Mississippi State’s Department of Art has been around since the late 1960s; its main building, Freeman Hall, seems to chill out unassumingly under a few trees tucked between Davis Wade Stadium and the university’s registrar’s office. As students walk past Freeman completely unaware of what goes on inside were it not for the word “ART” painted on the facade.
While Freeman appears chastened in comparison to its surroundings, the work created within its walls by students and faculty is certainly not.
To show their work to the community the Department of Art puts on the “Art Department Faculty Show.”
To the layperson, the department of art gallery could come as a nice filler activity worked into the planner if nothing more, but it carries heavier connotations for the art students and faculty involved.
The gallery serves as field practice for Art majors. According to Bill Andrews, gallery director, “The gallery world is the business world [for artists].”
Andrews explains that “the gallery also serves to exhibit student work as a component of the Bachelor of Fine Art thesis.”
One of the main points on the art major’s itinerary is to complete this thesis, a culmination of artwork somewhat similar in significance to an interior design or architecture major’s portfolio.
Typically, the event takes place every other year to allow artists sufficient time to create their work.
Andrews mentioned that faculty from the Department of Art will have on display their own paintings, drawings, photography, prints, ceramics, sculptures, illustrations and graphic designs in this year’s showcase.
“The mission of the gallery,” he explains, “is to present various forms of visual art to the MSU and Starkville area community. This includes traveling exhibits as well as local or regional ones.”
Each faculty member submits a few bodies of art, each piece presenting “overlapping concepts and materials.”
The structure of the gallery is prepared to emphasize the department as a whole more than the individual. While observing the art, Andrews suggested setting in the gallery and looking at the form the artwork takes. “It’s most important to go to the gallery and see the show in person,” he said.
Also, observers should find it interesting the “way each individual artist responds to his or her chosen medium,” or method in which their art is displayed.
Couple that artistic insight with the common theme of the show that, in the words of Andrews, implies “excellence in programming and cultural edification, dynamic and comprehensive scholarship, and evidence of innovation in the visual arts and chances are students will look at Freeman Hall in a different light the next time they pass it, chilling modestly beneath the trees.
Specified pieces of art will be available for purchase on a price-on-request basis at the reception area of the gallery.