Northwestern First Stop for Art Exhibit ‘Building Belonging’

October 25, 2024

“Building Belonging” is a group exhibition featuring the artwork of five transplants to Oklahoma. The exhibit is open now through Nov. 21 in Room 218 of the Jesse Dunn Building.

The second-floor gallery in the Jesse Dunn Building at Northwestern Oklahoma State University is pleased to announce a new art show on view. The exhibition, “Building Belonging,” is open now through Nov. 21.

The exhibit is beginning in Alva and will travel across the state. Confirmed venues include the Spotlight Gallery at the University of Oklahoma and the Pogue Gallery at East Central University in Ada, among others.

This group exhibition features the artwork of five transplants to Oklahoma. Each artist brings their own sense of place with them as they engage with and grow alongside the places they now call home.

These artists include Thomas Cornell, an assistant professor of visual art at Northwestern; Robin Baker, a teaching assistant professor of foundations at Oklahoma State University; Leticia R. Bajuyo, an assistant professor in the School of Visual Arts at the University of Oklahoma; Cassidy Frye, assistant professor and studio manager at Tulsa Community College; and Christyn Overstake, assistant professor of art at East Central.

Cornell is a multi-disciplinary artist who works across a variety of media. He currently is helping to develop the new visual arts major at Northwestern and serves as a co-director of the Museum of Natural History in Jesse Dunn.

He originally hails from North Carolina where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art and his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in business management from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

Cornell later moved to Indiana where he earned his Master of Fine Arts in studio art from the University of Notre Dame. He has taught at the secondary and post-secondary level in Oklahoma, Texas, Indiana and North Carolina.

His practice as an artist is meditative and prominently features themes relating to natural history, institutional display, memory, history and spirituality. Learn more about Cornell at www.tom-cornell.com.

Baker received his Bachelor of Arts in photojournalism from the University of Kentucky in 2011 and his Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in 2014. He is currently a teaching assistant professor of foundations at Oklahoma State University.

As a photographer and a sculptor, Baker's work explores the disconnect between industrial society and the rest of the planet. Through the juxtaposition of human and natural forms using industrial and natural materials, he strives to reveal this disconnection and add to the conversation about the destruction necessary to sustain the industrial way of life.

Baker has shown, given talks, and taught workshops throughout the United States, and currently has work on view at the University of Kentucky, Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum in Indiana and Josephine Sculpture Park in Frankfort, Kentucky. Learn more about Baker at www.robinbakerart.com.

From a rural town on the border of Illinois and Kentucky, Bajuyo began creating art in Metropolis, Illinois, long before realizing what she was tinkering with could be called art. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1998 from the University of Notre Dame and her Master of Fine Arts in 2001 from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

 Bajuyo presently creates, lives, and teaches in Norman. Bajuyo creates sculptures, visual poems, and site-responsive installations inspired by cyclical patterns. Her continued research of cultural privilege and internalized pressures of assimilation yields a drive to create visions of comfort, containment, and control. Learn more about Bajuyo at www.leticiabajuyo.com.

Growing up in a military family, Frye was raised around uniforms and multiple moves without a sense of permanence. This continues to shape her work, by expressing the feeling of never finding a place to call home. Home is not a permanent place that she can return to, it is a place that follows in travels.

“Home cannot fit into boxes or suitcases and becomes part of your identity,” Frye said. “You become the place you are in and embrace the connections you make with people you meet along the way. We become defined by the places we have lived. When you first meet someone, a common question that is asked is ‘Where are you from?’ The answer begins to shape their image of you. A location that can be temporary and easily changed becomes who you are. Finding home is really about searching and discovering something comfortable. That comfort comes from the people we have met, the memories that were made and the places we have stayed on our journeys.”

Frye received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Learn more about Frye at www.cassidyfrye.com.

Overstake is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in the United States. Their background as a certified welder and fabricator in manufacturing informs their material and process decisions, as well as their conceptual and philosophical frameworks.

 Overstake works primarily in metal foundry and fabrication processes, producing an evolving series of experimental, conceptual objects. They also work in installation, digital media, and printmaking, and has an ongoing collaboration with their spouse exploring biodiversity loss and environmental degradation.

Overstake received a Bachelor of Arts in sculpture from Northern Arizona University, and a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. They serve on the Board of Directors of the Mid-South Sculpture Alliance, and their work has been shown and collected in galleries, museums, and public sculpture walks across the United States and internationally. Learn more about Overstake at www.christynoverstake.com.

The gallery is located on the second floor in room 218 of Jesse Dunn (on the south side of the building nearest Vinson Hall) and is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Additional hours are available by appointment. Please contact Cornell by email at tacornell@nwosu.edu or (580) 327-8111.

For more information about the Wisdom Family Foundation Visual Arts Program, visit https://www.nwosu.edu/visualarts.

-NW-