Lauren Sluss: What is a senior solo show?

Nicki Silva: Every senior graduating class get the opportunity to show their work through their own show. It allows people to see a culmination of what they have been working on for the past four years.

LS: When and where is it?

NS: It will be held March 14 through the 18 in West Gallery in Fairbanks hall.

LS: What pieces will you be presenting in your show?

NS: Throughout my entire four years here I have been focusing on portraiture. More recently, however, I’ve been exploring the female body and how it fits in society today.

The show I have is going to be about the body and portraiture. I have photographed people with scars, and through those scars I can tell their story.

LS: Why is this important to you?

NS: I deal with the pressures of society’s female body myself. I grew up in a society where the female body has to be very skinny and fit, and the pressure that comes along with that. With growing up in Hawaii where a lot of the females are very skinny, I didn’t always have the ideal figure growing up. When I came to college I got to explore what the ideal figure meant, and decided to photograph the female body.

My photographs have helped me gain more confidence in myself. It was a rough journey, but my art has helped me through it.

I also think that scars are really cool. It is the mark of the exact time in someone’s life where something happened to them that altered their body. I personally only have one scar from surgery, but I wish I had more. They have always interested me, and it is really cool to hear people’s stories of how they got them.

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