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Student Artwork is ‘Vanishing’

Many pieces of student artwork, including a piece ironically titled “Vanishing”, have been stolen from the Salme Harju Steinberg Fine Arts Building. Incidents of theft were reported to the NEIU police on Oct. 9 and Oct. 15, where art pieces were stolen from the hallway display. The pieces were valued at under $300 dollars. Both cases are still under investigation.

Senior Jenica Nieves, artist of “Vanishing”, had her artwork stolen from the hallway. “The art department expects us to be professional in terms of presentation, but yet they fail to insure the students’ work if it becomes stolen and that is unacceptable,” Nieves said. “Honestly, this experience has left me heartbroken. I have worked so hard to lead up to this moment, to be able to showcase my artwork.”

“My fellow colleagues and I have enough to worry about without adding to the stress and fear of our hard work being taken by someone who has no common decency or respect for the amount of effort being put in, and I think it’s disgusting.”

The Image Arts Club has discussed options of putting cameras in to protect student artwork, since at least one piece of gets stolen every semester.

Art department chair Mark McKernin also said, there isn’t enough space to display student artwork and when the fine arts building was built, the hallway was meant to display the student’s artwork. McKernin said that the best thing to do to stop this from happening was to find a hanging system that could lock the artwork in place. He said that there already is a bid on one.

“It’s a shame that we have to live in an environment and worry about things being stolen,” said McKernin.