LEWISTON – Seventeen studio art majors at Bates College, including three from Maine, will show work from their yearlong thesis projects in the annual Senior Exhibition, which opens at a 7 p.m. reception on Thursday, April 5, in the Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St.

The exhibition will run through May 26. Admission is free. Regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, call 786-6158 or visit www.bates.edu/museum.xml.

The artists are Jacob Bluestone, Huntington, N.Y.; Alana Corbett, St. Helena, Calif.; Deanna D’Entremont, Biddeford, formerly of Kennebunk; Sarah Drosdik, Rangeley; Kelsey Engman, Haverford, Pa.; Alexis Grossman, Piedmont, Calif.; Julio Guevara, Brentwood, Md..

Also, Nakeisha Gumbs, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Jenna Hoffstein, Southborough, Mass.; Taimur Khan, Natick, Mass.; Amelia Larsen, Concord, N.H.; Kate Liston, Newport, R.I.; Nels Nelson, Andover, Mass.; Irene Restrepo, Quito, Ecuador; Meg Reynolds, Rochester, N.H.; Julia Rice, Eau Claire, Wisc.; and Arlee Woodworth, West Bath.

Since its dedication in 1986, the museum has maintained a special relationship with the college’s Department of Art and Visual Culture, expressed in part by its support of studio art majors through the annual Senior Exhibition.

As required by the major, those students create a cohesive body of related works through sustained studio practice and critical inquiry. The yearlong process is overseen by studio art faculty and culminates in the exhibition.

Bluestone uses photography to express his ideas on human-altered landscape and generic urban development. Also a photographer, Corbett made images of different people wearing the same yellow dress.

D’Entremont is a painter fascinated by color and representational technique. Drosdik uses grids and organic materials to create multi-panel paintings.

Engman paints oil still-lifes of organic forms such as flowers. Grossman makes vibrant prints combining etching and monoprint techniques.

Guevara sculpts in clay. Gumbs is a painter exploring issues related to the African diaspora. Hoffstein uses computer graphics to comment on game worlds.

In his site-specific installation in the museum stairwell, Khan uses large-scale drawings based on anatomy to investigate connections between external and internal, organic and geometric.

A photographer, Larsen is “experimenting with the idea of surveillance, with women being the primary object,” she explains. With a stylistic nod to film noir, she explores photography’s power to manipulate perceptions of reality and evoke a sense of story.

Using mass-produced and industrial materials, Liston constructs abstract shapes that refer to nature. Nelson is a photographer examining the historic, largely unoccupied Bates Mill Complex and the boundaries between aesthetics and objective reality.

Using paint and xerography, Restrepo follows her fascination with pattern by creating modular images that can be fitted together in countless ways yet remain readable. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, post-impressionism and German expressionism, Reynolds paints nude self-portraits.

“For me, creating images is the most natural expression of my thoughts and emotions,” writes Rice. A painter, she tries to capture individual people. Woodworth is drawn to the gestural and visual power of handling paint.