Where’s The Trust? It’s Time to Let the Young Artists Take Over
2025 Student Juried Exhibition: JCM Gallery at Texas State University
The moment my art history teacher alluded to the current, collective calmness within Texas State University artists, I witnessed the palpable problem…
Recently, one of my art history professors described to the class the strange reality that most art protests are being organized and attended by the older generation. The younger generation of students that these issues are impacting is largely absent. My professor is heavily active in the art community and expressed her desire for some sort of engagement and inspiration from art students. The disconnect with current social and political issues is concerning, especially as art students and public university programs are targeted. Art students in particular face censorship regarding the images they are allowed to depict, and universities are silently brooding over a potential student response.
This March, a pro-Palestinian student’s artwork was removed from an exhibition at the University of North Texas. A Texas Republican had the artwork removed due to its ‘antisemitic’ themes, and Texas State has followed suit in a similar case by choosing not to exhibit art depicting images of either Palestine or Israel. This censoring of certain ideals by politicians has no place in public universities and, as a result, fosters an environment of uneasiness among art students and staff regarding the art that will be targeted next. On top of this censorship issue, students (specifically art students) face the threat of an upcoming bill, House Bill 281, which, if passed, could mean dire cuts to the arts program and funding to Texas State students. This bill would have an immense impact on Texas State art students since fine art degrees are being targeted due to their high debt rate and low earning potential after graduation. In the few years I have been a student, politics had never remotely entered my classrooms until this upcoming year of 2025. What a time it is to be an art student! Phew! We just keep taking hits, but where is our chance for a rebuttal?
My teachers’ comments and concerns were held when I saw this problem presenting itself visually in a recent juried student exhibition. Exhibiting student art grants them a sense of accomplishment by experiencing an appreciation for their works of art from their community. For some student artists, being exhibited means official recognition as an artist. Being exhibited as a student artist changes their mindset from “Oh yeah, I do art” to “I’m an artist!” Juried exhibitions can give art students not only recognition from their community but with expert approval from an established artist. However, juried exhibitions can limit the ultimate purpose of student art, which is to enlighten and relate with fellow students. A juried exhibition means that the students do not have the freedom to choose what should be displayed. Especially in this current era, where many students are yearning for answers and enlightenment through gaslighting, student-curated exhibitions would be beneficial for students to come together to make a statement. With student art, there is an opportunity to get to know future artists within the community and their journey within the art program–how they are coping, branching out, and even viewing themselves in a beautifully vulnerable way. This 2025 juried student exhibition was curated using art entries from 34 Texas State University art students, which were juried and chosen by the distinguished photographer and artist Nina Katchadourian. Katchadourian’s main interest in curating the gallery the way she has is emphasizing the artistic capabilities of student artists. Katchadourian accomplished this goal, but when will students get an opportunity to push against adult limitations?
Similar to my professors’ previous comment, the older generation is taking over the student body’s voice, and in this case, not giving students the freedom to fully self-express. Especially in a university setting, letting students express themselves uninhibited is what merits student art. Universities would benefit from moving away from juried exhibitions to student-led shows to freely express themselves. Through student-chosen art, they can open concepts further into the gallery space for the viewers, and see the diversity of topics and issues universities need to see through student art that can advocate for fellow students. “Give young people a greater voice. They are the future, and they are much wiser than we give them credit for.” – Desmond Tutu, South African bishop and human rights activist.
Student art exhibits function as expressive and unafraid spaces for other non-art students to enjoy and connect with art. Especially with young artists of their generation, in search of ideas and answers that artists have historically given to society in times of hardship and uncertainty. In times of economic and social hardship post World War I in Germany, the Bauhaus school took on the creation of a new movement within art, letting both teachers and students be a fundamental part. The Bauhaus movement was pertinent to moving away from fine art and having more universal, functional art that could be enjoyed in everyday life. However, my expectations as a student within the Texas State student art exhibit were sublet. Yes, the art did help me connect with my current struggles as a student, but this is a topic I can connect with daily with friends and fellow students. I was looking forward to having some of my anxieties about the future being reflected by others, so as not to feel as crazy. When I tell my parents back home of the hardships students face now, all they can say is “Well…that sucks.” Problems include the censoring of politically opposing issues, the potential for an economic recession, a changing job market that is unsure how to approach new graduates, elevated cost of living and schooling costs, and high student debt – I could go on, but you get my point. This exhibition exists as more momentous than just exhibiting student talent that is already apparent but should make a prominent statement as a school that stands with the arts and its students in these uncertain times.
Composition: Eye-catching. Form: flawlessly executed. Anyone viewing this exhibit is going to say to themselves: “This is impressive for their age,” rather than the par gallery experience where you mutter to yourself proudly, “I could do that.” In envisioning my first exhibit review, I was ready to merely admire and connect with the local, student art pieces in the JCM Texas State Gallery. My idea was to write a nice review with a big, red ribbon tied neatly at the end. Maybe even an encore and be done with the semester, but the first and easily envisioned review took a sudden detour I had not envisioned. Thoughts swirled in my head of the many themes I imagined students would be exploring and making known. With the many social and political issues happening in Texas, America, and the world as a whole, I was expecting almost anything. I hoped to find art that would comfort me in this time of uncertainty as an art history major and art and design minor, and maybe even serve as a model for the importance of creative degrees. This was my hope. However, I soon realized the difference between a student art show and a ‘juried’ exhibit.
Every piece I encountered with anticipation, I tilted my head and thought: “What is this arbitrariness?” It’s hard studying 34 works of art and waiting for that sensation in your gut to release inspiration, but nothing but bafflement takes place. As I was retiring from the gallery, the impression shifted into embarrassment, and then, as I was writing this review, the emotion instantly became agitation. The exhibition felt shallow coming from student artists in this disheartening and exhausting era. As a student, I did not get the benefit or consolation I was hoping to find from the art. Unfortunately, student art is exhibited only once a year in the Texas State JCM gallery as part of a juried show. Has JCM Gallery ever had a student art space that was unjuried? For an exhibition created by students and presented in a university environment, the pieces served as a comfort to the artists themselves and the student body as a whole. Paintings, photographs, sculptures, and physical media pieces project themes of home, friendship, culture, family, and childhood; all themes a student explores when in college. By presenting evocative imagery of loneliness, displacement, happiness, and anxiety, they are comforting our anxieties and exploring these emotions within themselves.
Behind every work, I feel an art student’s sense of displacement and visual grasping of childhood predispositions intertwining with the expectations of adulthood. Ellie Wideman’s Coming Up Roses (on the right) uses impressionist techniques of colorful and expressive lines and dots to question the validity of memories from childhood that adults tend to romanticize with time.
Jiya Shah explores the opposite of Wideman’s whimsical themes of childhood by presenting the hardship of adulthood in Never Ending (on the left). As an adult, the days start to blur with bleakness and we look back on childhood with fondness, swearing childhood days as having more vibrant colors. Our childhood was shaped by the limitations and providing for our parents but now our adult lives are shaped by us alone and the effort we put into our lives.
A gust of wind ripples along the top of the water, distorting and wrinkling the women’s bodies. The two ladies have been talking with one another all day and are soaking in a moment of silent complacency. Both wear a hauntingly similar expression of blankness as if they know everything about one another, deciding to take a vow of silence forever. Joy King’s Two Ladies Relaxing oil painting is one of the largest works in the exhibit, and the detail of the fence that takes up almost half of the 36 X 50-inch canvas, makes one question its indexicality. The thin strokes of the oil and intricate detail create the illusion of a large print photograph. The painting snapshots a memory of a family vacation, potentially a friendship, or even a moment of relaxation. The women lounge, waiting patiently like the other works of art, huddled in the large empty gallery for warmth, waiting for a sound or a sign, anything that will give them a sign of their fate.
In the politically polarized sides of politics in Texas, the right-wing Republican agenda is making its way into the classroom and the lives of many students at public universities. In this current climate of political and personal greed, the art that is supposed to be engaged with–those that are essential to creating a harmonized society– is being silently and systematically phased out. The instructors have given them the skills to become great artists, but they deserve a chance to use their skills in combination with their voices for the betterment of society. Students need art they can connect to and feel inspired and empowered by, especially in this present time. Handing over conviction to art students will give other students the confidence to change their realities or help to understand the current and unfamiliar world they live in that students artists alone have the perspective to make known. Though the older generation’s support in our struggles is beneficial, the youth have a clearer understanding of the innovative approaches needed to challenge existing systems. At Texas State, simply hosting an annual student-juried exhibition is insufficient; universities need to give student art the platform it deserves to create an open dialogue and cultural community on campus.
Just a thought. However, if it doesn’t work out, let me know. But I think art students will indisputably surprise you.
“The power of youth is the commonwealth for the entire world.” – Kailash Satyarthi, Indian activist.
Just like the gaslighting or our current government, I feel this same feeling in this gallery space. This confusing feeling of where’s the rest?