Maggie Genoble ‘24, an art history and studio art major from Jonesville, SC, has recently been featured in the Richardson Family Art Gallery for her senior project “Touchy Subjects.” 

The Richardson Family Art Gallery hosts senior art majors’ work each year.

Genoble’s Whetsell Fellow exhibition was public in the gallery from Jan. 8 to Feb. 28 this year. 

The Whetsell Fellowship began in 2006 and is offered to one Wofford art student a year to promote visual arts. The fellowship covers the fees for all supplies and instruction, allowing for the student rewarded to be in the art gallery. Grenoble was the 2023 award recipient.

Specifically termed an interdisciplinary artist, Genobles practices sculpture, installation and video, among other things. As a senior art major, she has taken several art classes, leading her to create her biggest exhibition. 

In 2023, Genovles was awarded a summer research grant  in which she studied the body and what it looks like in the media versus what purpose it ultimately serves. She was applying technology to traditional studio art practice to create something entirely different. 

Genoble has a farm life history, which played a part in the whole exhibit. She used her background to influence what domestication looks like, including cows in her final pieces. 

The exhibition was scattered in the Richardson Art Gallery, where each piece was individually named on its own. Instead of the general wall text, Genoble left the titles strictly to the brochure so observers could interpret each piece. 

“Touchy Subjects” focuses on body movement and how the body operates in pieces. At the end of the fall semester, Genoble mentioned she went back through her past works and studies both in art history and art and noticed a “theme” in gender roles. 

This discovery led to Genoble continuing with feminist art and the works of the body. 

Genoble has many famous influences that drove her inspiration in her time as an art major. Specifically, Christina West and Sarah Lucas, both of whom have done similar works to what Genoble created of the body. Guest lecturer Lex Lancaster’s 70s women’s performance art scene, “Dragging Away,” also contributed to her ideas.

A notable piece in Genoble’s exhibition was “I Think I Broke a Nail,” in which she used a broken laptop and scratched the screen to create white lines, using imagery from male artists like Picasso, Monet, Da Vinci and Manet. 

After almost completing her fourth year in the art history and art department, Genoble said the best thing was “having opportunities, being able to get connected with things like the fellowship and all the support I was given, despite the department being so small.”

Additionally, “developing a relationship with the studio” was one of her takeaways from her time and research here at Wofford.

Some key contributors to Genoble’s work were Assistant Professor of Studio Art Michael Webster, Assistantd Professor of Studio Art Rebecca Forstater, and Professor Soto. 

Visit @Maggiegenoblestudio on Instagram to see more details from the exhibition and past works.