A forest scene of a slumbering wizard. A poem occupying a wall in hand-cut lettering. A design for environmental advocacy. A thin wooden circle standing on end trailing netting like a veil. A faux “machine” filled with paper airplanes.

Art and design can amaze, inform, entertain, challenge or even gently baffle the viewer — and the annual thesis exhibition for at the Henry Art Gallery reliably offers a little of each.

More: A dark gallery with illuminated, cathedral-like arches. An “internet-of-things” design protocol for nonserious home use. Augmented reality for making digital models. A dark and stormy work in crayon, graphite and ink. Big sculptures of inner feelings expressed. A grouping of clothes and other items riffing on the Henry’s own employee handbook.

The full name is the School of Art + Art History + Design’s Master of Fine Arts and Master of Design Thesis Exhibition, but it goes by 2018 MFA + MDes for short. Both are two-year programs, and these works represent the last step in the 91̽��journey for these artists and designers.

The MFA candidates for 2018 are David C. Burr, Nate Clark, Ian Cooper, Daniel Hewat, Alex Kang, Erin H. Meyer, Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, Katie Schroeder and Caitlyn Wilson. The Master of Design candidates are Aubree Ball, Joe Costello, Emma Teal Laukitis and Christopher Seeds.

This is the 60^th year for the exhibition, as , director of the art school, told those gathered for an early press preview. “Watching it through the decades has been pretty amazing,” he said. “All of the movements, trends, styles, processes in the world of contemporary art and design that have transpired during that time period.”

And yet each year’s show is very personal for those showing their work.

“It’s one of those moments in life as an artist or designer that really sticks with you” he said, when the work, long pondered in private, “suddenly becomes very, very public.”

The students got advice and assistance in mounting their pieces from Jes Gettler, the museum’s exhibit designer and lead preparator, who said the exhibit process starts as early as December of the preceding year, and is among her favorites.

Walker added that though these graduating student artists and designers may have had doubts along the way — a normal part of the process —  they “are now considered professionals.”

The 2018 MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition will be on display through June 24 at the Henry.

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The Henry Art Gallery is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $10 general, $6 for seniors and free to 91̽��students, staff and faculty. And it’s free to all on Sundays. For more information, visit .

The Seattle Art Museum will feature work by abstract artist and 91̽�� art professor . The exhibit, titled “Disclosures,” will be on display from May 20 through November.

Hurley is a professor of painting and drawing in the whose works have been exhibited and praised nationally.  The exhibit makes a fitting tribute, as Hurley will retire from the 91̽��at the end of the school year after 23 years of teaching.

“Hurley is dedicated to abstraction,” SAM curators write, “and his work has centered on the tension between formal elements — either a series of elements within a single painting — or the relationships between paintings and their surrounding architecture in a constellation.”

The exhibit will include paintings from Hurley’s “Glyph” series, a glyph being a Greek term for a symbol conveying information nonverbally. They resemble the sort of placards people carry at rallies and demonstrations.

SAM curators explain: “As most of Hurley’s paintings with this title are densely painted in black — while one work frames the blank white wall — these particular glyphs don’t carry images or slogans. Instead they become abstract and point to their form and function. In the absence of words or symbols, these signs disclose no allegiance to any cause.”

Hurley was born in Barbados, West Indies, and studied at the Portland Museum Art School and the Yale School of Art, where he earned an MFA in 1979. Has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. His work has been included in many group exhibitions, including at the UW’s . His art was previously was shown at SAM in 2003-2004 in an International Abstraction exhibit.

In a 2006 Seattle Times , arts writer Matthew Kangas wrote that artists like Hurley “present a gift to the willing viewer: the pure pleasure of paint on canvas. No muss, no fuss, just enjoyable looking, feeling and thinking.

“Taking months (or years) to complete, each painting consists of numerous layers of oil paint slowly built up, rubbed out or scraped down and corrected to create subtle variations of tone and hue within the solid-color surface. This gives each painting a quietly throbbing appearance that is only perceived by long and slow looking.”

Asked by blogger to describe his work, Hurley said, “I would describe it as rigorous, clearly abstract; about structuring imagery, color and surfaces. I want my work to seem available and open while maintaining its density.” He named Picasso, Matisse, daVinci and Pollock as influences — as well as the UW’s own .

Hurley had several suggestions when asked for advice to aspiring artists.

“Talk to each other; community is important,” he said. “See as much work as you can. Learn to be at one with your own work. Be curious about your choices. Work in many mediums and be open to the demands of process. Realize that it is OK to be alone with your work and yourself. Read history. See something of the country and the world. Talk to your teachers. Have other interests as well. Be lucky!”

He added, “Get good training. Go to museums. Draw, draw, draw!”

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For more information about Hurley and his work, contact him at ���1���ܷ�.������