A thesis exhibition by Raquel Weinberg
April 21st, 2025
to create a psychological space shaped by individual presence and existential dread.
In a city like New York, individuality feels both universal yet impossible to grasp.
I am existential all of the time. There is so much to learn, so many places to be,
and eons of lessons to grow from, yet right now I am here.
As a person who feels like the world is moving faster than I can blink,
and can only truly process very little at a time, my brain often tries to move faster
than it can really function. There will always be a new book to read, a new exhibition to visit,
a new song to listen to. My brain might explode.
As a result of the mind-spinning anxiety, I digress: I exit the situation.
In my work, the figures lose all individual qualities, reduced to their simplest state:
heat fragments floating through liminal space. Using infrared color schemes,
I portray the body in its most elemental form, as matter simply taking up space.
Instead of confronting the immense complexity of individualized human experience,
I paint the opposite. Anonymity, reduction, dissolution.
And it’s precisely in this tension that SONDER emerges.
SONDER is defined as the realization that everyone lives a life as vivid and complex as your own. This is what drives my art practice. My visual language reflects the streets of urban environments, where the presence of endless strangers overlaps every single day. I think about this in relation to graffiti: a different kind of way to take up space that functions opposite to how I approach the figures.
Graffiti is deeply individual, yet created through anonymous mark making. My paintings coexist with screen prints drawn from photographs I’ve taken of tags found in bar bathrooms, city streets, and in hidden alleyways. These are marks left by others, recontextualized through screen printing, transforming this type of visual language into a kind of archive.
Graffiti is a layered history of presence, a part of the city’s subconscious. By layering these gestures, I honor the original artists while shaping a world of my own. A world built on shared authorship, where anonymous figures leave lasting marks.
Thus, the title of my Senior Thesis Exhibition: Sonder: Seeing and Being Seen, returns to the realization that anchors this entire body of work: everyone lives a life as vivid and complex as one's own, even when we can’t possibly comprehend the full scope of their experience. Every tag, every figure, every trace becomes evidence of a presence passing through. In this space, the reduced heat signatures of the painted figures and the bold individuality of the graffiti prints coexist, revealing two opposing but interconnected ways of being in the world: disappearing into the crowd, or declaring yourself within it.
Sonder asks viewers to reflect on these dualities. It urges us to consider how we see others, how we are seen, and how meaning is made in the spaces we occupy.
This exhibition ultimately invites participation. Use the markers provided to tag, scrawl, and inscribe directly onto the walls. Mark the space. Claim it. Disrupt it.
Thus, the title of my Senior Thesis Exhibition: Sonder: Seeing and Being Seen, returns to the realization that anchors this entire body of work: everyone lives a life as vivid and complex as one's own, even when we can’t possibly comprehend the full scope of their experience. Every tag, every figure, every trace becomes evidence of a presence passing through. In this space, the reduced heat signatures of the painted figures and the bold individuality of the graffiti prints coexist, revealing two opposing but interconnected ways of being in the world: disappearing into the crowd, or declaring yourself within it.
Sonder asks viewers to reflect on these dualities. It urges us to consider how we see others, how we are seen, and how meaning is made in the spaces we occupy.
This exhibition ultimately invites participation. Use the markers provided to tag, scrawl, and inscribe directly onto the walls. Mark the space. Claim it. Disrupt it.