Award-winning Senior Sculpts a Life in the Visual Arts

Photo Credit: @Travelbugphotography

Nancy Daniel ’26 wrapped up her final weeks at Berry College with a flurry of activities. She received the Mew Fellowship Award and first place in the art department’s student honors show. Nancy’s success is a nod to the breadth of her creativity — 2D and 3D media, costume design, film production and even cake decoration.

“I believe art is one of the purest expressions of who we are, capturing ideas and emotions in a way nothing else can,” she says. “Visual art allows us to leave a lasting piece of ourselves behind and reflects the incredible creativity of the human mind.”

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In The Attic — part of the honors show — Nancy transformed a section of Moon Gallery into a dusty, abandoned space filled with cardboard boxes, old furniture and other objects. Collages of tracing paper, pencil drawings and photographic fragments represented memories of childhood and family members. At the center was a cardboard sculpture of Nancy’s younger self facing the collages.

“The figure existed both within and apart from them,” Nancy explains. “This separation emphasized the shifting nature of identity, suggesting the self is continuously reshaped over time, with earlier versions lingering in the spaces that hold them.”

The artist says her favorite mediums are painting and sculpture. “I’m drawn to the way both allow me to build something layer by layer, whether it’s through color on a canvas or form in space,” she notes.

Nancy put her talents to work in other areas of campus life, including positions as a first-year mentor and SOAR leader. She served as head of wardrobe for several theatre productions and as a props designer and assistant art director for the student film Scrutiny.

After graduation, Nancy anticipates plunging into the art world where she’ll draw on skills cultivated as the social media manager for the visual arts department and as the Moon Gallery and studio associate.

“I hope to work in a museum in New York City, helping curate and organize exhibitions for artists,” she says. “At the same time, I want to continue developing my own work as an independent artist, build a business around it and travel while creating.”