School of Performing and Visual Arts
Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition
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The biennial 2021 USM Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Art and Design program and Partners for the Arts, features the work of nationally recognized artists and remained on campus through March 2023.
“Public art aims to not only beautify campus but also to promote the exchange of ideas and enhance the campus experience. This year we have some amazing large-scale outdoor works that will make you stop and engage in conversations, as you’ll find them inspiring and interesting."
Jennifer Torres, professor of Art and Design
2021 Sculptures
Action Reaction by Chris Wubbena
Location: In front of the Liberal Arts Building
Stainless steel, acrylic, and spray paint
9’10” x 4’6” x 2’6”, 2019
Chris Wubbena’s work is inspired by classical figurative sculpture along with geologic and Neolithic rock formations, and takes a closer look at the individual, the person, and the weight they assume.
The abstracted figurative form exists in a state of perpetual action and reaction as its stainless-steel body constructs and twists under a large, painted, rock-like mass. The painted, layered histories accumulated atop the figurative form expresses the here and now with the use of applied text and imagery.
Chris Wubbena holds an MFA in Art with a Sculpture Emphasis from San Francisco State University, and a BFA in Art with a Sculpture Emphasis and a Creative Writing Minor from the University of Northern Iowa. He is currently a tenured Full Professor of Sculpture at Southeast Missouri State University.
His work has been exhibited in outdoor and indoor exhibitions throughout the United States, in such exhibitions as The Chicago Sculpture Exhibit, Chicago, IL; Art In Place, Charlottesville, VA; The Yokna Sculpture Trail, Oxford, MS; and more, and he has also completed a number of outdoor commissioned projects.
The public sculpture titled Commence, commissioned by the City of Cape Girardeau and Southeast Missouri State University, was completed for the Fountain Street Roundabout in 2017, and the public sculpture titled Forward, commissioned by Mississippi Power Company, in Gulfport, Mississippi was completed in 2007 to commemorate the work done by Mississippi Power employees during and after the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.
In addition, Wubbena has been awarded various grants for the completion of larger indoor installation projects that have been exhibited in Virginia, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri, including a Mississippi Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellowship with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts for the completion on Wubbena’s de minimis series and multiple Grants and Research Funding Committee Grants from Southeast Missouri State University. His project research has taken him to Italy, France, England, and Vietnam where he conducted research for a project titled speaking while listening, which is an expression, through sculptural installation, of the Viet Nam/American war and its contemporary relevance.
Portal by Kelsey Wishik (USM Alumna)
Location: In front of t