By Brianna Wallen
News Editor
Honoring the work of four artists who represent 40 cumulative years at the university, 4/40: Parallel Practices has transformed the Lyman Center Lobby Gallery into a showcase of creativity, friendship and personal expression.
On display through May 22, the show features Joy Bush, former university photographer, Isabel Chenoweth, university photographer, Marylou Conley, graphics coordinator and Barbara Kagan, former university graphic designer.
“We have this other life on the outside of what we do during the day, and we thought, wouldn’t it be great just to show our colleagues and our friends and our family what it’s like when we go home at the end of the day?” Conley said.
While many on campus know them for the work they have done behind the scenes, the exhibit reveals another side of their identities.
All four artists previously worked or currently work in the university’s Office of Integrated Communications and Marketing. Together, they represent decades of service to the university while sharing a lifelong commitment to artistic expression.
“We always talk about what we do even when we leave our department, and we always stayed friends,” Conley said.
Conley credited fellow artist Chenoweth with first imagining the exhibit and helping bring it to life.
“She’s done a lot of traveling with our department for international studies,” Conely said. “She hiked in Iceland and got these incredible shots.”
Chenoweth and Bush’s work featured various photography shots while Conley specialized in illustration, and Kagan, digital art.
Conley said Bush’s photography offers a quieter and more introspective perspective by finding meaning and beauty in everyday scenes.
“She’ll take a look at a pattern in a sidewalk and see a face in there,” Conley said.
Kagan, a former designer and lifelong swimmer, draws inspiration from water and hours spent staring at the bottom of the pool.
“Barbara loves the water, so all of hers are digitally created art using Photoshop and patterns that relate to water,” Conley said.
Conley’s display of artwork is centered on natural science illustration as she is a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and University and College Design Association.
As Conley reflected on bringing the exhibit to life with her colleagues, she described the process of gathering their individual works and seeing them come together for the first time.
“It was joyful,” Conley said. “They prompted me to take my recent classwork and have it framed in this way here.”
After hanging their work on Lyman’s walls together and seeing it come together as a whole, Conley said the group’s ongoing collaboration and shared encouragement played a key role.
“But really, this whole channel work was the force that got this exhibit together,” Conley said.
Interim President Sandra Bulmer, who attended the artist’s reception on April 14, said she was inspired by the artists.
“I couldn’t be more proud or more inspired because they’re so talented,” Bulmer said. “They’ve worked together closely for years, and to see them come together and make this exhibit a reality is a lot of fun for us.”
Allison O’Leary, interim director of integrated communications and marketing, said the exhibit also encourages viewers to look beyond professional roles and see the fuller identities of the people around them.
“It’s a humbling experience to see all of the different types of artistry and to kind of connect people’s personal lives and how they are viewing art and creating art in ways that are different than the way that we’re used to seeing it here at the university,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary added that the exhibit showcases that everyday interactions only reveal a small part of a person’s life and creativity.
“It’s really just a reminder of the fullness of the human experience in life and just how big people’s worlds are outside of what we get to see of them in these small slivers that we experience life together at Southern,” O’Leary said.
Bulmer said the location of the gallery makes the exhibit meaningful because it allows people to encounter art naturally while walking through one of campus’s busiest spaces.
“They’ll get a chance to go to an art gallery without even realizing that’s what they’re doing,” Bulmer said. “That’s so fun when art is accidental like that.”
Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:40 p.m., and admission is free.
