NW Missouri Times

Northwest Missouri State University and its Department of Fine and Performing Arts will host Texas-based multimedia artist Anna Cowley Ford for its next featured exhibit in the Olive DeLuce Art Gallery.

The exhibition, titled “POV your insurance stops covering two medications that are the biggest part of your treatment plan and now you’re barely a functional person,” opens at 7 p.m. Monday, March 25, with a lecture by Cowley Ford in Room 244 of the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building and a reception afterward outside the gallery. The exhibit continues through Friday, April 12. Additionally, Cowley Ford will conduct a sculpture casting workshop and visit with students in their studios on the Northwest campus.

Cowley Ford’s artwork involves functional and sculptural ceramics, textiles, large-scale installations, video, and accumulated medical objects and documents, inspired by her lived experiences of pain and illness. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree in visual arts from Maine College of Art and a Bachelor of Arts in studio art from Grinnell College in Iowa.

"Given the profound effects of the global pandemic on our physical and emotional health, many in our communities feel disconnected from ourselves and each other," said Dr. Karen Britt, a Northwest assistant professor of art who is coordinating the exhibit. "Cowley Ford’s artwork, which explores her own lived experience of chronic illness, resonates deeply with individuals and communities as they seek to put the pieces back together and figure out what comes next. Many are still struggling to come to terms with the randomness and precarity of life – a reality that Cowley Ford and others living with pain and illness have long understood. Her immersive exhibition is a gripping example of art’s power to illuminate the human condition."

Cowley Ford’s exhibit and visit at Northwest are supported by a grant from the Missouri Arts Council.

The Olive DeLuce Art Gallery is open 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, 1 to 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 1 pm Friday. For more information, call 660.562.1326 or email.