Southeastern Student Juried Art Exhibition opens March 21
Thursday, March 14, 2024
by: Tonya Lowentritt 
HAMMOND – The Southeastern Louisiana University Contemporary Art Gallery will
present the 2024 Juried Student Exhibition. Featuring artwork from Southeastern students
and juried by Multi-disciplinary Artist Shani Peters and Designer Joseph Cuillier,
the exhibition begins March 21 and will remain on display through April 15.
Interim Gallery Director Tabitha Nikolai said Southeastern Contemporary Art Gallery
invites two jurors every year from the artistic community to campus in order to select
from a pool of submissions that reflect exemplary artwork made by Southeastern students.
This year Peters and Cuillier will select a variety of artworks ranging from area
concentrations such as ceramics, drawing, graphic design, new media + animation, painting,
photography, printmaking, and sculpture.
“The Contemporary Art Gallery is dedicated to providing a platform for emerging
artists to showcase their works and in keeping with our mission,” Nikolai said. “This
exhibition provides an excellent opportunity for students to exhibit their artworks
in a professional setting and have their artwork reviewed by two arts professionals.
We invite visitors to the gallery to see the juror’s final selections.”
The gallery will hold a discussion panel from Peters and Visual Artist and Photographer
Laila Stevens on Tuesday, March 19, at 5 p.m. The opening reception will follow on
Thursday, March 21, at 5 p.m., when the “Best in Show” prizes will be announced.
Peters is based in New Orleans. She has presented work in the U.S. and abroad
at the New Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem; Seoul
Art Space Geumcheon in South Korea; the National Gallery of Zimbabwe; and the Bauhaus
Dessau. Peters is a co-director of The Black School, an artist initiated experimental
art school that is presently working to build a physical home for its art education
and community programming in New Orleans’ 7th Ward.
Cullier is currently based in Harlem, where he received a master’s of fine arts
degree from Pratt Institute and is a faculty member at Parsons and Pratt. His work
has been exhibited, collected, and presented internationally in galleries, museums,
and institutions, including the New Museum, the MoMA Library, the Bauhaus Dessau,
the Bronx Museum of Art, Wallach Gallery at Columbia University, and the Schafler
Gallery at Pratt Institute, among others.
Based in Brooklyn, Stevens was born and raised in South Jamaica, Queens. She
received her bachelor of fine art degree in photography and related media at The Fashion
Institute of Technology. Her work has been frequently published in The New York Times
Metropolitan Section, National Geographic, The Nation, The Guardian, and Cultured
Magazine, among other publications. Stevens is a student of the Eddie Adams Workshop
Class of XXXIV, a full-time member of Black Woman Photographers, Diversify Photo,
and Scope of Work.
The gallery is located in East Strawberry Stadium on campus at 411 Ned McGehee
Dr. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday from
8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
For more information about the exhibition, contact Nikolai at tabitha.nikolai@southeastern.edu. To keep up with gallery events, visit southeastern.edu/slucontemporary.
