The Office of Student Research is proud to feature Erin Fogg in this week’s “Scholar Story”. 

Erin Fogg is a senior art major at Longwood University. She has a concentration in painting/drawing and a minor in art history. Erin’s body of work examines the different aspects of “The Cyber Effect” through oil paintings, video work, and mixed-media artworks. The Cyber Effect details the ways human behavior changes when we navigate the online environment.  An example of this change would be our acceptance of extreme behavior online as new social “norms”, such as cyber-bullying and the exchange or posting of nude photos on the internet. Erin began working on this body of work in 2018 during the spring semester of her sophomore year. 

Erin was inspired to create this body of work because “Growing up, I experienced the time before smartphones and social media. I wasn’t allowed to have a smartphone until I was in high school, though my peers got smartphones and social media accounts much earlier. My personal experiences watching my friends and classmates grow up in the digital world inspired my research, leading to this body of work.” 

Working on this project has taught her “a lot about self-reflection and regulation in regard to social media and technology usage. I enjoy spending my time in the present, real-world environment much better than scrolling online.  ” Also, through this project she has learned the importance of inter-disciplinary education and research, improved her writing and painting, and illuminated the importance of participating in dialogue about difficult topics. 

You can view Erin’s work on the directory of women artists www.wherearethewomenartists.com/artists/erin-fogg/, and in the forthcoming senior show Point of Departure at the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts (LCVA) at 129 N. Main Street starting on April 17 and on view for the remainder of the semester. 

After graduation in May 2021, Erin hopes to find a position working in art museum or gallery. In the future she would like to go to graduate school and potentially become an art professor or art therapist. 

 Here Erin is working on a painting titled Clout.

Congratulations to Erin on her successful work!  

If you would like to have your research featured in a “Scholar Story”, or if you would like to learn more about getting involved in research at Longwood University, please visit Longwood’s Office of Student Research website http://www.longwood.edu/office-of-student-research/ 

or contact Amorette Barber, Director of the Office of Student Research (osr@longwood.edu or barberar@longwood.edu).