An accumulation of grad students’ hard work has recently been displayed in the George Caleb Bingham Gallery.

The graduate students are part of the Master of Fine Arts Program at MU. MFA is a three-year, 60-credit graduate program that boasts 22 students. Each student also teaches or has an assistantship with the department or the university. Students’ majors include sculpture, fibers, ceramics, painting, photography and printmaking.

In the Bingham Gallery, students display the culmination of their graduate work. Along with their exhibits, students are required to write a thesis paper and give an oral defense.

MFA student Bethanie Collins had her exhibit on display in the gallery the week of March 16.

Collins named her exhibit “Vorfreude,” a German word that means the “intensive, anticipative, joy derived from imagining future pleasures.” It features simple designs meant to send a message.

“My work was really about that false security and happiness derived from the thought of obtaining and possessing objects,” Collins says. “This work intends to start a conversation about the growing reliance on physical possessions to satisfy emotional needs by asking the viewer to question their own connection to the material world.”

Collins uses yellow, blue, green, red, white and black stripes to point out the way people rationalize events, depending on context and experience.

“I thought this particular set of colors would be fitting with my work, which involved illusions and how we depend on and try to rationalize the visual world,” Collins says.

Collins is influenced by German design and art, which inspired her exhibit. She is also inspired by furniture and design, which she featured in her show.

Collins’ earlier work involved color theory, defining art, style and other decisions regarding how we visually interact with the world.

Graduate student Jane Jun’s exhibit went up in the gallery Monday and will be displayed until April 11.

Jun’s show is called “Masquerade.” Through it, she wants to break the stereotypes of Asian women and reclaim her own identity.

“As a female immigrant with a darker skin complexion, I am still treated like a guest even though I’ve been living in America for 17 years,” Jun says.

Greta Myers, another MFA student, will host her show until April 11, as well.