Senior Cheri Stalmann's exhibit Self-Portraits, Self-Expressions is on display at The Browsing Gallery in the HUB. This exhibit features Stalmann's testimony of her life and feelings through the images of her camera.

The photographer's career has been a short one, considering she only started three and one-half years ago as a freshman. That year she received a camera as a gift from her parents and hasn't stopped taking pictures since.

Now as a senior, majoring in general arts and science with an honors degree in women's studies, she presents her thesis--which is 1,000 times better than any words she could write. The 27 photos are arranged thematically starting off with portraits of the artist herself. The self portraits were shot using a tri-pod Stalmann focused and set-up.

The pictures are haunting images that make the viewer reflect and place themselves in these backgrounds that the photos provide. Stalmann has a knack for capturing these images and placing herself in them, so that even though form is thrown out the window, the image survives.

"Usually something strikes me in a really compelling way, I see an item there and I think 'I must take a photograph.' I throw aside my forms so it doesn't have to fit a text-book form," Stalmann said.

The self-portrait series is a study of the artist herself.

"I've always been interested in self portraits basically because I was so shy asking people to take their picture."

As a result of her timidness, she has created beautiful pictures that express herself well, and has opened her feelings and thoughts up to many.

In her piece Self-Portrait with Image of Motherhood Stalmann shows her sarcastic and humorous feelings about the "beautiful role of motherhood." Picturing herself next to a gentle painting of a mother and her child, she is dressed in her pajamas and looks like she just woke up.

"I was raised seeing this picture everyday. . .that the image of motherhood was ideal with nothing harsh. . .I don't believe that image. I believe that I will have children but it won't be a bed of roses. I'm trying to challenge that idea." Stalmann said.

Another especially humorous photograph is the Self-Induced Birthing Experience to Relieve Abdominal Pain. It is a series of pictures in one frame that shows the whole process, featuring the photographer herself. The photo is so creative that even if you don't like anything else you've got to give the artist credit for her originality.

Stalmann is also infatuated with her life as a child and how she grew up with certain ingrained ideas - such as those of motherhood, freedom and shaving.

"I think shaving for both sexes is a rite of passage, and I don't think that it is a healthy society where 10 year olds are so bothered about it." Stalmann said,"when you're 10 years old, your thinking is being molded and I'm trying to show that I want to break loose from that."

The shaving piece is actually dual photos with a little blurb that complements and explains the photographs.

"It was unconventional to include the writing, but other people have done it," joked Stalmann, a former Collegian photographer.

Another turning point in Stalmann's career occurred when she went to Italy on a study abroad program the University offers, and took a lot of pictures in order to learn more about the culture and the people, and of course, herself.

The pictures that were taken in Italy place more emphasis on composition, but they still have the content that Stalmann feels is the most important thing.

"A good photo must express something I felt at the time," Stalmann said.

The photographer loves disorder, and supplied with her camera, has the unique ability to bring some order out of it. In a series of pictures she took at a crowded carnival on the streets of Italy, she uses that talent to get some great stills.

"I like shooting in chaos. It's a way to put order in things, and I like to blend in," she said.

In Mother and Daughter, Italian Carnival Parade, her great ability is exemplified, as is her use of the composition made available to her by natural settings. It is an eerie scene of a beautiful little Italian girl who seems to be displaced out of time into the 80s.

Which brings Stalmann back to children and to her role now.

"My role right now, as a soon to be graduating senior, is trying to figure out what my role is," said Stalmann. "I can say I'm satisfied about the work here, but there is still other things to move on to."