2026 News & Announcements
September
K-State Scholarship Exhibition
K-State's Department of Art will present an exhibition of K-State undergraduate student work. Students involved received scholarships for their artwork for the 2026 academic year. This exhibition will feature a variety of mediums from photography to ceramics and more!
Exhibition open from September 11th- 25th, 2026.
August
Steamroller Printmaking Exhibition
K-State's Department of Art will host an exhibition of woodblocks and prints created with Spot Fire Press and printed at the Manhattan Arts Center's MAC & Cheese event held in 2026. These prints were created by collaborative groups of printmaking students and printed using a steamrolller.
July
Spot Fire Press Intern Featured in an Interview by K-State Foundation
Recent BFA Graduate Featured in K-State Today
Layne McAfee is using art to enrich rural Kansas communities.
Read about her work on K-State Today's Website
May
Metalsmithing Students Showcase Work in Hale
Metalsmithing students installed some of their work at the second floor Loggia Entrance of Hale Library. Stop by to see various examples of techniques used by our Department of Art students!
May 11- 15, 2026
BFA Studio Art Exhibition
Kansas State University Department of Art will present the second of two BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring semester featuring Layne McAfee, Laurel Beal, and Arly DeMata-Romero. The artists will showcase an exhibition of their undergraduate artwork from May 11 through 15, 2026 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor of Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 8am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. Please feel free to attend the reception with the artists on Friday evening, May 15, from 5:00 to 7:00pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.
Laurel Beal, a painter from Belleville, Kansas, delves into depicting the vibrancy and liveliness of landscapes based on places she has travelled to using oil pastels on panels. Her work entails “capturing” the essence of memories and the beauty of nature she experienced during her travels in her depicted works. She states that “when I work rendering landscapes, I see not only a scenic view, but a memory that I want to immortalize and cherish forever.”
Arly DeMata-Romero is a photographer from Kansas City. She will be receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in May 2026. With Latin origins, her current photographic work reflects not only her culture, but how her family dynamics have evolved over time as well as what her childhood was like growing up lower class. She enjoys documenting the authenticity of her life in order to connect with others who might feel negatively about their upbringing with the hope that they feel less alone knowing others have lived similar experiences.
Layne McAfee, a multidisciplinary artist from Winchester, Kansas, utilizes her work as a visual diary. Created solely from self-taken reference photographs, her work is a celebration of the small moments that make up a majority of our lived experience. “I capture an image if it hits me in my chest; it's a palpable feeling when the creation of a memory is involved.” Focusing on the emotional and tactile senses of creation, color and texture play a pivotal role in Layne’s practice.
The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.
May 4- 8, 2026
BFA Studio Art Exhibition
Kansas State University Department of Art will present the first of two BFA Thesis Exhibitions of the spring semester featuring Emery Brown, Lacie Kohman, and Logan Sprague. The artists will showcase an exhibition of their undergraduate artwork from May 4 through 8, 2026 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, first floor of Willard Hall. Gallery hours are 8am – 5pm, Monday through Friday. Please feel free to attend the reception with the artists on Friday evening, May 8, from 5:00 to 7:00pm in the gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.
Emery Brown is an artist from Lincoln, Nebraska, who creates vibrant drawings and paintings. Their works are inspired by nature, often creating images that combine multiple plants or animals into one figure. They hope that their pieces will inspire other people to look at the world around them with a new, creative perspective. They try to invent creatures that could feasibly exist in a fantasy world, while still being based in reality through the life that inspires them.
Lacie Kohman is a printmaker from Salina, Kansas, whose primary process includes reductive linoleum relief and risograph prints. Through these techniques, the final product consists of colorful, multi-layer prints with different pop/comic art styles. “The process of printmaking felt like a door to exploration; every print is the product of that freedom from perfection and discovery through color.” The result of these prints reveals that exploration of color and working in those “Happy little accidents.”
Logan Sprague is an artist from Waterville, Kansas, specializing in photography, and secondarily drawing. His photos and drawings reflect his interest in black metal, philosophy, and horror through night scenery, flash, and evocative splatters and texture.
The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.
April 29, 2026
Spot Fire Press Featured in K-State Today!
Spot Fire Press students collaborated with the Flint Hills Discovery Center to create custom, hand-printed t-shirts that promote native plant species. Read the article to learn more!
April 23- May 1, 2026
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present the Visual Communication Design BFA Exhibition from April 23- May 1, 2026 in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery, in Willard Hall. A reception will be held from 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm on Friday, May 1st in the gallery. Events are free and open to the public.
The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall, across from the art office, opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.
March 2026
3602 Corona Drive Exhibition by Ariana Rastelli Swann
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present the exhibition, “3602 Corona Drive” by MFA Candidate Ariana Swann from March 23rd – March 27th in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery in Willard Hall, Kansas State University campus. A reception will be held from 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm on Friday, March 27th in the gallery. Events are free and open to the public.
Ariana Swann is originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and received her B.S. in Statistics from the University of Michigan. After graduation, she worked as an organ transplant specialist in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but left her career to hike the Appalachian Trail. Living in a tent and hiking for two years, her journey on the Trail inspired her to pursue her art.
Pulling from her varied experiences of culture, vocation, location, and a questioning of the notion of permanence, she creates richly layered, interdisciplinary works. “3602 Corona Drive” is a room-sized installation that uses lighting, paint, and hollow paper walls and furniture to create a space that illuminates, more than provides shelter.
Websites: www.art.ksu.edu
Instagram: @ariana_swann_art
These events are presented and funded in part, by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee.
The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program.
Gotta Eat MFA Exhibition by Aaron Stefan
The Kansas State University Department of Art will present the exhibition, Gotta Eat by MFA Candidate Aaron Joel Stefan from March 9th-13th in the Mark A. Chapman Gallery in Willard Hall, Kansas State University campus. A reception will be held from 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm on Monday, March 9th in the gallery. Events are free and open to the public.
Aaron Joel Stefan is originally from Virginia Beach, VA, and received his BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from the University of Central Florida. While at the University of Central Florida, he also served as the Collaborative Master Printer at the Printmaking Atelier, Flying Horse Editions; several of his works are now in UCF’s artist’s books special collections.
Aaron is a printmaker and painter whose practice moves between fine art and commercial production to examine how contemporary life conditions us through fear and insecurity. Drawing from professional experience in graphic art, industrial printing, and scenic design, Aaron stages tension between instinctive, and immediate art practices and calculated, controlled, processes. In Gotta Eat, expressive and polished imagery collides, reflecting cycles of stress, labor, and consumption that shape identity and self-worth. His work builds dreamlike, symbolic scenes where urgency meets deliberation, asking how survival, ambition, and productivity become entangled, and how the making of work can become a site to negotiate that pressure.
IG: @aaronjoelstefan
These events are presented and funded in part, by KSU SGA Fine Arts Fee.
The Mark A. Chapman Gallery on the first floor of Willard Hall opened in 2005. Cheryl Mellenthin and Mark Chapman funded a complete renovation of the former Willard Hall Gallery, increasing the exhibition space to over 1,400 square feet along with 400 square feet dedicated to exhibition preparation and kitchen facilities. The Department of Art hosts BFA and MFA student exhibitions in the gallery as part of graduation requirements each semester. The technology friendly gallery serves not only exhibition purposes, but also provides a location for an active Visiting Artist lecture program