Graduating Bachelors of Fine Arts students displayed their culminating artwork at Reflections in Full Bloom, the fall 2025 BFA exhibition. Each student explored personal themes and expressions through varying mediums and styles, illustrating how their education has shaped their artistry.
Chloe Hollingsworth
Chloe Hollingsworth, a Visual Arts major with an emphasis in Photography, took candid snapshots of her childhood home and farm in Caldwell, Idaho. Printed in black and white, the images capture her parents in their day-to-day routines — feeding chickens, tending to goats and sitting at the dining room table.
“It was fun to just be an outsider in this world I’m very familiar with,” she said.
Hollingsworth also captured images of scenery around the home, such as her mother’s bookshelf with personal belongings and a “Goat Crossing” sign on the property.
Hollingsworth aimed to transport herself and viewers into the world she grew up in.
“[The pictures] make me feel nostalgic because I don’t live there anymore,” she said. “I can go visit, but I live in Downtown Boise now, and it’s very different.”
After graduation, Hollingsworth hopes to work in social media or content creation. She said her education helped her explore all areas of art, allowing her to find what she is passionate about.
“It definitely took me to places I was not expecting,” she said.
Chris Kingston
Chris Kingston, a Fine Arts major with an emphasis in Printmaking, displayed a series of screen prints, stone lithographs and digital photographs intended to evoke the grief many women feel surrounding the revocation of reproductive rights in Idaho.
The screen prints are displayed in a grid with text alternating between “Liberate Abortion” and “Without Exception”.
The stone lithographs use symmetrical imagery of plants and nature to create outlines of female anatomy.
“I love symmetry,” she said. “I use it to represent this form of mirroring I feel happens between me and nature.”
To the right of the lithographs, photographs depict a small white pill on a pomegranate spilling onto white fabric, another visual nod to the pain many feel over the loss of abortion rights.
“As a woman in this state, I’m passionate about this,” Kingston said. “I know a lot of people who have suffered at the hands of abortion being criminalized.”
Kingston works with the Pro Voice Project, an Idaho-based nonprofit that spreads awareness of reproductive issues in the state.
She hopes to attend graduate school and one day open her own lithograph studio.
Kyra Applebach
Kyra Applebach took visitors inside a literal fighting ring for her immersive installation inspired by a story from her past. While studying abroad in the U.K., Applebach accidentally joined an illegal fighting ring.
Actual artifacts from her fights hung on the walls, and the sound of screaming crowds rang as videos from her fights were projected.
A double major in Illustration and Fine Arts, Applebach created digital drawings based on vintage boxing posters and illustration-collages depicting the whirlwind of fighting.
“It was a very gory, very vulgar experience,” she said. “I just wanted to mimic the trapping feeling of what it was like stepping in the ring.”
Applebach processed the intense emotions from the experience by creating and sharing her art with others.
“Seeing people interacting with the art just breathes life into what you’re working on,” she said.
Applebach plans to work towards a Master’s degree and eventually pursue collegiate-level art education, but she’s interested in careers across a variety of fields.
“There’s a joke that [as an art major] you won’t get a job,” she said. “I think it’s the opposite. I can apply to a job and [have] creative skill sets that would benefit me. I feel it has opened more doors for me.”
Katie Vargas Morman
Illustration major Katie Vargas Morman’s large wood block prints tell a story about the modern-day queer experience through visuals of a unicorn in a forest.
The original wood blocks show each intricate carving that Vargas Morman spent over 100 hours on.
The first image represents queer joy as the unicorn lies peacefully surrounded by nature. The second image represents the fear many queer people feel in today’s political climate.
“With all of the hateful rhetoric going on, there is this overbearing weight of fear of identifying as who you truly are,” Vargas Morman said.
The final image represents queer individuals who face threats and violence.
“It’s really important to hear queer voices right now, and I feel like, as an artist, it’s my responsibility to share what the queer experience is like,” they said.
Vargas Morman hopes to continue amplifying the voices of underrepresented communities through their art.
“It’s really easy to make people feel feelings through art,” they explained. “If you look at something that makes you uncomfortable, maybe think, ‘Why am I uncomfortable?’ My personal identity is unique, and a lot of people don’t have a lot of experience with non-binary or queer people. I can offer a unique perspective I can bring to other people.”
PK Payette
Interdisciplinary Studies major PK Payette describes himself as a “3D artist”, playing with different mediums, subject matter and themes to create art that literally stands out.
His mixed-media sculpture piece, titled “Shelter”, combines seemingly unrelated elements in an unexpected way, featuring handmade, fuzzy Honduran leaf bats in a giant paper leaf nest hanging above a ceramic grocery store scanner.
His other piece, titled “House Horse” depicts a small, colorless bedroom with a horse sleeping underneath a bright red rug. Payette found the concept of an animal occupying space in a human environment intriguing.
Payette feels the themes of disparity in his work, paired with his fusion of mediums and styles, parallel the mixed-bag nature of his education.
“I think it goes along with my major of [Interdisciplinary Studies], combining disparate subjects into sort of a unified thing,” he said.
Payette, once primarily interested in painting, felt drawn to 3D art as he experimented with sculpture and ceramics.
“I like that there’s an [element] of problem solving you have to work with when you do 3D art,” he explained. “I think it’s a process that’s made me really consider the materials I use.”
Ana Cuntz
Illustration major Ana Cuntz created several bold, colorful paintings and drawings inspired by people and experiences from her life.
A painting titled “Goop Girl” depicts an experience she had as a freshman living in Chaffee Hall when her dorm room flooded with antifreeze. The thin canvas represents the tight space of the room as green antifreeze monsters take over.
“This is about that moment, but through a sort of whimsical lens, because the way I process hard things like that is through humor and escapism,” Cuntz said.
Cuntz also makes tribute to friends and family through her art.
Her largest piece, “Royal Flush” depicts her close friend group and their regular poker games, and her piece. “Flightmate” uses a labeled illustration of birds to represent her close bond with her brother, who studies birds as an ornithologist.
Cuntz also dives into her identity in her mixed-material self-portrait titled “Soul Resonance”, exploring her queer awakening and self-discovery before coming out as asexual.
To Cuntz, the self-portrait represents how much she has grown as an artist and individual overcoming self-image issues.
“When I started art, I really hated depicting myself, and now I’ve chosen to include a self-portrait in my BFA show,” she said. “That’s some really big growth for me.”
Isabelle Coffin
Isabelle Coffin, a Fine Arts major with an emphasis in Sculpture, works “conceptually and abstractly”, exploring complex themes of identity, heritage and trauma in each piece.
The focal point of her installation is “Rooting for You”, a seven-foot-tall tree trunk made of mixed materials.
“When I am struggling and feeling overwhelmed, I sometimes will see myself as a tree with roots growing into the ground,” she said. “That’s a very powerful visualization that helps me stabilize.”
Coffin’s short film “Periphery” projects on the wall alongside the tree, in which she explores parallels between her great-grandmother’s experiences as a young Cherokee woman with her own experiences today.
“I wanted to make her voice heard, and it felt like sharing my voice and my story would do that in a way,” she said.
Coffin also highlights her Cherokee heritage in her painting titled “Forgiveness is”, exploring generational trauma and the way it shapes the soul.
“Looking at my great-grandmother and my mother and what they went through, all of [their experiences] have carried down and live in my body and I have life because of them,” she explained.
Coffin reflected on how art has helped her explore her mixed-heritage identity.
“I was able to express parts of me that I wasn’t feeling I was allowed to before,” she said. “I think making this was a big expression of this part of me that I’ve been exploring how to open up about.”
