Student Unions Present: A Joint Student Art Exhibition with the School of Visual Studies and MSA
On the ground level and first level of the MU Student Center, visitors can now explore an exhibition featuring works by BFA and MFA students from the School of Visual Studies, presented in collaboration with the MSA (Missouri Student's Association). The exhibition is installed in the Student Center Lower Display Cases and Square cases and will remain on view through April 15, 2026.
This exhibition brings together painting, photography, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, and mixed media, showcasing student artists’ diverse explorations of themes such as the self, identity, social structures, and cultural values. In conjunction with the celebration of MLK Month, the exhibition also features three student works recommended by the MSA, honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s enduring commitment to equality, justice, and cultural respect.
Exhibtion Overview, Ground Level, MU Student Center
Exhibtion Overview, Ground Level, MU Student Center
I. Self and Vision: Imagining, Presenting, and Being Seen
This section focuses on how student artists construct the “self” through visual language. Beginning with self-portraiture or symbolic objects, several artists juxtapose personal faith, future aspirations, and everyday experience. The objects depicted function not only as narrative devices but also as temporal promises—imagined trajectories toward becoming an artist, a family member, a practitioner of faith, or inhabiting multiple identities at once.
In these works, the “self” is not presented as a fixed conclusion but as an ongoing process of becoming. Through careful draftsmanship, photography, and nuanced use of color, the artists transform private experience into public expression. At the same time, they suggest that identity is not shaped solely by internal intention; it is also formed, interpreted, and sometimes misread within broader social relationships and visual culture.
In Aspirational Self Portrait, Lily Stewart employs a still-life composition to articulate an “ideal self.” Objects within the scene—pencils and drawing tools symbolizing professional aspirations, yarn suggesting personal interests and balance, a wedding photograph and a Bible indicating family and faith—together construct a vision of the future. The work functions not merely as a portrait, but as a visual declaration of intention.
Graci Calovich’s photographic series shifts the focus from self-imagination to the ways in which the self is seen. Using herself as subject through staged photography and object documentation, she examines how women are objectified and disciplined within social contexts—how identity is constructed, regulated, and continually negotiated through structures of the gaze.
II. Material and Structure: Finding Meaning Through Making
Another group of works foregrounds the process of making. Modular wooden constructions, woven textiles, paper-mâché sculpture, and ceramic vessels collectively raise a central question: when we return to material, do we also redefine the relationship between the human body and the object? In an era shaped by digital and virtual experience, these works preserve the trace of the hand through stacking, binding, firing, and assembling. Form is no longer merely a visual outcome; it becomes the residue of thought and labor.
In Kipkees, Brett Faucett presents a series of modular wooden structures in which identical components generate new forms through recombination. By returning decision-making authority to the builder or viewer, the artist emphasizes the embodied relationship between material and maker within a digital age often marked by detachment from physical construction.
III. Systems, Value, and Social Structures
Through Risograph printing, artist books, and the redesign of currency, several artists turn toward broader social questions—administrative systems, national symbols, cultural labeling, and economic value. Banknotes, security envelope patterns, and official visual systems are appropriated and translated within these works, revealing how institutions shape identity and regulate meaning. Art here functions as an act of renaming and reassigning value.
Oswaldo Garcia’s Risograph works transform the interior security patterns of official envelopes—used in immigration, taxation, and healthcare correspondence—into layered visual narratives, exposing how institutions use imagery to conceal and control information.
In Real Happiness, Kamei uses Brazilian currency as a medium, reworking the banknote into a critique of national symbolism and gender politics. By altering imagery and textual elements, the work reframes money as a site where “value” itself can be questioned and redefined.
IV. MLK Month Special Section: Cultural Respect and Empowered Identities
This exhibition is presented in collaboration with the MSA, an organization dedicated to fostering cross-cultural understanding and advocating for social justice on campus. In the context of MLK Month, three featured works respond to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s enduring commitment to dignity, equality, and cultural respect.
These works center on the embodied experiences of Black women, the healing power of cultural spaces, and the complex boundary between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. Through the integration of visual imagery and text, the artists engage directly with the spirit of MLK Month, foregrounding questions of equity, recognition, and mutual respect.
The Student Center Lower Display Cases and Square Cases function not merely as display sites, but as public interfaces encountered in the flow of daily campus life—spaces where classroom dialogue extends into community engagement and broader social reflection. In the spirit of MLK Month, this exhibition positions art as a starting point for conversation—about identity, power, cultural memory, and imagined futures.
The above provides only a selection of themes and works featured in the exhibition. Visitors are warmly invited to experience the full range of artworks in person.
Exhibition Location:
MU Student Center, Ground Level Display Cases and First-Floor Square Cases
Exhibition Dates:
On view through April 15, 2026
Curated by:
Hanxue Zhang
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