UIC artist’s work selected for traveling exhibition

Artwork created by UIC graduate student Maggie Hubbard will be featured in the AXA Art Prize Exhibition, which will travel across the country this fall, including a stop in Chicago.

Hubbard’s work will be on display alongside 39 other finalists for the AXA Art Prize, one of the premier student art competitions in the U.S. The exhibit will begin its run at the San Francisco Art Institute in September, then head to the Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago from Oct. 24-30. The tour ends at the New York Academy of Art in November. The AXA Art Prize winner, chosen from 500 submissions, will be selected in November.

“My painting is rather subdued so I was surprised it got accepted, especially seeing all the other pieces in the exhibit. But I am really pleased to be in this show,” said Hubbard, a second-year MFA student in the School of Art and Art History.

Hubbard was recognized for her ink on canvas portrait, “Carolyn Bryant Donham,” which depicts Bryant Donham sitting in a Mississippi courtroom during the 1955 trial of her former husband, Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, in the murder of Emmett Till. Bryant Donham had accused Till of accosting her, which led to his lynching.

“I’ve been intrigued by her and the role she played in the case,” Hubbard said. “She’s really challenged me to look at whiteness and the shadow side of white femininity.” 

The theme of “whiteness” has been central to Hubbard’s work for the past three years.

“I’m really just taking a personal look at my racial identity, to pinpoint what made me white and how race has formed who I am,” she said.

Hubbard, who received her bachelor’s in illustration from Indiana Wesleyan University, plans to graduate from UIC in May.

For more information on the AXA Art Prize finalists and exhibition, visit axaartprize.com