From April 10 to May 5, Mississippi State students will have the opportunity to experience Euphoria, an art exhibition featuring the works of five seniors hoping to soon achieve their bachelors of fine arts degree. This is the final art exhibit of the semester, and it will feature the diverse talents of four painters and a printmaker who worked on their projects for a year, though the first seeds of this show were planted even further back.
“In some essence, you can say they’ve been working on this show for all four years of college,” gallery director Bill Andrews said. “It’s the culmination of their entire practice and process here in the department of art.”
The artists include Drew Chapman, Dixie Boswell, Glenn Payne, Erin Keating and Wesley Stuckey. The exhibition’s title rings true to the young artists.
“It’s what I do, and I love what I do,” Boswell said.
“It’s definitely been an experience getting to know these guys, and you grow so much from the experience,” Keating said. “It’s something you’ll remember forever.”
The group believes the show should cater to a wide variety of tastes.
“Every show is different depending on what the artist’s emphasis area is,” Andrews said. “[Euphoria] reflects the idea that creating art can be very fulfilling to the human experience, and all these students obviously value that experience and that idea.”
“[My paintings] are very abstract,” Boswell said. “It’s all nonobjective, but it all has a lot of layering and depth.”
“My work is pretty straightforward,” Chapman said. “I tried to get back to the basics of design, and composition and color.”
“[For me] it’s about depth and texture,” Keating said. “I tried to paint how I felt in the moment.”
“My work is mainly figurative,” Payne said. “It deals with biblical stories, so it has links between different situations.”
“All my images are dealing with animals and nature, and hunting, weapons and targets,” Stuckey said. “It’s kind of a play on imagery.”
Stuckey is the only printmaker in the group. Printmaking is a 2D art form, like painting and photography, in which an artist uses one of several techniques to make multiple images of the same original drawing or painting.
The gallery will be open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and 1p.m.-4p.m. on Sunday at the department of art gallery on the ground floor of McComas Hall. The official opening ceremony will take place from 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Thursday, where the artists will be present to talk about their projects. The group hopes the student body will take notice.
“We’d love for people to come see the exhibit,” Andrews said. “Artists create artwork for people to see, and they like to receive feedback from visitors who see the work. That’s a very important component of the whole process, and I certainly hope to see a lot of our MSU students and faculty at the opening reception.”
“This is one of the most popular exhibits that happen throughout the year, for all kinds of reasons,” he added. “It’s something to look forward to.”
“We’re hoping that a lot of people show up that wouldn’t necessarily normally look at art,” Chapman said. “We always want the artists to come, but it’s for everybody, so hopefully we’ll see some new faces out there. We want to let people know that you don’t have to be weird to be an artist.”
“The show will be cool for everybody to come out and see,” Chapman added, “So we hope everybody will come out for a little while. If not for the opening, at least come out and look at the work.”