The LSU Museum of Art is giving LSU graduates a chance to share their work with the community.
The Scene: LSU Past and Present, which closes on Aug. 12, is an annual exhibit to showcase works from LSU graduates.
The exhibit currently has about six pieces of art on display, but when it opened on Sept. 17, 2011, it featured 25 works of art.
Leanne McClurg Cambric, Alex Harvie, Kathryn Hunter, Chris Smith and Elise Toups are the featured artist in this exhibit.
Natalie Mault, LSU Museum of Art curator, said the artists were chosen based on their relationship with the local art community.
Chris Smith, LSU alumnus, exhibited “Crabs Nebula” and “Cosmonautical” in the exhibit.
Smith said he played a role in the Baton Rouge art community when he and other Baton Rouge artists started a monthly art show called “Stabbed in the Art.”
He said these monthly shows are for local artists who want somewhere to expose their artwork.
Mault said this year’s exhibit is also unique because the featured artists are younger than in previous years.
Last year’s LSU Past and Present exhibit, according to Mault, featured artists who graduated LSU in the ’70s.
“The exhibit isn’t supposed to bring awareness to the artist, but showcase incredible artists who are young and influential in the Baton Rouge art scene,” she said.
Elise Toups, a graduate student at Michigan State University, had “Wonderland,” a portrait of Elemore Morgan Jr. and “All Creatures Great and Small” in the exhibit.
Toups said she never had art in the LSU Museum of Art before, but she wasn’t nervous. Instead, she thought her works would be more comfortable in an “air-monitored facility rather than my house.”
Although Toups has moved to Michigan, she is still connected to the Baton Rouge art community.
She is a finalist in the Baton Rouge Walls Project, a community project to paint murals on walls downtown.
Mault said the LSU Museum of Art doesn’t plan on having The Scene: LSU Past and Present next year because the new executive director doesn’t want to “segregate LSU art and the rest of the art world.”
Contact Marylee Williams at [email protected].