Nevermore/Everafter

2026 Painting Capstone Exhibition

Featuring:

Aminah Coppage, Sacha Feierman, Shayla Scales, Elissa Ukhueligbe 

October 20 - 24, 2026

Reception: Friday, Oct 23rd | 6-8P

More about Nevermore/Everafter

Nevermore/Everafter is a multifaceted exploration of perspective and the temporaneous. It is a collection of paintings and mixed media works, each conducting their own exploration. Through their respective media, Aminah Coppage, Sacha Feierman, Shayla Scales, Elissa Ukhueligbe reach the collective conclusion that time is not linear. Time is orbital and oscillating, through the past, the present, phases, and memory. Nevermore/Everafter is altered by individual perception and reflection. 

More About the Artists

Sacha Feierman

Through painting, drawing, and zine making, I explore themes of memory, intimacy, liminality, and the abject. In painting, I am inspired by mise en scene to create memory as a window- to place the viewer in the scene- something specific but unknown to them. Light and color are key devices to create an uncanny specificity. This specificity creates intimacy as closeness, pulling in the viewer. When I create a scene it is something that has struck me. It is something that I have seen in a memory or something I have seen that feels like a memory. It contains multitudes. They provoke deep feelings, some of which are identifiable emotions, some of which are completely indescribable except by the image. My zines are an artistic diary, using photography, drawing, and prose. They are intensely sensitive, sometimes feeling as if they should be something kept private. This, too, facilitates an intimacy between the viewer and the work. I intend for the viewer to have a newfound inclination for their own vulnerability.

The emotions I am evoking often do not feel beautiful. They are something uncomfortable, something in between. I am expressing deep vulnerability that can feel visceral- my own abjection. Through my zines, I am able to make something beautiful out of something that is unpleasant, and I force myself into personal exposure by making an artistic product intended to be shared and distributed. The unexpected beauty of the paintings, amidst the discomfort, is abject. Abjection is not passive, it is active and a persistent disruption of the normative gaze. Through disruption, abjection is freeing. The expression of intense sensitivity and vulnerability juxtaposes and threatens the learned social indifference of the present. I wish for the viewer to feel sensitivity and closeness, to feel more sensitive to themselves. I wish for them to look inward to uncover a memory of their own, or an emotion they have forgotten. The use of specific light and color in my paintings seek to transport the viewer into the scene. The sensitivity of the image will remind them. The viewer cannot know my memory, they cannot know the specific emotion it provokes in me. The viewer must look inward. When the viewer looks inward, I hope that they are prodding their own abjection. 

Learn more: IG @sacha.eli.art

Shayla Scales

Using my concepts and heavy symbolism to confront the world. I do this in many ways, either literally or figuratively. My messages can be direct or indirect. I do this with color theory and composition, which are my main strategies to get my point across.  

I saw white portraits and figures with hints of blue, green, pinks, but portraits and figures of black people always seem to have a limited palette. Consisting of black, brown, and white. To combat this I use yellow, purple, pink, red, green, and blue in my paintings. The deep parts of my figures are actually purple. By using all these colors, I can get into the conversation of how immeasurable blackness is.

My work challenges the narrative of the Christian religion. Specifically, Christian nationalism. To challenge the narratives put in by people who weaponize the bible against their neighbor. I want to bring the truth back into what the bible actually says, the unedited bible. The Ethiopian bible. 

In my recent works, I share my positive experience with this idea. I do my research with other black artists from the south who grew up in Christianity, but they don’t always have the same experience. My research is to continue interviewing people about how they feel. Everyone I talked to has almost identical experiences. I want to show what it used to feel like. Going to church with grandma, she gives you candies and sees everyone shout. I am combating Christian nationalism in various ways. 

Not to convert or try to move them toward anything. To give power back to black people when the bible was used to keep them enslaved. When yet, it was based in the Middle East and Africa. 

The root is about one another and family. Not power and manipulation. I will explore deeper into this rabbit hole about how they twisted the bible into what it is edited to today. This causes me to border on a line of discomfort and hardships. How can I still maintain a positive relationship and dig into such a twisted, evil past? Well, I take this challenge to show the truth and love behind it, not what it is today. 

Learn more: IG @shayesart

Aminah Coppage

I am a painter, henna artist, and permanent tattooist. Within my painting practice, I explore different avenues of documentation and the adornment of experience, be that on paper, canvas, or film. In my work I tend to gravitate towards earth-tone hues, sap & sage greens, burnt oranges, crimson reds & golden yellows, as they bring feelings of comfort, nature, and a womb-like environment, spaces fit for creation & birthing (of new ideas, etc). In unison with these comfort-focused hues I merge setting, figure, & symbolism to create spaces depicting experiences both from life & imagination. I do not use much white paint, as I enjoy the saturation represented in color, in light & shadow & the beautiful moments when they meet. These earth-tone hues can reflect as elements of fire, earth, water & air, showing the underlying messaging of oneness & duality with the universe that I am passionate to explore.

My work reflects a plethora of likeness spanning realism and human-likeness depictions to expressive & representational mark-making, all rooting in my thoughts, feelings, & experiences, dreamed or lived. With a constantly evolving understanding of duality and freedom, I am exploring more multi-media focused work using second-hand found objects and fabrics to depict narrative & my internal journey. Through my diversity of work I hope to welcome viewers into my inner space and mind, challenging them with my thoughts on duality & showing the beautiful facets of it within each of us that are neither “good” nor “bad,” but enhance one another equivocally through our collective soul in human-body experience.

Learn more: IG @acehenna

Elissa Ukhueligbe

Media is the framework for my art. I contemplate depiction and portrayal often. I intuitively piece together imagery for each painting. My process of creating becomes a mental self exploration. I interject fantastical elements into realistic characters and scenes. Blending plausible reality with an overtly imagined world. Juxtaposition is a major element in my work. I feel that it mirrors the complexity of life. I like juxtaposing soft, comforting, feminine elements with decayed, eerie auras. Feminine coded things and people are often demeaned and flattened. I strive to expand the collective imagery of black women particularly, but not exclusively. In addition to those elements, I combine timeless and datable imagery to comment on shared mortality and evanescence. 

I often use delicate and intricate motifs from religious architecture, 1920s-1940s lingerie, and antique objects I've collected. I emphasize the object quality of a painting by using mixed materials, overt metaphors, or impossible physics. I would compare it to fictional media that mirrors collective emotions and experiences. I combine my personal ideology and collective visual language to tell a story or create an emotional impression. Mixing crafts and fine art; I add decorative elements to establish validity to my experiences. It’s harder to dismiss things that are intricate. I believe investigating our personal and collective narratives improves life for everyone, and can allow us to see reality for what it is.

Learn more: @elissa.artist