Summer 2024 at the University Galleries featured work from Professor Emeritus Jerry Hatch and his partner, Hing Wah Hatch as well as another successful MFA Co-Curatorial collaborative exhibit with Erin Tyler.

Brick City Gallery

Boomerangs, Butterflies and Then Some
July 1 – August 2 | FFAW: August 2, 6-8 pm

Featuring work from Jerry and Hing Wah Hatch, Boomerangs, Butterflies and Then Some has images from their past and present interests made with various media including cast plaster, carved wood, various drawing media, watercolor, oil, collages, papercuts and mixed media.

Jerry Hatch

Hing Wah Hatch

Carolla Arts Exhibition Center

Current State, a co-curatorial project with Jodi McCoy and Erin Tyler
July 1 – August 2 | First Friday Art Walk: August 2, 6-8 PM

As inherently transient beings, we collect connections to the places we inhabit throughout our lives. But are we ever really in a single place? And how do we mark a place when things are in constant flux? We can be physically rooted in Missouri but digitally omnipresent, here for a season – longing to be elsewhere, or even feeling utterly displaced. The artists in this exhibition all have a unique tether to this land that we call Missouri. Geography binds us together; where we are informs who we are and what we make.

We asked thirteen contemporary artists from Springfield, Kansas City, and St Louis to offer works of art that respond to their current state – geographical, physical, virtual, and or spiritual. Sarah  Williams’ Nightscapes captures intimate markers of neo-regionalism, dwellings often at the center of what we physically call home. Mikey Yates’  Watching  Winter Turn to Spring documents the artist’s view from his studio in Kansas City, a view familiar to many artists. Finally, St Louis’ Emily Mueller works at the intersection of meditative mark-making and the investigation of intuitive form and color-in her Leaf Silhouette series, Mueller combines physical materials and process to explore her current state.

These responses present only a sample of Missouri’s creative footprint; outside of it is a larger and wider echo. Land and our place on it is often understood as a resource or a mere pin on a map. But what if we started to think about our current state in conversation with our identity: How does place show up in our ideas and the work we make? How does our current state intertwine with and enrich our life story? And, how does our occupation of this current state also tell the story of this place?

Exhibiting artists: Stella Blackmon, Rick Briggenhorst, Madeline Brice, Will Chiles, Sage Dawson, Josh Johnson, Cesar Lopez, Emily Mueller, Shauna Le Ann Smith, Amanda Smith, Mikey Yates, Kellen Wright, and Sarah Williams.

Greta Cross for the Springfield News Leader

Rick Briggenhorst and Cesar Lopez

Shauna Le Ann Smith and Sage Dawson

 

Summer 2023 at the University Galleries featured nationally recognized and reviewed exhibitions.

Brick City Gallery

Unfolding the Map, work by Sharon Harper
July 5 – August 4

Part of the ongoing emeritus series, Unfolding the Map features work in painting, drawing, ceramics, and crochet that use visual metaphors and self-portraits to create a personal narrative of Harper’s own life experiences.

“My process of working has not changed much over the years: I respond to my current thoughts, surroundings, and materials to find my way. Not sure of what will come next, my map unfolds as the journey continues.”

Unfolding the Map was featured in SECAC’s 2023 Online Exhibition Reviews.

Carolla Arts Exhibition Center

Missouri Fine Arts Academy Final Showcase
June 17

The Carolla Arts Exhibition Center annually hosts the fine arts final showcase for the Missouri Fine Arts Academy every June. The Missouri Fine Arts Academy (MFAA) is a two-week summer residential program for highly motivated student artists in visual arts, theatre, dance, creative writing, and music. The Academy offers an intensive schedule of classes in interdisciplinary and discipline-specific arts, and a wide range of co-curricular activities. MFAA is conducted with the support and cooperation of Missouri State University, and is funded through program fees, grants, endowments, scholarships, and private donations.

The Figure, Reclaimed
A Renaissance of the body in visual culture, co-curated by Jodi McCoy and Mara Cressey
July 5 – August 4

The Figure, Reclaimed, seeks to celebrate and explore the Renaissance of the female body and the female figurative painter in visual culture. Through the work of Aneka Ingold and Livia Xandersmith, this exhibition explores how female figurative painters have combined the traditional art of figurative painting with contemporary, stylized approaches to redefine and expand upon what it means to be a figurative painter, ruminate on the female experience, and how representations of the female body are consumed.

The Figure, Reclaimed was a featured CAA Committee on Women in the Arts Summer Pick and also reviewed by Greta Cross for the Springfield News-leader.