The Quarry provides a space for students to share their writing and art with the public. The annual publication and gallery show allow students to showcase their art, writing, and other artistic mediums.
The gallery highlights a variety of art — photography, painting, sculpture — displayed with student poetry and creative writing. “I wanted the theme to be timeless since it is our 100th anniversary,” Curatorial Editor Jessenia Prado ’24 said. “I wanted to talk about how emotions are timeless, even 100 years later.”
The timeless theme extends to the front of the gallery where previous The Quarry magazines are on display.
Prado specifically wanted to highlight the emotions expressed through the various artworks. “They are all a portrait to me of people that existed at some place and time and frozen in time,” Prado said. “The emotions are very raw at that point in time.”
Angeline Domeyer ’26 is one student artist who expresses this emotion in her painting “All Eyes on Me.” “It was at a weird point in my life where I created it, so I think it was the first time I really put all my emotion in a piece,” Domeyer said.
The painting focuses on a bare back covered in eyes. The blue background is juxtaposed with the warm tones of the body. “It’s the first time I took my own reference, and the first time displaying myself in my art,” Domeyer said. “It really has a lot of emotion, which is interesting to me since I’ve always loved the therapeutic aspect of art.”
Domeyer said that the reason she submitted her painting was because of this emotional connection. “I submitted this one since it was something I am truly proud of,” Domeyer said. “I felt a consistent emotional connection to it which I feel like is easily caught on by other people.”
This was Prado’s first time curating, a new challenge for her, an art history and studio art major herself. “As a curator, you get the chance to express others’ ideas in one space and make sure it goes all well together, which I see as an art form,” Prado said.
“I think what makes The Quarry special is that there’s a magazine that comes out with it and your art is published in a book, in a physical book that you can hold,” Prado said. “It’s not just a memory, you can go back to that book whenever you like and read about and look at all the art from your time at St. Olaf.”
“The Quarry definitely brings a community of artists together,” Prado said. “Everyone does art in their own special way, but they all speak a similar message.”
The Quarry Gallery is open until April 23 in the Center of Art and Design’s object study room. You can order a free The Quarry magazine by filling out the form through their Instagram @the_quarry_mag or by picking up a copy during tabling.
