Art

Atlas Boyd

erc272 — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 02:36:18 +0000

Atlas Boyd erc272 Thursday, April 9, 2026 - 9:36 pm

K.A. Wesly is an artist and writer from Olive Branch, MS, with an interest in anthropology. He seeks to work as a concept artist and illustrator in the entertainment industry. He also seeks to be a graphic novelist. Since 2023, Atlas has worked as a self-employed artist who has sold art commissions to clients, participated in group exhibitions, won awards, and has been published in literature and art journals. Most recently, Atlas’s artwork has been published on the front cover of ��pro University’s literary journal, The Jabberwock Review.

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Punk Diaspora in the Deep South Symposium

dlb134 — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:58:42 +0000

Punk Diaspora in the Deep South Symposium Art dlb134 Monday, March 30, 2026 - 12:58 pm No2026-04-09T18:00:00-0500 2026-04-12T20:00:00-0500 ��pro University Department of Art

The ��pro University Department of Art and Galleries are pleased to present the Punk Diaspora in the Deep South Symposium April 9-12, here on campus and April 12th in Oxford, MS in partnership with the Southern Punk Archive and Punk Flea Market.

A student-focused event will take place the evening of April 9th.

On Friday, April 10th, please join us for a panel discussion with several authors from the recently published "What Punk Taught Me" (Vernon Press, 2025) in the Old Main Art Gallery at 1pm.

Saturday, April 11th, first things first. Please be sure to attend the 34th Annual International Fiesta on the Drill Field. We will then host a public zine and poster workshop in Stafford Hall from 3-5pm.

Sunday, the Symposium will travel up to Oxford to take part in Punker Decker Weekend and the Punk Flea Market in the afternoon and evening.

Four days focused on music, culture, and ethos.

Presenters include:

Dr. Greg Blair, University of Southern Indiana

Dr. Jason Swift, University of West Georgia

Valerie George, University of West Florida

Scott Satterwhite, University of West Florida

Dr. Jenna Altomonte, ��pro University

Dixie Boswell, ��pro University

About the Presenters

Dr. Greg Blair

Originally from Red Deer, Canada, Gregory Blair is an artist, writer, educator, and activist that resides in Evansville, Indiana with his wife and two children. Blair is an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at the University of Southern Indiana where he teaches contemporary art history, digital illustration, and gender studies courses. Blair’s latest book project, What Punk Taught Me, was published by Vernon Press in 2025. Blair’s previous books include: The Politics of Spatial Transgressions in the Arts(2011) and Errant Bodies, Mobility, and Political Resistance (2018) - both published by Palgrave MacMillan. His writings have also been featured in Arts Magazine, The Journal of Art for Life, Echo: A Music-Centered Journal, Art Style Magazine, and Kapsula Magazine. Blair has also had the good fortune to hang out with the Guerilla Girls for an entire day.

Insta: @gregblairart

Dr. Jason Swift

Swift earned his BFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1994, his MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture, MICA in 1997 and his EdM in 2003 and EdD in 2009 from Columbia University. He was artist in residence for MICA’s Curatorial Experiences Program, guest lecturer at the Central Academy of Fine Arts’ Art Education Leadership Academy in Beijing and a resident at the Vermont Studio Center. In 1997 Swift received the Amalie Rothschild Award and the Enid Morse Fellowship for Teaching in the Arts in 2005. In 2004 he co-founded the Pearl Street Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Swift has served on the boards of artHarlem, Visions in New York City: Short Films and Video Group and ITI. He is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of West Georgia and in his studio and research practice, Swift investigates his experiences with skateboarding, punk rock and his Grandfather on his farm. He has exhibited nationally and internationally and published in Visual Inquiry: Learning and Teaching Art and Future Forward. Swift co-edited and published the book What Punk Taught Me and wrote the chapter Straight and Alert: Being a Straight Edge Punk in a Small Southern Town.

Insta: @jswiftart

Val George

VALERIE GEORGE (she her) is an artist whose work over the past twenty years has reflected holistically on art and life through installation, site-specific works, video, performance, sound, sculpture, photography, new media, drawing, collaboration, and curatorial practice. Her work explores grief, loss, and mortality through the lens of punk—drawing from lyrics, sound, archival fragments, and materials that carry the weight of lived experience. George engages processes of chance, entropy, and accumulation, allowing works to emerge through layered gestures, recordings, and objects gathered across time and place. Influenced by punk’s ethic of immediacy and emotional candor, her practice treats art as both artifact and action: a way of confronting impermanence while honoring the communities and histories that shape us. Through these investigations, George creates spaces where art and life collapse into one another, offering raw meditations on memory, presence, and the fragile intensity of being alive.

George received her MFA from the University of California, Davis, where she worked closely with Lynn Hershman Leeson and Mary Lucier. She is a Professor of Art at the University of West Florida, a member of Good Children Gallery in New Orleans, and a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the 309 Punk Project in Pensacola, Florida. Insta: @309punkproject

Dr. Jenna Altomonte

Jenna Ann Altomonte is an Associate Professor of Art History at ��pro University. She received her Master of Arts in Art History (2009) and Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts (2017) from Ohio University. Her primary area of research centers on contemporary art and digital performance studies.

Dixie Boswell

Dixie Boswell is an artist, curator, activist, and mischief maker. She earned a BFA in Drawing & Painting from ��pro University and an MFA in Studio Art from Claremont Graduate University.

As the Gallery Director and Exhibition Coordinator for the ��pro University Department of Art, her days are filled with designing exhibitions, working with students and community colleagues, and creating interdisciplinary publicly accessible programming.

She believes a better world can be built through collaboration and creativity.

NYC-based artist Andrew Mullally hosts printmaking workshop

jtm1050 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:27:15 +0000

NYC-based artist Andrew Mullally hosts printmaking workshop jtm1050 Thursday, March 26, 2026 - 1:27 pm

Last week, Andrew Mullally held a one-of-a-kind workshop in the printmaking studio, located in the Visual Arts Center (VAC) on campus. Mullally specializes in print media, focusing on nature and climate crises. He taught students how to customize their own print using carved wooden stamps, taking inspiration from a technique called "exquisite corpse." After providing a step-by-step tutorial on how to apply ink onto the carvings and how to properly use the printing press, students had the freedom to mix and match their own choosing of a head, torso and legs to create a unique character.

"I knew his [Assistant Professor Jacob Crook] students were working through relief projects, and he asked me if I wanted to come out and talk to his students," Mullally states. "I was more than happy to come down and show some work."

Art

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Hensley Meilstrup

erc272 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 19:47:28 +0000

Hensley Meilstrup erc272 Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 1:47 pm

Hensley Meilstrup is a twenty-two-year-old fine artist from Kennesaw, Georgia, who focuses on drawing and also loves exploring and refining techniques in other art forms. She also enjoys working as a freelance photographer specialising in portraiture. She enjoys working in a surrealistic style while exploring it across various media, including pastels, charcoal, colored pencils, graphite, and pen. Throughout her eight years in the art field, she has received awards and scholarships, including the Van Bristow Memorial Endowed Art Scholarship and the Watkins College of Art Endowed Scholarship. On the photography side of her artistic career, she has photographed for concerts and sporting events, taken graduate and anniversary photos, and curated a fashion series inspired by the seven deadly sins. Her current works consist of multiple surrealist pieces, some commissioned album covers for the band Make It To May, and an in-progress multimedia series inspired by self-expression in tattooing. Hensley is currently finishing up her Bachelor's in Fine Arts with a Concentration in Drawing at ��pro University.

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Sharda Jackson

erc272 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 19:44:13 +0000

Sharda Jackson erc272 Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 1:44 pm

Sharda Jackson is a multi-media sculpture artist and professional bridal and event makeup artist from Crawford, Mississippi. She admires the splendor of natural and industrial beauty in forms that twinkle, tower, and adorn. Through years of preparing individuals for rites of passage like weddings, celebrations, and moments of public devotion, she has developed a heightened awareness of beauty as both labor and offering. In her practice, adornment becomes an act of care, patience, and intention, mirroring the slow, deliberate processes of sculpture-making. Her materials often reference natural silhouettes, drawing visual language from sacred artifacts and earth. Her ultimate goal is to honor God with an outward expression of gratitude for the beautiful

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Art

Mia Coggin

erc272 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 19:42:34 +0000

Mia Coggin erc272 Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 1:42 pm

Mia Coggin is a 24-year-old with a drawing emphasis from North Mississippi. With her emphasis in drawing, she usually keeps to a black and white color palette using primarily black wet ink and pens. Her work is usually centered around body horror, using the human body as a way to talk about vulnerability, identity, and a fear of physical transformation. To communicate this message through style, she often uses stippling as the primary drawing technique, with larger areas covered in solid black to add more contrast to the softness in the rest of the image. She has experimented with other art forms, including painting and printmaking, and was featured in The Hand Magazine (2026) and received a 3rd-place award at the 2022 MCCAIA State Student Art Competition hosted by Jones College in Ellisville

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Art

Thomas Jones

erc272 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 19:39:22 +0000

Thomas Jones erc272 Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 1:39 pm

Thomas Jones is a 24-year-old painter and illustrator born in Memphis, TN, and raised in Kosciusko, MS.Thomas will graduate with a BFA in Painting from MSU in May 2026. He is inspired by the myths, mythologies, and folktales of the past, and he integrates those motifs and fantastical backgrounds with modern elements and inspiration to create a grand story. Religious symbolism and iconography, as well as superheroes and comic-like illustrations, have become central elements and tools in his worldbuilding process. Stories and personal beliefs fuel Jones’ creative outlets and drive him to create new, thoughtful worlds. His art revolves around a bold, graphic mix of abstraction and representation, and his use of bright colors and rough mark-making creates an authentic, notable style. Thomas utilizes all of these elements to create a unique world and experience for viewers

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Moriah Roland

erc272 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 19:37:21 +0000

Moriah Roland erc272 Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 1:37 pm

Moriah Roland (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Inspired by her cultural background as a Black American, as well as her hometown and its surroundings, she found herself drawn to flora/fauna in a city that was determined to pave it over. Thus, through her work, she threads the line between the organic and inorganic by making heavily stylized surrealist pieces that often reference nature and the human body and that relationship. Her work aims to speak on her personal experiences in the hopes of creating a space for broader conversations in
reference to cultural alienation, liminal spaces, and our relationship as a whole to nature.

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Art

Kurdarius Keyes

erc272 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 19:24:59 +0000

Kurdarius Keyes erc272 Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 1:24 pm

Kurdarius Keyes (he/him/his) was born in Laurel, Ms. in 2000. Primarily a multimedia printmaker and illustrator, Keyes works as an exhibiting and vending artist in Starkville, Ms. Working secondarily as a creative writer, he seeks to integrate narrative concepts with visual arts, heavily utilizing Art Nouveau as a foundational armature. He was awarded an honorable mention by the Academy of American Poets and also has visual works internationally published in multiple editions of The Hand Magazine. Stateside and overseas, Keyes has been commissioned for small and large-scale murals. Currently, he is producing works for his senior year thesis in preparation for his BFA in printmaking.

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Elijah Corlett

erc272 — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:32:31 +0000

Elijah Corlett erc272 Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 10:32 am

Elijah Corlett is a multi-disciplinary artist from Gulfport, Mississippi. With his art practice originating from drawing, his work focuses on the use of form to establish, visualize, and expand on the relationships of similar concepts while blurring the line that divides them. Across the board, his style knows little consistency- while some specific details appear in multiple works, he seeks to
create something new and different with each project he assigns himself. Through the use of metal, wood, and cardboard, his work provides commentary on weapon aesthetics, concepts and beliefs of modern life, and is inspired by works of fiction and nonfiction. Elijah’s work has previously been on display in MSU’s 54th, 53rd, and 52nd Juried Student Show, and he has work stored in the printmaking archive of MSU

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