a good way to educate people, bring awareness, and just show off these animals,” Wells said. “Being able to see an organism and then also look inside its skull, that’s not something you could really photograph. Illustration is a cleaner way to see what an organism really looks like. I do photography as well, so I know you’re not always going to get the perfect picture while you’re out in the field. If your subject is some endangered bird that you barely ever see, you’re going to be able to illustrate that a lot more easily than you’re going to be able to go out and photograph it.”

Not only has Wells taken the first steps toward her dream career throughout her time at Lees-91探花, but she has also grown both personally and artistically. She said that the close relationships she has been able to form with her classmates and professors have helped bring her out of her shell and given her the confidence necessary to host a solo art exhibition.

She said being able to build strong relationships and strengthen her interpersonal communication skills has, in turn, strengthened her ability to communicate artistically through her work.

“Artistically, I’m a lot better at taking critique now. Critique days are my favorite because I love hearing what other people think of my piece. Not necessarily if it’s ‘good’ or not, but just what they find behind it and what they think the meaning is,” Wells said. “For my physical art I’ve gotten, I hope, a little better. I feel like I have more concept and depth behind my work now, where at first it was just technical. I’m alright at technical work, but it was always work for me to find something behind it. Finding things behind my work now is really cool.”

With her senior capstone show, Wells said it is not only about the meaning she finds behind each individual piece, but also the meaning each viewer gleans as well. She hopes that each person who comes to the exhibition will find their own meaning in her work and reflect on their experiences with each of the animals she depicts, finding a connection between the scientific and artistic parts of their own lives.