Current Exhibitions
2025 Senior Majors Exhibition
May 1-18, 2025
This exhibition features the work of members of the Hollins University class of 2025 majoring in studio art: Hayes Burton, Katelynn M. Budzyn, Fabiola Cepeda, Aster Dooley, Hannah Goldenson, Katie Kleinberg, Anna Kryder, Erin Desiree Masarjian, Jordan Muniz, Signe Overby, Ella Pearson, Jules Pleskach, and Caroline Puckett. The exhibition is the final requirement for art students earning their Bachelor of Arts at Hollins, and is the capstone experience of their yearlong senior project.
IMAGE: Courtesy of the Hollins University class of 2025 studio art majors.
2025 Hollins Studio Art Faculty Exhibition
May 1-18, 2025
The Wilson Museum is pleased to host a Hollins studio art faculty exhibition, sharing with the broader community the work of these talented artists and professors: Mary Zompetti, photography; Edward Steffanni, printmaking; Elise Schweitzer, painting; Josh Manning, pottery; Hona Leigh Knudsen, pottery; Arne Johnson, sculpture; and Kathleen C. Hall, painting.
IMAGE: Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center
2025 Ceramics Post-Baccalaureate Exhibition
May 1-18, 2025
This exhibition is the capstone of artist Ozzy Freidline’s coursework in Hollins University’s Ceramics Post-Baccalaureate Certificate Program. Freidline will graduate in spring 2025 with her Master of Arts in Teaching with an endorsement in art.
IMAGE: Courtesy of Ozzy Freidline
Expanding Narratives: Conversations with the Collection
currently available online
Faculty members from across academic divisions have collaborated with museum staff to select works from the collection that investigate key course concepts and provide extended access to the individual works of art. Participating departments include art history, biology, classics, English, gender and women studies, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and studio art.
Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement at Hollins
currently available online
In spring 2020, students in the Cultural Property, Rights and Museum course began working on an exhibit, Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement at Hollins University, in conjunction with members of the Hollins University Working Group on Slavery and Its Contemporary Legacies. The exhibit examines objects and images held by the University Archives in the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins University. Material researched by students are on display in this virtual exhibit. Those working on this exhibit wanted to create a public space to reckon with our Hollins past and give a forum to those who were not given a voice, name, space, or attention in the past. It is the goal of this exhibit to show the lasting effects slavery has had, and continues to have, here; and, to recognize that Hollins continues to benefit from a history of enslavement.
Exploring Visual and Conceptual Space: Student Selections from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
currently available online
Using selected works from the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum’s permanent collection, student curators put theory into practice in this virtual exhibit which is the culmination of the spring class, “Behind the Scenes: Principles and Practice.” As part of the class, students collaborate and share responsibility for conceptualizing, researching, designing, and interpreting a cohesive exhibition. Each student selected two works that spoke to them based on academic, personal, and aesthetic interests. The exhibit features works created by well-known artists Giovanni Battista Piranesi, John James Audubon, Käthe Kollwitz, Paul Klee, Salvador Dalí, and Andy Warhol, as well as works by Hedley Fitton, Jean Lurçat, Paule Gobillard, Eudora Welty, and others.
When placed together, these works form an image of the Eleanor D. Wilson collection as a small but artistically and historically rich collection – especially when seen through the eyes of Hollins student curators Madelyn Farrow, Faith Herrington, Sylvia Lane, Mairwen Minson, Kaiya Ortiz, Valerie Sargeant, and Maddie Zanie.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Hollins Abroad 70th Anniversary Exhibition
May 29 – June 16, 2025
This exhibition showcases objects from Hollins’ study abroad alums as well as items from the Hollins archives which includes special souvenirs picked up on travels, letters and postcards, as well as audio and visual images of study abroad programs over the past 70 years. This exhibit will also be digitized for access to those unable to be on campus.
Women Working with Clay
May 29 – July 27, 2025
In conjunction with the annual Women Working with Clay Symposium held each summer at Hollins University, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum presents an exhibition of work by well-known artists in the world of contemporary ceramics, including program director Dara Hartman and founding director Donna Polseno. Founded in 2011, this symposium was created to honor the great accomplishments of women ceramic artists today. It explores the connections of the long history of women in cultures all over the world as vessel makers, artists, and artisans.
MFA Dance Lab
June 12-29, 2025
Each summer, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum partners with the Hollins University M.F.A. Dance program to host selected student graduate dance thesis presentations in the Main Gallery, melding live dance, performance, and visual art. This summer, the museum presents the work of one graduating student.
Joel Christian Gill: Illustration
June 27 – August 3, 2025
Joel Christian Gill is a cartoonist and historian who speaks nationally on the importance of sharing stories. He is the author of the acclaimed memoir Fights: One Boy’s Triumph Over Violence, cited as one of the best graphic novels of 2020 by The New York Times and for which he was awarded the 2021 Cartoonist Studio Prize.
Cece Bell: Animal Albums from A to Z
July 17 – September 21, 2025
Cece Bell’s exhibition features original artwork from her children’s book Animal Albums from A to Z and paraphernalia crafted by Bell for use in music videos created for the book. Surrounded by set pieces and costumes featured in the videos, an interactive listening station for all ages will be set up in the gallery.
Leigh Ann Beavers: Simulacrum
August 21 – December 7, 2025
Leigh Ann Beavers’ exhibition explores ecological concerns and the valley’s changing landscape. Beavers’ background as a naturalist informs her artistic practice as she documents regional animals slowly becoming endangered or going extinct, and landscapes of indigenous flora disappearing through human intervention—intentional or otherwise.
White Zinnia: A New Dance Work by Penelope Freeh with Installation by Ainslee Freeh
October 9-26, 2025
Dance artist and Hollins faculty member Penelope Freeh implements heightened theatricality, intimate gesture, and visual design elements to reveal deeply personal content. White Zinnia explores her mother’s iconography and characteristics (including dyslexia, left-handedness, and Alzheimer’s) as inspired by and in the setting of her mother’s visual artworks. Freeh writes, “I portray myself, my mother, a hybrid of us, and possibly, a ghost. I grapple with the remains of my mother’s abandoned visual art practice. My palette is ours.”