Published on Feb. 24, 2019
The Honors College is pleased to congratulate four Honors students who were featured in the University of Missouri’s 2019 Undergraduate Visual Arts and Design Showcase. Each year, this showcase offers around 50 students the opportunity to display their work, which includes photojournalism, theatre set design, architectural drawing and more.
Maddie Davis, “The Giving of Art and Power of Place”
Junior, Photojournalism
The Gifting of Art and Power of Place is a collaborative, interdisciplinary project focused on sharing stories and knowledge through the creative process of two artists. In this project, we seek to emphasize a more positive, powerful narrative of the Cheslatta Carrier Nation that replaces a forced narrative of pain and loss. The two components of this exhibit involve the past and the present. The first component inspired by the past is a story of abundance, preparation, and tradition. It focuses on a legendary potlatch held in the 1930s and sanctioned by the tribe’s last hereditary chief, Chief Louie. This story has been transcribed into text by Maddie Davis and watercolor paintings by Hayley Portell. These paintings and the accompanying text will be transformed into a children’s book that will be gifted back to the Cheslatta Carrier Nation as a tangible way to preserve their oral story for future generations and to share with the world. The second component is the current story of Cheslatta’s strength, innovation, and community told through the photography of Maddie Davis. The photographs in this exhibition were taken during the 2018 Cheslatta Carrier Nation Campout, an annual, week-long gathering on the shores of Cheslatta lake near the site of an old village. We are extremely grateful to Cheslatta for sharing their story with us and inviting us into their community.
Kayla Myers, “Curls: Part II”
December 2018 graduate, Digital Storytelling
Winner: Awards of Merit
Curls Part II is a poetic documentary that explores the relationships that four women have with their own curls and how society has perceived them as a result. Curls is a continuation of my work focused on hair, its meanings, internally and culturally, and what that means for women individually.
Emmalee Reed
Sophomore, Photojournalism
These photographs were taken at a horse breeding and training facility owned by Jim Dudley, who has an indisputable connection with horses. Dudley strives every day to make his horses the best that they can be through meticulous training and care. His stable Columbia, Missouri is exactly what you would see in your mind if you imagined a perfect home for horses. In spring 2018, I shot a series of twelve photographs of Dudley and his stable in a photojournalistic style. Later, I made a new edit, focusing on these four photographs for this art and design showcase. In the new edit, I wanted to capture the natural beauty of Dudley’s workspace and convey the essence of a horseman in the simplest terms: Embossed spurs. A hat that never leaves its head. Light filtering into a dusty arena. Old horseshoes covered in cobwebs hanging on the wall. These images are personal and specific to Jim Dudley and his life, but they also reflect those of horsemen throughout time, since the ancient days when humans and horse first began to support and care for one another.
Amanda Battmer, “Static”
December 2018 graduate, Digital Storytelling and English
Static is an experimental documentary that illustrates the surreal experience of growing up and looking back on the past. This piece is meant to launch us into a dreamlike state of reflection and uses a split-screen depiction of then versus now. As the film progresses through childhood memories, we are suddenly jolted out of peaceful reflection and confronted with a fast-paced, uncontrollable rush of a future. The title Static is meant to reflect the static state between adolescence and adulthood, indicating the surreal feeling of being caught between two phases of life and forced to move into the “real world.”