The annual Brenau Collaborative opens Saturday, April 13, with an array of art from many different disciplines displayed in the Senior Final Projects and Portfolio Exhibit, a live fashion show featuring fashion design senior collections and a juried exhibition of undergraduate work.

The Collaborative takes place in the Pearce Building and Sellars Gallery on Brenau’s historic Gainesville campus, beginning with the fashion show at 4:30 p.m. on Pearce Auditorium’s runway. Dual receptions follow at 5:30 p.m. for the Senior Projects and Portfolio Exhibit in Sellars Gallery and the Undergraduate Juried Exhibition in the President’s Gallery upstairs. All shows and receptions are free and open to the public.

Brenau University Art Department Chair Mary Beth Looney said the Collaborative is essentially the senior art student exit show and a juried exhibition. This year’s juror is local artist Ann Brody Hill, a marine artist and member of the American Society of Marine Artists, president and cofounder of the Gainesville Art League and founder and coordinator of Gainesville’s Art in the Square.

"The Senior Final Project and Portfolio Exhibit is an important part of our art students’ experience at Brenau," Looney said. "It pushes them to create work from a concept, show that body of work and talk about it in a public arena."

Any student is able to submit to the juried show. Works by freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors will be on display. All medias are represented and the juror has selected a winner for each category and best in show. Winners will be announced at the opening.

The studio art senior studio projects, as well as the juried show, span a wide range of artistic mediums from environment installation pieces, ceramic work, wire sculpture painting and photographic prints.

Fashion merchandise seniors must exhibit a store-planning project showing an identity for a store and includes created aspects of items, prices, design, location with inspiration and portfolio presented.

Garment photographs, design renderings and inspiration boards displayed in senior project exhibit compliment the fashion show, where fashion design seniors show three collections of clothes, each modeled by five different students.

For more information, call the Brenau Gallery at 770-534-6263.