by Brian Friedman
One of the most important opportunities for a rising student in the art industry is the chance for he or she to display his or her artwork to the public and people in the industry. The School of Visual Arts, Animation Department, has been putting on a show to display their department’s very best work. This year the department tried for the seventh year to create this show. It is made up of student films from this year and last year, the winning films from last year’s thesis students, stop motion characters, storyboard panels, character designs, and animation design panels of second and third year students. The curators of the show are Don Duga, Irra Verbitsky, and Howard Beckerman, and the selection process for the show is overseen by the Animation Chair, Reeves Lehmann.

While the show attempted to show a broad spectrum of the work produced by the student animators at the School of Visual Arts, it appeared to fall short of all the hype. Only a limited number of students were chosen for the show. Most of the pieces looked as though they were replicating an idea already used by someone else. Even the location of the show was disappointing. In the past, the show was located in the main lobby of the SVA East 23rd Street Gallery.

This year though, the show was placed in a side gallery set aside from most of the student and teacher traffic. Hopefully in the future more planning will be put into the show to keep it more diverse and unique. Both the students and the faculty should feel that a show representing the Animation Department does just that. If only a few students’ work is shown, it hurts everyone. Students do not see the point to wasting their time on a presentation that most likely will not be shown and the teachers will feel the same.

The show will be up between January 31-February 13, 2002. Visual Arts Gallery is located at 209 East 23rd Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue.

The following students took part in the show:

Storyboards
Brad Nord
Casey Olemba
Kristofer Wellinger
Rob Kohr
Michelle Palumbo
Josephine Kwok
Christopher Conforti
Ron Szezorak
Jake Markoff
Fay Shin
Kimberly Solano
Aja Marlone
Christina Schulman
Vessela Dantcheva
Mirian Sherry
Chris Burns
Jessica Tyler
Aura Moser
Crystal Yoon Soo Jung

Animation Panels
San Li Wong
Candice Chow
Brad Bokemeyer
Morgan Nicole Jacobson
Michelle Y.
Janiel “John” Corona
Jake Markoff
Gigi Chen
Anne Witbok
Aja Marlowe
Kimberly Solano
Corinne Hall
Josephine Kwok
Meaghan Horner
Kiyoko Segawa
Anthony Mair

Characters
Andy Gonsalves
Albert Pardo
Corinne Hall
Chris Stearns
Kim Solano
Adam Moser
Jake Markoff

Stop Motion
Set Design
Gina Bari
Puppets
Gina Bari
Susan Bennett
Yoko Sato