“As a professor, I’m most proud when I recognize the light bulb going off in my student’s mind, when they become proactive and take responsibility for the importance of their work.”

Chuck Hemard joined the College of Liberal Arts in 2008 and developed a photography concentration in the Department of Art and Art History’s Studio Art program. His current work in large format photography explores his interest in our relationship to place and the interaction between humans, time, and the contemporary landscape. Hemard’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Atlanta, Opal Gallery in Atlanta, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, among others. His work is in public collections throughout the region including the Ogden Museum, the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Georgia, and the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia. In 2014, Hemard was awarded the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts to produce work from his ongoing series that visually explores the remnant landscapes of old-growth longleaf pinelands across the Southeast.

“I learn a lot, both personally and artistically, from the people around me, observing the ways they operate within and think about the world. Those relationships that are ongoing opportunities for creative exchanges represent a melding of creativity and living that I value highly.”

Jessye McDowell is an artist working across digital platforms to examine the interworkings of lived experience and digital life. Her work has been exhibited in traditional and non-traditional spaces throughout the U.S. and abroad, including Essex Flowers Gallery in New York City; the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art; the DUMBO Arts Festival in Brooklyn, New York; StreeTVideOart in Sceaux, France; Mint Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia; Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky; and the Front Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana. McDowell was elected a board member of the New Media Caucus in 2015, awarded a partial Fellowship for Artistic Merit by the Vermont Studio Center in 2015 and awarded an Artist Fellowship by the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 2016.

“As an artist, my inspirations have been found across an enormous spectrum of historical expression and accomplishment. Much of the beautiful and profound work from which I’ve gained was created more or less anonymously by those whose aim was to create work of societal value or spiritual significance.”

Gary Wagoner came to the College of Liberal Arts in 1980 and recently retired after teaching for 35 years. Wagoner was the chair of the Department of Art and Art History from 2011 until 2015, and created the ceramic art curriculum while teaching undergraduate courses in the discipline. In recent years, the focus of his studio work has been clay sculpture for architectural installation, including several works on the Auburn campus. He and his wife, Scott Bishop, have two daughters, Lillian and Isabelle Wagoner.