“The Incorruptible Body” senior thesis review

“The Incorruptible Body,” a senior thesis exhibition by Angélica María Vielma ’18, is currently on view in Hurley Gallery at the new Lewis Center for the Arts through Saturday, April 14. An art and archeology major, Vielma has taken courses in photography, sculpture, product design, and environmentally minded art.

The exhibition centers on photographic processes and representations of the self within a framework of Catholic iconography, as well as of Vielma’s own identity as the daughter of practicing clowns. Activating the theatrical modes of religious ritual and circus performances, Vielma transforms the gallery space into a house of worship, referencing aspects of personhood and the soul through exhibition mechanisms that draw on ceremonies of life and death within the religious tradition.