Sharp Museum

SIU Remembered

Ongoing

European Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts

This exhibition highlights paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and furniture from Renaissance Europe selected from the collection of Carl W. Lutes.

SunYoung Cheong | My Universe Under the Cloud

September 4 - December 11, 2026

Spooked or Spoofed | a celebration of cryptozoology
August 21 - December 11, 2026
Halloween Bash on October 23, 2026

“I believe in nothing, and I’m open-minded to everything. The evidence that I
see: the tracks, the hair samples, the animals that are preyed upon—those are
all the physical evidence. I don’t get into the paranormal... Instead, I accept or
deny the evidence.” A quote from Loren Coleman in the Maine Magazine.

Cryptozoology is defined as the study of and search for hidden or unknown
animals, including legendary creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness
Monster. There are several legends of wild things lurking in the dark woods of
the Shawnee Forest and remote regions of Illinois, such as Bigfoot, the freaky
farmer city monster, a creepy thing called cohomo, the Murphysboro muddy
monster, the Enfield horror, the man-eating Piasa bird, terrifying thunderbirds
over Illinois, creatures of the watery deep, and many more. This was a national
juried call for art. Out of 80 entries submitted from across 9 states, 58 were
accepted into the exhibition by the jurors.

About the Jurors:
Jeremy Efroymson is an artist, art collector, amateur cryptozoologist,
philanthropist, grassroots arts activist, and vice chair of the Efroymson Family
Fund. He received his BA in Film and Video Studies from the University of
Michigan in 1990 and his MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College
Chicago in 1996. He primarily works in photography, installation, and
found-object sculpture. He also received his MBA from Butler.

Loren Coleman is an American cryptozoologist, author, and researcher who
has written over 40 books on mysterious phenomena. He is primarily known
for founding and directing the International Cryptozoology Museum in
Portland, Maine, and his decades of fieldwork tracking cryptids like Bigfoot.
Coleman received a BA in anthropology with a minor in zoology from SIU-C,
an MSW from Simon School of Social Work, Boston, and doctoral work in
social anthropology and sociology from Boston University and University of
New Hampshire, respectively, without a final degree. He has been involved in
cryptozoology since 1960, and museum directing since 2003.

Destiny Bowman | Alter Ego

September 4 - December 11, 2026

Destiny Bowman is a local painter who moved to Carbondale from Denver, Colorado.
The subjects of her paintings are hyper-realistic with more expressive backgrounds
and decisive, stylized embellishments. Bowman frequently mixes realism and
abstraction; the juxtaposition elevates the complexity of her paintings. She paints
both still lives and portraits. A common theme in Bowman’s still life paintings is the
concept of “memento mori,” or a reminder of death and a celebration of life, as
evident in the inclusion of various symbols, such as fruit, skulls or bones, and
half-empty or empty drinking glasses. They are much like vanitas paintings without
the establishment of riches and pleasure.

Destiny Bowman began dabbling in art as a young child. Luckily, she had an art
teacher in high school who encouraged her to continue exploring art, and then she
went on to study at an art school. Bowman continued to create art throughout the
years, and then underwent a shift to take her work more seriously after meeting and
studying with Daniel Sprick. He was a fantastic mentor, and she learned so much,
which expedited her skill level by years. Now, Bowman paints every day.

Bowman creates art as a therapy, a way to communicate when it is difficult to do with
words. She paints the beauty and the macabre, side by side. Having her own
experience with mental illness, substance abuse, and anxiety, Bowman knows the
struggle of pushing through the dark to get to the light. She captures those feelings
and paints them as strengths, as dreams, as patience, as goddesses, as well as life and
death.

“Alter Ego is the idea of having an other self, a secondary persona. This show
represents those alter egos, whether it be the dichotomies of dark and light, good and
evil, or life and death. I’ve recently started to delve into the lighter side of my
emotions. The figurative pieces are a way to represent life and rebirth through the
feminine form, while my still lives are of the macabre part of life and represent
feelings relating to the darker side of my thoughts. Our lives are a back and forth of
both light and dark.

Painting gives me a way to give attention to the duality of both. My work equals
therapy for me, especially when dealing with mental illness and my sobriety. Creating
something out of nothing gives power, purpose, and gratitude. It lets me step away
from reality for a moment to embrace the vulnerability of being an artist.
As an artist, I find that art is a way to realize oneself. This work shows that I can step
away from painting the dark side, and choose to work with the tender side of my
emotions. Art is a way to investigate the nature of life, and use the paintbrush instead
of words to tell a story.”
~ Destiny Bowman

Illuminating Happenstances and Seeing the Unseen

Raymond B. Howk (b. 1958 - 2014) graduated in 1980 from Southern Illinois University in
Carbondale after studying under David Gilmore and Charles Swedlund. After graduation,
Ray worked as a photographic assistant to commercial photographers in both St. Louis
and Chicago and as a photographer in several studios before opening his own studio in
St. Louis. Several years later he closed his studio and continued to assist photographers
in the greater St. Louis area.

While being well known in the advertising community in St. Louis, Missouri, Ray Howk
rarely showed his personal work outside of a few close friends and most certainly
never showed them publicly, until now. This exhibition is a long overdue testament to
Ray’s curious wanderings as a carefree, yet observant outsider and experimental/street
photographer of the Midwest.

His personal work spans a variety of genres including portraits, figure studies,
experimental camera work, and urban/street scenes. Much of his work involved the
use of Infrared and High Speed Recording film. Ten years after Ray’s sudden death in
Novemebr 2014, it was discovered that he left multiple rolls and sheets of large format
film, exposed but undeveloped, in his abandoned family farm house near Red Bud, IL.

Today, Todd Davis, a contemporary of Ray Howk and fellow SIU photography alumni,
selflessly invested a considerable amount of time, energy, and resources to archive and
to bring Ray’s lost negatives to new life for a future generation to study and to view.

- Todd Davis and Prof. Antonio Martinez (SIU Photo Faculty)

Ways to Worship

This exhibition takes an anthropological look at four aspects of worship among cultures across the world. These aspects include Personal Practices such as prayer, meditation, contemplation,
scripture reading and recitation, chanting, mantras, and blessings; Expressive and Artistic Forms such as Songs and hymns, instrumental music, dance and movement, and visual arts; Rituals including offerings, sacrifices, fasting, feasting, pilgrimage, rites of passage, and divination; and Sacred Spaces. This exhibit is in no way an all encompassing exhaustive study of religion and religious traditions. This exhibit highlights only a selection of items in the Museum's archives related to religion and religious practices around the world.

Notice on Native American Collections

This exhibition does not include Native American artifacts. The Museum has placed a moratorium on displaying these objects while we undertake a comprehensive review of our collections to ensure full compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). We are actively consulting with Native Nations and tribal representatives to safeguard culturally sensitive and protected materials. This process reflects our commitment to ethical stewardship, respect for Indigenous communities, and adherence to federal law. By pausing the display of Native American artifacts during this period, the Museum affirms its responsibility to protect sacred and sensitive objects and to collaborate with Native partners in shaping future exhibitions.

 Comming Soon: High School Experience | Harrisburg and Murphysboro

Adam Hawk | Digital Traditionalism

Adam Hawk is a studio artist and Associate Professor at the University
of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where he teaches blacksmithing and design
courses in the College of Arts and Architecture. He serves as Area Head
of Digital Fabrication and Design and as Program Director of
Blacksmithing. Hawk earned his MFA in metalsmithing/blacksmithing
from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and his BFA in sculpture
and computer fine arts from the Memphis College of Art. Prior to joining
UWM, he served as an assistant professor at Memphis College of Art and
worked as a blacksmith at the National Ornamental Metal Museum.

Hawk’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at
institutions including the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Walter
Anderson Museum, Fuller Craft Museum, Houston Center for
Contemporary Craft, the HOW Art Museum in Shanghai, China, Villa
Braghieri in Italy, La Joaillerie par Mazio in Paris, France, and Munich
Jewellery Week in Munich, Germany. Recent exhibitions include a
two-person exhibition at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, a solo
exhibition at the Appalachian Center for Crafts, and inclusion in 40
Under 40 at the National Metal Museum, an exhibition highlighting the
next generation of influential American metal artists. He has also
presented his work internationally, including speaking at the Stia
International Blacksmithing Conference in Stia, Italy, the University of
Gothenburg at Steneby, and virtual presentations at Hereford College
of Arts in the United Kingdom.

Hawk’s creative research investigates digital design and manufacturing
technologies in combination with traditional craft practices. Most
recently, he has focused on CNC milling as a process to complement the
design aesthetics, workflow and techniques used in his blacksmithing
and metalsmithing practice. This work examines the relationship
between these methods by contemplating the meaning of craft and
how one may resolve the dichotomy that exists between contemporary
technologies and processes historically hand-based.

Tim Atseff | Requiem for Newspapers -30-

August 18 - December 11, 2026

Southern Illinois University alumnus and nationally recognized artist, editorial cartoonist, and media executive Tim Atseff (’70) returns to campus with Requiem for Newspapers, -30-. This powerful, sobering and deeply personal exhibition explores the collapse of the American newspaper industry and its implications for democracy, memory, and civic life.

Since 2005, the United States has lost one-third of its newspapers and more than two thirds of its journalists according to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism’s multi-year Local News Initiative study. It reports that three daily newspapers are shuttering every week creating a social, cultural and information void that is threatening the very democracy that gave it birth on this, America’s 250th. The southern tier of Illinois is not immune. An issue the Saluki Local Reporting Lab is examining.

Atseff’s exhibition marks a significant homecoming. In 2019– 2020, Atseff presented his first major solo retrospective at SIU’s University Museum — now the Sharp Museum. An exhibition that examined decades of politically and socially engaged work spanning painting, assemblage, and editorial cartooning. That exhibition reintroduced the university community to one of its distinguished artistic alumni whose career bridged fine art and journalism across nearly five decades in American newspapers—including as a student contributing occasionally to the Daily Egyptian.

His political cartoons were published in the Syracuse (NY) Herald-Journal and picked up in the Boston Globe, New York Times and Washington Post, from Nixon to George H.W. Bush.

He also served with the Syracuse Newspapers as the newspaper’s award winning Design Director, Managing Editor and creator and editor of three regional magazines for the newspaper— Central New York Magazine, Business Exchange Magazine and Central New York Sports Magazine. Atseff retired from the newspaper in 2011, but not from his love of art. Now, returning to Southern Illinois University with Requiem for Newspapers, Atseff expands that conversation into an ambitious museum-scale meditation on truth, public trust, institutional decline, and the fragile state of democratic discourse in the post-newspaper era.

Combining monumental painting, collage, historic newspaper front pages, found objects, and immersive installation, the exhibition transforms the gallery into both archive and memorial — documenting not only the disappearance of local journalism, but the cultural consequences that follow when communities lose shared facts, civic accountability, and historical
continuity.

A once elegy and warning, Requiem for Newspapers reflects the perspective of an artist who
lived inside the industry he now mourns. As a former illustrator, editorial cartoonist, editor, and
newspaper executive, Atseff witnessed firsthand the transformation — and erosion —
of American journalism from within. His work asks urgent questions about memory, truth,
spectacle, political division, and the role visual culture plays in shaping public understanding.

This exhibition returning to SIU carries a particular resonance. It represents not simply the return of an
alumnus, but the return of a witness — bringing with him a body of work shaped by a lifetime spent at the intersection of art, media, politics, and public life.

In welcoming Tim Atseff back to campus, the Sharp Museum affirms the university’s commitment to art as civic inquiry, historical reflection, and public dialogue through ambitious relevant programming, exhibitions, lectures, faculty and student engagement, and provoking a nationally relevant cultural dialogue.

As with all exhibitions, the artwork represents the viewpoints of its creators, not SIU. SIU complies with the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act and State Officials and Employees Ethics Act.