The George Caleb Bingham Gallery will display 11 graduate thesis projects in an exhibition from July 3 — Aug. 24.
The culmination of months of research and curation by 11 graduate students within the MU School of Visual Studies will be exhibited this summer in the 2023 Mix ‘Til Wet Showcase at the George Caleb Bingham Gallery during its summer season, July 3 — Aug. 24. The showcase will feature work inspired by a variety of mediums, including ceramics and sculpture, fibers, mixed media, painting and photography.
“It’ll be a kind of mixed bag … I do think that the graduate students tend to have interesting relationships in their work for content, just because they work together so regularly,” Madeleine Lemeiux, Bingham Gallery Interim Director and former MU School of Visual Studies graduate student, said. “It’ll be kind of a review of the graduate work that’s going on in the program right now.”
One student is creating an installation that “addresses some of the textual relationships between how Filipinos are perceived in America and consumer culture,” Lemieux said.
In line with June being Pride Month, Lemieux added that the exhibit features work curated by queer student artists “that kind of transitions from addressing queer identities into more abstract ideas of formal qualities.”
Two students adhering to the fiber medium also created projects that explore identity and cultural symbols in weaving and small embroidery pieces symbolizing memory and loss, respectively.
Lemieux also said that the exhibition was initially supposed to be installed at the end of the spring 2023 semester, but due to a delay in response regarding the visual studies department’s facilities grant, installation did not begin until June. The later start date of July 3 was imposed to avoid construction happening while the showcase is open to the public.
For the duration of the Bingham Gallery’s summer season, the exhibition will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, culminating with a closing reception from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 22.
Copy edited by Mary Philip
This story has been corrected (6/28) to reflect a scheduling update.
