Photo: Senior Thesis Exhibition 2018 by Luke Wynne.
Senior thesis exhibition 2020
Wendy Cooper 
Hometown: East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
Major: Studio art
My senior thesis project is a series of digital paintings titled Welcome to the New World. It’s a narrative-based series that features two characters, the Plague Doctor and the Therapist, and their tense doctor-patient relationship. Their interactions reflect the subtle anxieties and fears that manifest when one is affected by trauma.
When I was younger, I believed trauma was intense, flashback-like, and vivid. However, as I grew older and started to confront my own troubles, I found the experience to be subtle, taking the form of anxieties and fears, irrational beliefs, and unclear triggers. To depict this experience, I created two characters who would be in conflict to represent the experience of interfacing with these anxieties.
When creating the imagery for this series, I took inspiration from dream interpretation. When I examine my own recurring dreams and motifs, I see them as less literal and more metaphorical. In dream interpretation, the people, places, and objects in your dreams and how you feel about them tend to reflect how you feel about yourself. I’ve incorporated this thinking into my paintings through repeated color palettes, characters, objects, and interactions. I invite viewers to think critically and infer the details of the narrative, as well as immerse themselves into the world I am creating.
Welcome to the New World
Spiral Storm
