Field Notes: Learning to See

Exhibition Dates: September 1 – October 15, 2026

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9 from 5 – 6:30 p.m.
Gallery Talk with Deirdre Murphey at 5:30 p.m.

Closing Reception: Thursday, October 15 from 5:30 – 7 p.m.

Closing Reception will recognize MU students and their artworks created in response to Field Notes: Learning to See.

Closing Reception Gallery Talk with Yvonne Love has been cancelled.  

Exhibition Description: Field Notes features sculptures by Yvonne Love and paintings by Deirdre Murphy presented alongside a series of collages which were made in collaboration between the two artists, in response to over five decades of daily naturalist field notes kept by Yvonne’s parents, Naomi and Bill Murphy.

The Murphy’s were devoted birders and lifelong observers of the natural world. Through a shared practice of observation inherited from their scientist parents, Love and Murphy engaged in a call-and-response collaboration across disciplines, mediums, and generations. The resulting artworks are a sensorial exploration of environmental data, transformed through painting, cutting and collage.

The artists honor the rigor of citizen science and professional research alike, paying tribute to the power of attentive seeing. In this collaboration, Love and Murphy reimagine decades of bird counts, migration patterns, and handwritten logs as portals into larger conversations about environmental change, loss, and continuity.

Artists: Yvonne Murphy Love and Deirdre Murphy

Image: Yvonne Love and Deirdre Murphy, Pileated, 2025, mixed media on paper, 24 x 18 inches

Unfolding

Exhibition Dates: October 22 - December 10, 2026

Reception: Thursday November 12 from 5:30 - 7 p.m., Gallery Talk at 6 p.m.

Exhibition Description: Unfolding brings together 30 artworks that celebrate the curiosity, care, and discovery possible in the act of making. Through layers of pigment, paper, cloth, wood, and clay, the artists reveal the traces of human time and attention, transforming ideas and materials into unexpected forms. Across the exhibition, a dialogue emerges between structure and growth, play and seriousness, intimacy and detachment, and individual and shared experience. These works invite us to consider how making by hand helps us understand our place in the world and connect with one another. In a world that increasingly asks us to move quickly, Unfolding offers an invitation to slow down, look closely, and allow meaning to reveal itself over time.

This is a collaborative exhibition presented by Eckert Art Gallery and I Like Your Work. Artist and curator Erika b. Hess founded I Like Your Work, as a podcast in 2019, and it has since expanded to include Studio Visit Artists and Exhibitions. This robust online organization is dedicated to supporting artists, creating community, providing opportunities and resources. On the podcast, Hess interviews creative people from painters and artists to collectors and curators. I Like Your Work is a vibrant platform celebrating people pursuing a creative life and building community within the arts.

Eckert Art Gallery director, Heidi Leitzke, was invited to serve as guest curator for this installment of the I Like Your Work exhibition series. Exhibition includes emerging and mid-career artists featured in a full-color printed catalog. 

Artists: Barbara Campbell Thomas, Catherine Drabkin, Kathleen Eastwood-Riaño, Rachel Eng, Cecilia Ford, Annie Gardner, Henry Gepfer, Anna Guarneri, Sarah Heyward, Josh Johnson, Jason Lipow, Emily Manning-Mingle, Molly Martin, Chris Moss, Alexandria Nazar, Akemi Ohira, Mimi Pinnow, Sara Post, Laura Sallade, Michelle Solorzano, Bryce Speed, Madeleine Speicher-Willis, Colleen McCubbin Stephanic, Madison Vaughen, Christina Renfer Vogel, Gillian Wainwright, Anna Wehrwein, Jenny Wu, Moones Zeydabadi Nejad, Emily Zuch

  

Of the Land

Exhibition Dates: January 28 – March 19, 2027

Exhibition Description: In the southwestern United States wide vistas are surrounded by mountains that guide the eye towards big skies. Here the land holds stories of generations in ancient fault lines, well-worn hiking paths and layers of strata. The artists in this exhibition were drawn to live and work in the desert and make art that tells the stories of the land.

Artists: Jane Culp, Tai Lipan, Rachel Rickert, and more.

Image: Jane Culp, Clark’s Dry Lake, 2025, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches

Exhibition Coming Soon...

Exhibition Dates: March 25 – May 1, 2027

Exhibition Description: Coming Soon

Artists: 

Image: