Hunt Gallery presents exhibitions of individual artists and/or groups of artists of
regional, national and international renown whose works demonstrate significant aesthetic
achievement and art historical importance.
An integral part of the educational mission of the Department of Art, Design and Art
History (DADAH), the Gallery features curated exhibitions of contemporary art for
the academic community and broader St. Louis area public.
Current Exhibition:
ATRA
March 21–April 19, 2025
Renluka Maharaj, Jiya with her daughter Ira, 2022 Pigmented ink print on acrylic skin and silk-blend Sari fabric with embroidery
The Sanskrit word atra, meaning ‘here,’ refers literally to an actual place or specific location, while
its negation, atra na, meaning ‘not here,’ suggests the dialogue inherent in the diasporic experience.
This situation involves a segment of one’s identity being anchored to one location
or heritage as something local yet equally rooted in a culturally and environmentally
different locale. Cultures are not monadic, relying on a single place; instead, they
consist of fragments that survive and manifest in multiple locations. The ATRA exhibition examines some of the competing forces of tradition and modernity, indigence
and diasporas, and the dualities mirrored in cultural hybridity.
ATRA will feature works by eight artists of South Asian heritage who live and work in the
U.S. ATRA artists: Saumitra Chandratreya, Mee Jey, Shreepad Joglekar, Priya Kambli, Shreyas
R. Krishnan, Renluka Maharaj, Al-Qawi Nanavati, Udita Upadhyana
The exhibition is curated by Jeffrey Hughes, Professor of Art History and Director
of Hunt Gallery in the Department of Art, Design and Art History at Webster University.
Join Us!
Public Opening Reception: 6-8 p.m., Friday, March 21
Christina Shmigel is a contemporary Ukrainian-American artist working in sculptural
installation and drawing. As a first-generation American growing up between cultures
and languages, she became an observer of cultural cues. This habit of being informs
her artistic practice; as she moves from place to place, she explores how a locality’s
particular character manifests in its material culture. Combining hand-made objects
with unaltered acquired components, employing shifts of scale and viewpoint, the theatrical
spaces of her installations are experienced through slow revelation, in time and through
memory. Shmigel’s sensibility as an artist is tuned towards making visible the wonder
and poignancy lodged inside.
Field of Awareness
Everything Everywhere All at Once
International artist Rebecca Olsen's new exhibition, “Everything Everywhere All at
Once,” visually addresses themes of infinity and asks existential questions about
the nature of reality, the infinite nature of the universe, and perception. In her
work, Rebecca Olsen creates symbols and uses geometric forms to translate myths and
discuss what existence feels like. Through her creative lens, she contemplates significant
scientific discoveries, psychology, the meaning of life, chaos theory, climate change,
and the nature of power. At the heart of this exhibition is the desire to create an
immersive space filled with ideas. She develops this visual language, creating a formal
landscape for the ideas to dialog.
Born in Florence, Italy, to American artists, Olsen is president and co-founder of
the Santa Reparata International School of Art (SRISA), one of Florence's most notable
private art schools hosting students and faculty from all over the globe. Olsen's
father, Dennis Olsen, who co-founded SRISA, was a native St. Louisan and an artist.
As such, Rebecca Olsen still maintains close ties here. Rebecca Olsen has shown her
work internationally, with gallery representation in Berlin, for her visual art, and
she sells her wearable art at the Whitney Museum store.
2022 Through the Looking Glass
current debris by Peter Bolte
This exhibition consisted of new paintings, photography, AI generations (with additional
manipulation) and select films. Bolte utilizes recognizable (albeit absurdist) iconography
and figures as tools to create a narrative that both reveals and contradicts itself
as it is played out. Whether presenting a blatant reaction to our social environment
or portraying a surreal disassociation, Bolte weaves themes that address humanity’s
lack of critical thought, our human fallibilities expressed through miscommunication,
lowered attention spans, celebrity idealization, dopamine spikes and dips, and modern-day
superficial addictions — and then spits them all out through a post-pandemic paradigm,
resulting in a sardonic and existential nightmare.
Peter Bolte is a St. Louis-based filmmaker and painter who has exhibited his work
internationally. He has directed the feature films "All Roads Lead" and "Dandelion
Man," several experimental and narrative short films and music videos. Other notable
credits include being cinematographer on The Booksellers (Greenwich Entertainment),
the Emmy nominated documentary Casting By (HBO Documentaries), as well as being invited
to the Artist Academy as an emerging filmmaker during the 2013 New York Film Festival
at Lincoln Center.
Valhalla, Awaken! How we learned to carry stress in the jaw, 2024, oil on panel, 8"x10"
Lost & Found: Thinking & Forming: MA Exhibition, featuring Michael Paradise and Sara
Haag
Michael Paradise has taught Art at Roosevelt High School since the fall of 2000. He
has taught Drawing, Design and Art Appreciation at St. Louis Community College, Forest
Park and Wildwood, St. Charles Community College, and Southwestern Illinois College,
Granite City. Paradise received a MFA in Painting, from Fontbonne College and a BFA
in Painting from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Paradise’s artistic investigations
toward the Webster University Master of Arts has been primarily found object construction
and modeling forms. Coming with a background of mostly painting, for Paradise, stuff
is the new paint.
Sara Haag received her BA in Art Education with a K-12 Certification from Maryville
University in 2002. She has been teaching art at Roosevelt High School since 2015.
This artwork is a meditative process that surprises the viewer with how it transforms
media into the unexpected.
Ferguson and Beyond: Artistic Responses to a Decade of Social Upheaval
"Ferguson and Beyond: Artistic Responses to a Decade of Social Upheaval 2014-2024"
captured the power of individual and cultural histories brought forth by the killing
of Michael Brown, Jr., in Ferguson, Missouri, nearly 10 years ago and the ensuing
response locally and from around the world in the decade following his death. The
exhibition was comprised of painting, sculpture, video and poetry with a focus on
responses from artists of color from the St. Louis region and beyond. Participating
artists included Dannie Boyd, Damon Davis, Lillian Gardner, Cheeraz Gormon, Jon Henry,
William Morris, Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, Yvonne Osei, Hank Willis Thomas and Ronald
Young. The Missouri Historical Society gave permission to print Ferguson Uprising
images from its African American History Initiative collection for the show. Poets
included DuEwa Frazier, Jacqui Germain, Aya de Leon, Jason Vasser-Elong as well as
Gormon. Curator: Terri F. Reilly, MFA; Artist-Curators: William Morris, MFA, and Lillian
Gardner, BFA