Kansas State University Department of Art will present the first of three BFA Exhibitions of the spring semester featuring Josh Adee, Jonas Herrera, Augustus Howard, Joseph Hwang, Jack Swearingen, and Logan Zimmerman. The artists will showcase an exhibition of their undergraduate artwork from April 28 through May 2, 2025, in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor of Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 8am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. Please feel free to attend the reception with the artists on Friday evening, May 2, from 5 – 7pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Josh Adee is a photography student from Topeka, Kansas. Using oil paint, digital images, and cyanotype, his work opens a window into his experience of his life with his mother, and life without. These prints allude to themes of death and heaven, and the oil paintings create a sense of what change in one’s life can feel like after experiencing loss of a loved one.

Jonas Herrera’s photographic work explores the cultural, economic, and racial complexities of Dodge City, Kansas—a town quietly responsible for producing a large portion of America’s beef. Drawing on personal experience as a first-generation immigrant and returning resident, Jonas blends post-documentary storytelling with intimate visual language to examine the unseen labor and overlooked communities that define the region. Through stark contrasts, layered reflections, and subtle visual metaphors, the work invites viewers to reconsider how identity, class, and memory shape place. “I am driven by the tension between nostalgia and critique, between memory and truth, between what is photographed and what is left just outside the frame.”

Augustus Howard is a photographer from Marysville, Kansas, who makes black-and-white images of ranching and farming communities. His work reflects the lyrics to Uncle Luscious's song “Keep the Wolves Away.” His work shows the decay of small family farms and ranches that he grew up loving.

Joseph Hwang is a photographer from Seoul, Korea who photographs the area of Manhattan, Kansas in black and white. His craft derives from him exploring the tension between the familiar chaos of a crowded space and the dull solitude of emptiness. This is shown through his use of filling the frame to evoke the feeling of being in a claustrophobic environment.

Jack Swearingen is a photographer from Olathe, Kansas pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Kansas State University. Working primarily in and around Manhattan, his work details empty environments and discarded litter during the onslaught of winter, photographing subjects digitally and in black and white. He deals with isolation and the depths of his surroundings, seeking out “what is left behind, what is forgotten, and the ghosts that linger in the aftermath.” Focusing on corroded tires, forgotten beer cans, and snow-smothered houses, his photographs explore environmental identity and a consequential sense of strangeness. Logan Zimmerman is a photographer born in Kansas City, Kansas that photographs the world around him, presenting his direct view on what he sees.

Logan hopes to put you directly into his shoes, seeing and hearing the world around him from his perspective. His prints and audio help present how the world looks and sounds to him.

The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.