2021 Mississippi Invitational

2021 Mississippi Invitational

The Mississippi Invitational, a biennial exhibition, is a survey of recent works created by contemporary visual artists living and working in the state. Artists from across the state are invited to submit for consideration. This year’s works were selected by Houston-based guest curator Danielle Burns-Wilson and is the largest number of artists represented since the Museum launched the annual program in 1997.

This year’s exhibition features works across a variety of media by the following artists:

Norma Sanders Bourdeaux, Oxford
Jesse Ryan Brown, Cleveland
Cynthia Buob, Columbus
Langdon Clay, Sumner
Ashleigh Coleman, Ackerman
Timothy R. Collins, Gore Springs
Kira Cummings, Jackson
Brenden Davis, Jackson
Drew Dempsey, Brandon
Nicole Dikon, Tupelo
Earl Dismuke, Oxford
Sue Carrie Drummond, Jackson
Michael N. Foster, Water Valley
Coulter Fussell, Water Valley – The Jane Crater Hiatt Artist Fellowship Winner
Karen Gilder, Florence
Ben Hillyer, Natchez
Allan Innman, Brandon
Will Jacks, Cleveland
daniel johnson, Jackson
Lawson King, Indianola
Carlyle Wolfe Lee, Oxford
Paula McClain, Brandon
Christina McField, Jackson
Alexis McGrigg, Utica
Walter Neill, Oxford
Soon Ee Ngoh, Starkville
Carolyn Norton, Hattiesburg
Nathan Pietrykowski, Cleveland
Whitson Ramsey, Hattiesburg
Chip Sheppard, Jackson
Sabyna Sterrett, Ridgeland
Kristen Tordella-Williams, Jackson
Jen Torres, Hattiesburg
Spence Townsend, Greenwood
Stacy Underwood, Jackson
Greg Walker, Jackson; Pat Galuzzo, Baltimore, MD
Robyn Wall, Cleveland
Steven Wayne, Southaven
Brooke White, Oxford
Herb Willey, Waveland
Chris Windfield, Jackson
D’Artagnan Winford, Brandon

The works in this year’s Invitational reflect the many voices and experiences of this particular moment in time. Regardless of color or creed, the pain and uncertainty in our country, from COVID-19 to the most social unrest is undeniable. Art is an integral part of redirecting our struggles toward progress and MMA is an important site for the critical conversations we need to have in our culture.

An unprecedented 42 artists are represented in the show, their works documenting expressions of perseverance simply from their creation. More than depicting our current time, this exhibition conveys human needs, reimagines our future, and liberates thought. The 2021 Mississippi Invitational explores three major themes: resilience, reckoning, and reflection.

The Jane Crater Hiatt Artist Fellowship—a grant of up to $20,000 awarded to one artist—winner for 2021 is Coulter Fussell.

A publication accompanying the exhibition will be available in The Museum Store.

The Mississippi Invitational and its biennial exhibition and catalog are made possible with support from the Community Foundation for Mississippi/Jane Crater Hiatt Fund. The opening events for this year’s exhibition are sponsored by Ross & Yerger.

Artist Bios:

Alexis McGrigg (b. 1989) is a contemporary artist who explores themes of Blackness, space, spirituality, identity, and collective consciousness. Her artwork utilizes the mediums of painting, drawing, transmedia, and installation to create fictional and philosophical narratives of black existence that stem from historical and lived experiences. McGrigg integrates poetry, sound, and performance in her practice as major contributors of influence throughout her research. Her artwork is included in several private collections and has been featured in exhibitions across the U.S. in New York, NY, New Orleans, LA, Chicago, IL, Las Vegas, NV, and Oakland, CA. Most recently, McGrigg’s work was included in the group exhibition, Say It Loud, at Christie’s Auction House; Seeing 20/20 at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art; Wealth Surrounds Me: God, Gold & Kinfolk at Richard Beavers Gallery; and LIGHT at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) in South Korea. McGrigg earned her BFA in painting from Mississippi State University in 2012 and an MFA with a concentration in painting and transmedia from Texas Tech University in 2017.

Allan Innman (b. 1982) is a painter born in Oxford, MS and currently residing in Brandon, MS. He is a 2015 graduate of the MFA program at The University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art in drawing and painting and a 2006 graduate of the University of Mississippi BFA program in graphic design. Innman’s work has been featured in several online publications like Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, and Booooooom. His paintings were also featured in the publication New American Paintings. Innman has exhibited throughout the southeast as well as San Francisco and New York. In 2017, he was awarded a Visual Arts Fellowship by the Mississippi Arts Commission. Innman’s current work is based around make-believe and fantasy through the depiction of toys and figurines.

Ashleigh Coleman (b. 1983) was born in the mountains of Virginia, reared in South Carolina, and for the last decade has lived in rural Mississippi. Through her work, Coleman is looking for her way home, searching for joy in chaos. In the meantime, her work has been exhibited across the United States, including solo shows at the Fischer Galleries in Jackson, MS; the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture; and the Claire Elizabeth Gallery in New Orleans. Coleman’s work has also been shown at the University of West Virginia, the University of Southern Mississippi, Barrister’s Gallery in New Orleans, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Soho Gallery, the Bo Barlett Center, and is currently part of the traveling exhibitions, Looking for Appalachia and A Yellow Rose Project. She is the 2020 SouthArts State Fellow for Mississippi. Coleman is a founding member of Due South Cooperative, which has exhibited work in TN, MS, GA, and SC. Her work is included in a number of private and public collections, including the Mississippi Museum of Art. Coleman’s work has been published in Oxford Magazine, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, as well as featured in Remembering Emmett Till by Dave Tell.

Ben Hillyer (b. 1968) is a photographer, designer and architect in Natchez, MS. For the past 20 years he has worked for the local community newspaper, The Natchez Democrat, documenting the people, places, and events of southwest Mississippi. Starting as a staff photographer, Hillyer has worked in various capacities, including visual editor, creative director, and other editorial roles. His editorial work has appeared in regional and national publications including the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times. Hillyer’s fine artwork has been featured in galleries across the southeast and on book covers, including New York Times best-selling author Greg Iles’ books Turning Angel and True Evil. His work has been selected for regional photography festivals and invitational shows, including the annual Slow Exposures photography festival in Zebulon, GA, and the 2019 biennial Mississippi Invitational exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, MS.

Brenden Davis (b. 1997) is a freelance illustrator, painter, and animator born and raised in Jackson. He graduated from Millsaps College in 2020 with a BA in studio art and digital design. When not at his day job at Fondren Art Gallery, Davis is hard at work in the studio, painting on cardboard or creating animated shorts. He is dedicated to making works of art that are equal parts meaningful, thoughtful, and engaging.

Brooke White (b. 1975) was born in New Hampshire and moved to Oxford, MS in 2005, where she continues to live and work. She moved to Oxford to begin the Imaging Arts program at the University of Mississippi, where she currently teaches film and digital photography courses. As an artist White embraces, a cross-disciplinary approach to image making that combines traditional analog techniques alongside digital strategies. For the past 20 years she has made work about the landscape, nature, and our response to place. She sees the landscape as a space of refuge and one that reflects much of what is taking place within the world, both on a macro and micro level. The conceptual framework of her projects is consistently driven by the politics of place, memory, and time, and the role they play in establishing identity. White has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including shows at the Hammer Museum, the Mississippi Museum of Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She has been a Senior Fulbright Scholar in India and is the recipient of multiple Mississippi Arts Council Individual Artist Grants. White’s work has been published in Aint Bad Magazine and the Oxford American.

Carlyle Wolfe Lee (b. 1977) makes oil paintings on panel and watercolors on paper, based on drawings from observation of plants and landscape color studies. She has recently begun to use shapes from her drawings to make large sculptures. Lee grew up in Canton, MS, and earned a BFA in painting from the University of Mississippi and an MFA in painting and drawing from Louisiana State University. She has also studied in Cortona, Italy, and at the University of Georgia. Lee has exhibited work throughout the South, including the Dixon Gallery and Gardens; David Lusk Gallery in Memphis and in Nashville; the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center; the University of Charleston; the Shaw Center for the Arts; the Mississippi Museum of Art; the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art; the University of Mississippi Museum; and Arkansas Arts Center. Her work was recently selected for the Art in Embassies Program at the US Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique. Lee is the recipient of three Mississippi Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellowships (2005, 2010, 2015) and two Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Visual Arts Awards (2008, 2017). She taught part-time in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Mississippi (2005-2014). Lee lives in Oxford with her filmmaker husband, Thad, and works in her studio beside their home.

Carolyn McIntyre Norton’s (b. 1957) photographs, intaglio prints, screen prints, and handmade artist books showcase visual investigations into the defining qualities of specific types of rivers, grasslands, and cultures. Her lifelong love for making images of rivers and meadows began when her father—who when a teenager built an enlarger out of a Spam can and a lens for his darkroom—sent her off to the mountains of North Carolina at 12 years old with a dozen rolls of film and a SLR camera from Sears. Norton went on to study photography and earn a BFA in communications arts and design from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MA and MFA in printmaking from Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. Now her work is consistently shown in juried and invitational exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including the Mississippi Museum of Art, Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Blank Wall Gallery, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Davis Orton Gallery, Griffin Museum of Photography, Manifest Gallery, and PhotoPlace Gallery. Nortin is also a 2021 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Photography Nominee.She has taught visual arts at the university level for 13 years in Texas, Maryland, and Mississippi, establishing the University of Southern Mississippi’s non-toxic printmaking studio and intaglio printmaking class.

Chip Sheppard (b. 1978) grew up on the Ross Barnett Reservoir before making Jackson his home in the early 2000’s. He has worked the last 20 years in oil paint, both plein-air and in his studio. Sheppard’s interests lie in the lasting heritage of Jackson’s history, a subject he has spent the better part of a decade researching. His paintings are meant to focus along the roads leading out of Jackson, and the anachronous landmarks of the past in the present day. Sheppard received statewide and local press for his last show The Past isn’t Permanent, featuring impressionist era paintings painstakingly recreated on white board using dry-erase markers.

Chris Windfield (b. 1982) is a contemporary realist painter who lives and works in Jackson, MS. A native of Jackson, his paintings pay homage to his experiences and culture throughout Mississippi. Windfield likes to find the beauty within everyday people. African Americans depicted as royalty, superheroes and issues that are abundant in his community are all brought to life with contrasting and harmonious colors and bold compositions. As Windfield explains, “I like to answer questions that people are afraid to ask and to ask questions that people are afraid to answer.” As a child, he received prizes for his innate talent. From a young age Windfield believed, “Art is not what you see but what you make others see.” He earned a BA of graphic design from Jackson State University and an MA of web design & new media from Academy of Art University.

Christina McField (b. 1992) is the former inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Post-Baccalaureate Curatorial Fellow, for the Mississippi Museum of Art. Prior to this appointment, she worked in a variety of positions at the Museum, including Director of Philanthropy and Membership, Curatorial Assistant, and Manager of Visitor Services. McField obtained her BFA in sculpture from Mississippi State University in 2016 and interned for Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida in 2013 and as an alumnus in 2015. In addition to museum work, she is a multidisciplinary artist, cultural producer, and curator. McField works to cultivate a variety of experiences to her local communities by remaining an active contributor to the “creative scene” in Jackson, MS. She loves packing her camera to travel the world and to capture hidden treasures on back roads of Mississippi.

Coulter Fussell (b. 1977) was born and raised in Columbus, GA, an old textile town. She is the youngest family quilter, hailing from multi-generations of seamstresses and quilters. Fussell produces boundary pushing quilt-works using old, discarded, and donated textiles as her sole materials. Taught to quilt by her mother, she relies on the painterly quality inherent in used textiles to bring depth, character, and story to her quilts. Fussell hand sews quilts to experiment with the push and pull between craft’s functionality and form while addressing truths of poverty, disparity of luck, the relationship between force and power, notions of faux romanticism and false nostalgia, the physical evidence of hard work, woman versus machine, and the miracle that is sight and touch. Walking a compositional balance, she uses the socialized, standardized, and purposeful restraint of quilt patterning to self-edit what would otherwise be a full and total leap into expressionistic abstraction, playing the hyper-personal story as a wild melody in tandem with the harmony of broad themes of risk and freedom. Coulter has exhibited works across the country from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC. Coulter was the Finalist for the 2017 SouthArts Southern Prize, the 2019 Visual Arts Inductee into the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Craft. Coulter lives in Water Valley, MS, with her family.

Cynthia Buob (b. 1966) is a figurative painter and art instructor.  A Peoria, Illinois native, Buob attended Millikin University in Decatur, IL, where she earned her BFA. It was there in her first figure drawing class that Buob fell in love with drawing, and drawing has been her passion from that moment on. She earned her MFA in painting from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. After finishing her MFA, Buob lived for some time in both Edinburgh, Scotland, and Minsk, Belarus. Shortly after coming back to the states, Buob and her husband moved to Columbus, MS, where they have raised their two sons. She works from her studio across the street from her home, where she continues to draw and paint the figure. Buob’s work exhibits regionally and nationally, and is in the permanent collection of the Swoop Art Museum in Terra Haute, IN, and the Meridian Museum of Art in Meridian, MS.

D’Artagnan Winford (b. 1977) is a contemporary fine art portrait photographer who lives and works in the Jackson-metro area. A native of Itta Bena, MS., his soulful portraits pay homage to his Delta upbringing. Winford’s distinctive personal style emanates a command of light, confidence, peace, and expresses the vibrant spirit of Mississippi. Dancers, models, bodybuilders, Cuban cigar rollers, musicians, and everyday people all find common ground in his work. As the artist explains, “I love the human face. There’s a story behind every one of them and I wanna capture them and those stories” As a child, Winford received prizes for his innate talent. From a young age he has believed, “Everyone is an artist. It’s just like any muscle, you have to exercise it and it will get stronger.” An alum of Leflore County High School in Itta Bena, MS, he earned a BFA from Mississippi Valley State University. Winford is an international award-winning portrait photographer.

daniel johnson (b. 1979) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and public historian working in community in the United States South East region. johnson (he/they) holds a BA in studio art from Millsaps College, has served as Director of Engagement and Learning at the Mississippi Museum of Art, and owns and operates Significant Developments, an advancement agency centering culture in capacity building and visioning for teams. He currently serves as the Board Secretary for both Alternate ROOTS, a 44-year-old artist activist organization serving the U.S. South; and the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production in Utica, MS. His work has been featured by PolicyLink, the Center for the Future of Museums, Georgetown University’s Gnovis journal, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’sCommunity Development Innovation Review, and Mississippi Today.

Drew Dempsey (b. 1992) is an artist based in the heart of Mississippi. He is a photographer drawn to scenes that are often otherwise overlooked. With a distinct eye for colors and lines, Dempsey’s images have become easily recognizable in the greater Jackson area. Some of his favorite photo sweet spots include the Mississippi Delta and Downtown Jackson.

Earl Dismuke (b. 1981) is a Mississippi artist. He graduated in 2007 from the University of Mississippi with a BFA with an emphasis in sculpture. Dismuke works out of his studio located in Oxford, where he lives with his wife and four children. He is currently working on two bodies of work. One is primarily made of found objects and focuses on storytelling. The other is more formal, concentrating on form and negative space. These works are larger in scale and made of fabricated steel. Examples of his work have been included in several international and national exhibitions, including, but not limited to, the Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition, New Orleans, LA; The Walter Anderson Museum, Ocean Springs, MS; Scope Basel in Basel, Switzerland, Lima, Peru, several gallery and museum shows, and private collections. Dismuke is a co-founder of the Yokna Sculpture Trail, a bi-annual rotating outdoor sculpture exhibition in Oxford, MS He is a recipient of the Mississippi Arts Commission 2019 Visual Arts Fellowship Grant, and a member of the International Sculpture Center.

Gregory Walker (b. 1976) came in to serious art making late in life. After several years working as a graphic designer, he realized that his creativity and interest in vision, science, and media were better suited to critical artistic exploration. Understanding that to succeed on this path would require formal training and rigorous dedication to his process, Walker tendered his resignation and began pursuit of an MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art. It’s there that he met Pat Galluzzo and the beginning of a cooperative art making practice was born. During his studies, Walker refined his practice and began creating multimedia works that explore the intricacies of human and mechanical perception, and the boundary between the actuality of sensory experience, and the translation of that information into form and meaning. Working with Pat Galluzzo, his recent work explores themes of representation and the real, and the liminal space between the two. In addition to his MFA, Gregory holds a BA in radio, television, and film as well as an MS in mass communication from the University of Southern Mississippi. As a resident of Jackson, MS, he continues his studio practice in a community with a rich and proud creative heritage that serves as a constant source of inspiration.

Herb Willey (b. 1940) majored in fine art at USL in Lafayette, LA, and studied art on a part-time basis at the University of Hawaii while serving as a U.S. Naval airman. Following his studies, Willey formed his own advertising design company in New Orleans where he worked as a designer for many well-known New Orleans businesses for over 40 years.  His work focuses on Gulf Coast subjects and has been featured in numerous solo shows along the coast from Louisiana to Alabama. Willey’s paintings have appeared in juried shows nationally and internationally including International Watercolor Society Global shows in Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. His has local and national awards including, The Louisiana Watercolor Society member show in Baton Rouge. His solo shows included Ochsner Clinic Guest Artist Artwalk in New Orleans; Fourth Sunday at Four at Christ Episcopal Church in Bay St Louis, MS; a two month show at Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope, AL; a month-long show at the Mobile Art Council Gallery; and a three-month show at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Campus in Long Beach, MS.  Recent shows included a month-long exhibit at the Dauphin Island Heritage Gallery featuring paintings completed in the first 65-day quarantine period of the pandemic. His work is on display at numerous places in Southern Mississippi including Gallery 220 in Bay St. Louis. Willey has been a Mississippi resident for the last 21 years and presently resides in Waveland.

Jennifer Torres (b. 1965) was born in Queens, NY, and spent her childhood in Teaneck, NJ. She did her first four years of studio training as a teenager at the Art Students League in New York City and then earned her BFA at the Cooper Union, also in NYC. Torres’s focus was steel fabrication, casting, woodworking, and photography. After graduating from Cooper, she trained as a fine cabinetmaker in New England, learning important skills that she still utilizes today. After traveling around the United States for a few years, including working at lumber mill in Oregon, Torres moved back east to get her MFA in sculpture at the University of Georgia in Athens. Torres has lived in Hattiesburg, MS, for 21 years, where she has her studio and teaches sculpture as a tenured professor at The University of Southern Mississippi. She has had many exhibits of her sculptures and installations around the country and has won a number of awards and commissions. Torres received the highly competitive 2020 MS Visual Arts Fellowship and was chosen as Creative Researcher of the Year at USM’s College of Arts and Letters. Currently she is working on a big commission of new garden boats, similar to those currently in The Art Garden at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson.

Jesse Ryan Brown (b. 1980) was born in Atlanta, GA. He received a BFA (2004) in photographic imaging from The Art Institute of Atlanta in Atlanta, GA, and an MFA (2020) in studio art from The Maine College of Art in Portland, ME. Currently, Brown is an Assistant Professor of Art at Delta State University in Cleveland, MS.

As Publisher and Editor of Portico, a magazine dedicated to literary and visual stories, Karen Gilder (b. 1962) learned to recognize exceptional images. After closing the magazine at the end of 2019, the lure of photography returned. From her first film camera, a Pentax K1000, Gilder has always sought to find images to both enhance and disclose stories, images that in speaking to her might have greater reach:  capturing the magic in moments and landscapes and faces. Trained in photojournalism at the University of Southern Mississippi, her photographic style seeks to suspend specific time and certain place, to create the magic of a moment. Returning to photography, Gilder thought people and street scenes would capture her attention the most. But, as with most things, you find comfort around you; you understand the places and grasp the lives around you; you recognize the slightest seconds of change in that world…and the stories they tell. Turns out, surrounded as she is by it here where she lives every day, Gilder discovered that ease of place in nature.

Kira Cummings (b. 1989) is a multi-medium artist adept in an array of disciplines, painting, pyrography, wire sculpture, photography, videography, graphic design, and animation. A fine art graduate of Jackson State University with a minor in graphic design, Cummings holds a dual membership in the Craftmen’s Guild of Mississippi for pyrography and beaded sculpture. Cummings is the Creative Director for The Works, LLC, where she creates video and animation for musicians, interview programs, and corporate promotions as well as producing live events.

Kristen Tordella-Williams (b. 1988) is an interdisciplinary artist and arts educator based in the American South. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in a castle and monastery in Salem, Germany. Tordella-Williams has been an artist in residence at Salem Art Works, the Visitor Center, and Franconia Sculpture Park. She has received grants from the Greater Jackson Arts Council and the Mississippi Arts Commission to support the creation of the Eudora Welty Wreath, a large-scale, community engaged public sculpture. Tordella-Williams is the Vice-President of the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance board and is the coordinator of the Midtown Sculpture Walk in Jackson, MS.

Langdon Clay (b. 1949) was born in the middle of a hurricane in New York City in 1949. He grew up in New Jersey and Vermont and went to school in New Hampshire and Boston. Clay got his first camera on St. Patrick’s day 1968. His first roll of film included Robert Kennedy leading the grand parade in New York; three months later the presidential candidate was assassinated. Clay moved to New York in 1971 and spent the next 16 years photographing there, around the U.S., and in Europe for shelter magazines and books. Some of his favorite projects include Jefferson’s Monticello on architecture by Howard Adams, and a cookbook in Burgundy, France, From My Chateau Kitchen by Anne Willen. Gardens became a specialty for House & Garden and Southern Accents. In 1987, Clay moved to Mississippi and has worked from there with his wife, photographer Maude Schuyler Clay. They have three adult children:  Anna, Schuyler, and Sophie. Clay’s book Cars – New York City,1974-1976 was published by Stiedl in December 2016.

Lawson King (b. 1991) is an artist from Indianola, MS. He works primarily in sculpture, creating works for public places – because art is for everyone. After earning his BFA at Delta State University, King went up to the Midwest to work with sculptor Ray Katz. In 2020, he received an Artist Fellowship Award from Mississippi Arts Commission. King is currently in Clarksdale, MS, as a part of Coahoama Collective, continuing to create and exhibit public art.

M. Robyn Wall (b. 1989) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator living in Cleveland, MS. She graduated with a BFA with honors from the University of Manitoba, Canada. Wall studied at the University of New Mexico and received her MFA at Louisiana State University.

Michael Foster (b. 1977), was born in Vicksburg, MS, and is a lifetime resident of Mississippi. Foster currently resides in Water Valley, MS, building his dream shipping container home/studio with his 14-year- old son, Grayson, and six-year-old Boston terrier, Riley B.

Nathan Pietrykowski (b. 1989) is a print media artist and teacher. He received his MFA from Louisiana State University and a BS from the University of Southern Indiana. Currently, Pietrykowski is an instructor in art at Delta State University in MS. His work has exhibited internationally and nationally in over 100 venues including Highpoint Center of Printmaking in Minneapolis, Big Medium Gallery in Austin, Carnation Contemporary in Portland, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, and Manhattan Graphics Center in New York City.

Nicole Dikon (b. 1989) lives and works between Oahu & Mississippi, making woodcut prints, installing edible and native gardens, writing poetry, and making artist books. Her practice expands beyond the aforementioned list, but ultimately is a means of grounding her perspective in the principles of ecology. In 2014, Dikon received her BFA in painting at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, and in 2017 her MFA in printmaking from Temple University in Philadelphia.  Her work has been collected by institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art, The Center for Rare Books at Temple University, Kapiolani Medical Center, Sheraton Waikiki Hotel & The Wagner Free Institute of Science. She was born on Maui and was raised all over the Americas. As she continues to follow a nomadic path, she grounds her art practice in whatever environment she is placed. The key to her process lies in her attempt to mimic the cycles of a natural ecosystem. Everything in the studio has a value, from the scraped-up ink to the paper scraps, they all have a function that is considered and reused in the system several times before they are reused again in the waste pile for rebirth. In doing so each image, object, and place that is created, serves as a portal to a right relationship with the natural world, one where we acknowledge our connectedness not through an intelligent knowing, but a visceral and intuitive awareness.

Norma Sanders Bourdeaux (b. 1930) spent her formative years primarily in Alabama, Utah, Wyoming, and Mississippi, where she moved at the age of 14. Encouraged by her father, who owned a small plane, Bourdeaux received her pilot’s license the day she turned 17. After earning degrees from Stephen’s College in Columbia, MO, and the University of Alabama, she married Meridian attorney Tom Bourdeaux. While raising four children, Bourdeaux taught art intermittently for Meridian public schools and Meridian Junior College. She later owned a frame shop and art gallery in downtown Meridian. In 1991, she ran successfully for the Mississippi Legislature, serving eight years as a representative. At the age of 70, Bourdeaux a decided to pursue an MFA from the University of Mississippi and earned that degree in 2005. She continues to paint at her home in Oxford, MS.

Pat Galluzzo (b. 1988) is an artist using various forms of traditional, contemporary, and emerging image and sound making techniques, exploring historical narratives and societal mechanisms. For the past few years, he has collaborated with Gregory Walker, whom he met in graduate school, examining concepts and modalities of representing and mediating the real. Currently, Galluzzo is the Director of Creative Technology at Baltimore School for the Arts, where he manages the Center for Collaborative Arts and Technology; leads the advanced/emerging media projects and classes; and works with other institutional leaders to develop and implement new curriculum to fit the constantly evolving landscape of arts education and demand for creativity. Since joining BSA, he has led and been an integral part of many projects and initiatives, such as Imagined Worlds, BSA MixLab, and Morphē. Galluzzo was also instrumental in the founding of the Charles C. Baum Film and Visual Storytelling department. In 2014, Galluzzo earned an MFA in photographic and electronic media from the Maryland Institute College of Art and holds a BA in economics and studio art from the University of Vermont.

Paula McClain (b. 1973) is a local artist and art teacher who lives in Brandon, MS. She teaches art and ceramics at Brandon High School. Her art is inspired by her faith in Christ and her family. McClain tries to convey the bond that a family nucleus should have, one that is strong, unbroken, and bound together. Her abstract sculptures depict the family in various stages. Her paintings demonstrate her love for her family heritage and history.  McClain is active in the art community as well. Aside from teaching art and ceramics, she is also the founding sponsor for the Brandon chapter of the National Arts Honor Society; has organized several exhibitions at the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi and organizes Professional Development for the Fine Arts Directors and teachers in the Rankin County School District. McClain is a member of the National Art Education Association and the Mississippi Art Education Association. She has received several awards and accolades for her involvement and leadership in the art community both here in Mississippi and in Texas where she spent most of her life, including the Arts Advocacy Award from the Mississippi Alliance for Arts Education.

Sabyna Sterrett (b. 1945), formerly Steel, was born in Meridian, MS, but spent her early life growing up in Philadelphia, MS, with her parents and one brother. Creativity and music were part of their family life and she learned papier-mâché from her mother, also taking classes in art, piano, and flute. Sterrett credits her parents for having a workshop where creative ideas were tried and facilitated in her youth, sparking her interest. Graduating with a BS from M.S.C.W. (now M.U.W) in 1967 in journalism, she went on to work as a photographer and writer for newspapers and publishing firms in Mississippi and Tennessee. Sterrett married and moved to McLean, VA in 1983, where she did a fiber apprenticeship in Washington, D.C., in 1987-1988. Her work was varied from contemporary woven forms to functional baskets, often with additions of paint, hand dyed rattan, knitting, and wale weaving. Sterrett also used color woven into her basketry as landscapes. She continued to pursue art by studying colored pencil, ink, acrylic painting, hand sewn fiber work, and working in that media. Sterrett realizes there is a deep connection between her early fiber work, with textures of the landscapes that continued in her later work. Her largest body of work, Flying Home, are mixed media abstract aerial views, which depict years spent flying from Washington, D.C. to Mississippi. Since 2005, while a studio resident artist at Arlington Arts Center (VA), she has experimented using plastic and recycled plastic bags to make a statement about this material and the harm plastic is causing the environment. Sterrett returned to live in MS in 2015.

Soon Ee Ngoh (b. 1966) lives and works in Starkville, MS. She is a professor of drawing and foundations, and the drawing area Coordinator in the art department at Mississippi State University. Ngoh received her BA degree from Smith College and her MFA degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Ngoh works predominantly in the still life genre. She is a realist artist who renders from direct observation. Her still-life objects function as symbols with narrative possibilities, transcending their materiality to become metaphors for life’s experiences.

Spence Townsend (b. 1983) was born on the outskirts of New Orleans and grew up in Hattiesburg, MS. He earned a BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2005. After graduation, Townsend spent a few years experimenting with painting outside of academia and pursuing music. He also worked for six years as a professional screen printer in Hattiesburg, MS. Townsend earned his MFA in painting and drawing in 2016 from the University of Georgia. After completing his MFA, Spence served as the 2-Dimensional Artist in Residence at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, FL. He went on to work as the Director of the Armory Art Center’s 2-D Department from 2017-2018. Townsend has been an Assistant Professor of Art at Mississippi Valley State University since August of 2018. He teaches courses in drawing, design, illustration, printmaking, digital painting, African American Art History, and art appreciation. Townsend’s paintings, screen prints, murals, and multi-media sound pieces have been shown nationally, including solo exhibitions in: Athens, GA; Hattiesburg, MS; Oxford, MS; Jones College in Ellisville, MS; and the Pensacola Florida Museum of Art. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions throughout the Southeast, as well as the Rouge Space in New York City and the Little Hati Cultural Complex in Miami during Art Basel of 2017 and 2018.  In addition, his animated works have been exhibited at the Icebox Project Space in Philadelphia, PA. Townsend’s illustrations have appeared in the 2016 American Illustration almanac, the Georgia Writer’s Resource, and a self-published collection of Aesop’s Fables. His painting, At the Train Station, was awarded Best in Show at the 2019 National Juried Painting Exhibition at the University of Southern Mississippi. Townsend has also performed music nationally and recorded numerous albums within various musical projects.

Stacy Underwood (b. 1970) is an oil painter dealing primarily in representational figuration. She floats between the eyes and the chin, eager to see a likeness, a spirit emerge from her strokes and scumble. Authenticity in herself and in her work is Underwood’s goal when she picks up a brush. She paint stories, usually a person’s story told from a scar, wrinkle, or gesture. Mississippi is “home” and never disappoints in its offerings of ideas and inspiration. Underwood’s process is a search for her own “sense of place,” as Eudora Welty once said, where one’s greatest validity and best work reside. Through this, Underwood evolves personally along with her work, hopefully opening a door to the same opportunity for the viewer. Painting is a humbling privilege for which she is grateful. Underwood’s work is featured in institutional and private collections throughout the country, with primary gallery representation at Fischer Galleries in Jackson, MS.

Steven Wayne (b. 1982) is a self-taught international award-winning photographer. He began studying the art of photography and photographing landscapes in 2008. Wayne has been awarded and honored internationally for his abstract photography, landscape photography, and photo manipulation skills.

Sue Carrie Drummond (b. 1990) is a papermaker, printmaker, and book artist. She is currently an assistant professor of art at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS, and received her MFA in book arts and printmaking at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. Drummond was the recipient of the Artist’s Book Residency Grant at Women’s Studio Workshop in 2017 and taught a papermaking workshop at the art center in 2019. She was a studio assistant in papermaking at Penland School of Crafts and the artist-in-residence at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, both in 2015. Drummond regularly shows her work in juried and curated exhibitions across the country. Many of her pieces are included in special collections nationwide such as Yale University and The Library of Congress, and she has pieces in the permanent collection at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Drummond graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Millsaps College with a BA in studio art and a minor in art history.

Timothy Randle Collins (b. 1961) was born in Chicago, IL. Collins showed promise in his artistic abilities and in 1974, was enrolled in the Gifted Art Program at William H. Ray Elementary School. While in high school, during the years of 1978 to 1979, he was selected to become a member of Pier Group, an inner-city Artist-in-Residence Program sponsored by the Chicago Council on Fine Art based at Navy Pier. Collins attended Parsons School of Design (New York, NY), Art under on One Roof (Florence, Italy), and The School of the Art Institute (Chicago, IL). His work has been exhibited at the New York Public Library (New York, NY.), Galleria Forum lnterArt, (Rome, Italy); The Blank Center for the Arts, (Michigan City, IN.); Tara Peck, (Portsmouth, NH). Collins’s artwork has been displayed in solo and group exhibitions in Chicago as well as New York City, including The New York Public Library, The Beverly Art Center, Gallery Guichard, the University of Illinois at Chicago, The Museum of Science and Industry, and Gallery 312. He has received awards and grants, including The Citation Award from Black Creativity (Museum of Science and Industry), The Best of Show from The Beer Art Competition (Beverly Art Center), both awards received for his work called “Emmet Till, Wolf Whistle: Before and After”. A CAAP Grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs (Chicago, IL) and the IAS-PO Grant from the Illinois Arts Council (Chicago, IL). Collins enjoys experimenting with different techniques and utilizing various materials to achieve the desired effect. He’s worked with oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and uses color, texture, energy, to communicate his vision. A vision of the urban existence of the seen and not seen.

There was not a time when Walter Neill (b. 1952) was not surrounded by art. He and his brother built a darkroom in their parents’ garage when he was 17. Neill’s temporary job as a plumber turned into a 15-year career. He continued to pursue photography as a creative outlet. In 1993, Neill began making functional metal pieces as well as small metal sculptures. His work utilizes forging techniques, machining, and various types of welding. Living in a rural setting, Neill and his wife, Vivian, own and run Oxford Treehouse Gallery. He stays busy in his garden tending blueberries, caring for his chickens, cats and dogs, and most days he finds time to make art in his blacksmith shop.

Whitson Ramsey (b. 1996) is a Mississippi-born figurative painter and photographer, whose work focuses on sentimental relationships in candid, honest scenarios. His photographs and paintings work cohesively together to further the dialogue between the artist and his subjects. He holds a BFA in drawing and painting from the University of Southern Mississippi. An artist and educator, Ramsey also serves as the Visual Arts Editor for Warm Milk Publishing.

Will Jacks is a process artist best known for his photographic work, but also incorporates explorations with land, objects, sound, video, and community engagement into his practice. His research examines the blurred areas between art and journalism, individual and collective, and the impact of each on the other. Jacks ’sfirst monograph documents the juke-joint Po’ Monkey’s Lounge, which serves as a prism for examining cultural tourism and preservation and the complexities prevalent in both. It was published by University Press of Mississippi in October of 2019, and for this work Jacks was recognized by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters for outstanding achievement in photography. In 2020, he completed an MFA in studio art from the Maine College of Art, and in 2021 he competed his MA in journalism from the University of Mississippi. Currently Jacks makes his home in the Mississippi Delta, where he works and teaches at Delta State University. In addition, he works with other artists in creating the non-profit Jacks Farms Artist Residencies. He can often be found on rural backroads somewhere in the South exploring people, culture, history, geography, pattern, and the entanglement of where those worlds collide.

Events

Event

Artist Look Tour | Sue Carrie Drummond

Join 2021 Mississippi Invitational Artist, Sue Carrie Drummond, on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube, as she gives her perspective on the…

Learn more
Event

Gallery Talk

Learn more about a few pieces in New Symphony of Time and 2021 Mississippi Invitational with John Spann. Join us…

Learn more