Troy University’s International Arts Center will host a reception for artist Mike Howard and two artists who previously served as Artists in Residence from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 5.

Howard’s exhibit, “Gravity and Gesture,” which features a selection of paintings from his generous donation to the Troy University Permanent Art Collection, will be on display at the IAC until April 30. The reception also will recognize the work of Jennifer McCohnell, Artist-in-Residence in 2024, and Douglas Pierre Baulos, Artist-In-Residence in 2025. The event is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.

Howard’s “Gravity and Gesture” presents a bold and expressive body of work in which movement, meaning and material experimentation intertwine. Howard’s works are painted on huge, unstretched canvases that hang loosely in space, inviting viewers to step close, feel enveloped, and almost walk into the imagery itself. The exhibit invites viewers into a space where symbolism, spontaneity, scale, and storytelling meet—revealing an artist deeply attuned to both the weight and the restless energy of painting.

“Showing a selection of Mike Howard’s paintings is especially meaningful to us, as they are part of a substantial collection he generously gifted to Troy University,” said Carrie Jaxon, Director and Curator of the IAC. “We are truly grateful for his generosity and for the lasting impact his work will have on our students, university family and guests.”

Howard grew up in Phenix City before moving to New York City in the early 1970s.
After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, Howard attended the University of Georgia. During his studies he was accepted into the coveted Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York City. He received his Master of Fine Arts from New York’s Rutgers University in 1974.

Howard’s works have been exhibited throughout the United States, from Hurtsboro, Alabama to New York City. Notable exhibitions include The Whitney Museum, P.S. 1, the High Museum in Atlanta and recently in the Rubell Family Collection Museum in Miami, Florida, where a large portion of his collection resides permanently with the Rubell Museum. He has been reviewed in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker and Artforum.

The Spring Arts Series: Previous Artists-In-Residence exhibition brings together recent work from Douglas Pierre Baulos and Jennifer McCohnell, two artists whose time on the Troy University campus helped shape the ideas, materials, and conversations present in this exhibition. Their practices diverge in form yet share a deep commitment to place, memory, and transformation—qualities that lie at the heart of the Spring Arts Series’ mission to support research-driven creative exploration.

“Inviting artists back for an exhibition after their residency lets us see how their ideas evolve over time,” said Sara Dismukes, Co‑Director, Spring Arts Series. “It deepens our relationships with them and gives our students another chance to learn from completed bodies of work shaped by research, experimentation, and reflection.”

McCohnell, the 2024 Artist‑in‑Residence, works in a conceptual mode rooted in her Southern upbringing. Her art examines the layered relationship between memory, place, and identity through objects, domestic spaces, and architectural histories. Her recent work explores belonging, displacement, and the fragile boundaries between past and present.

A conceptual artist and former English educator, McCohnell’s work draws deeply from her upbringing in rural Georgia. Her solo exhibition “Homeward Bound: (Finding) Place and Identity in the Postmodern South” was recently presented at Bells Gallery in Dothan. Her work has also appeared in the Wiregrass Museum of Art, the Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery, and in numerous juried exhibitions across the region. In addition to her studio practice, McCohnell teaches K-8 art at Booker T. Washington School in Birmingham.

Baulos, who completed their month-long residency in spring 2025, often works across papermaking, drawing, sculpture, and biological observation. The installations and objects emerge from themes of grief, mortality, nesting, and care. Delicate structures—part botanical, part anatomical—appear as meditations on the body’s physical presence and its lingering traces: webs, shadows, disease, and decay.

Baulos is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and works across papermaking, drawing, ceramics, photography, and installation. Baulos has exhibited internationally in Italy, Spain, Belarus, Turkey, Japan, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico, England, Chile, China, Cambodia, Burma, and throughout the United States.

“Our residency program is rooted in creative and community-based research, and artists like Jennifer and Douglas show us how that work can spark dialogue and reimagine what’s possible in our classrooms, galleries, and regional arts communities,” said Will Jacks, Co-Director of the Spring Arts Series.