On Tuesday, September 9, the Baum Gallery held its public reception for the new art exhibition, “Vital Signs: Symbiosis.” 

Students and members of the community gathered to view art created by local artists, as well as artists from outside the area. 

The Baum Gallery, an educational museum for the community’s viewing, was introduced in 1996. 

The Baum Gallery invites touring national and international artists to display their work on the University of Central Arkansas campus. 

The exhibition presented art from five different artists: Jessica Mongeon, Melissa Wilkinson, Yelena Petroukhina, Emily Wood and Lisa Krannichfeld.

“Vital Signs” is a solo retrospective piece created by Jessica Mongeon. 

She works for Arkansas Tech University as a tenured associate professor of foundations, drawing and painting. 

She is also the university’s head of foundations. 

Her work was presented in the first gallery. 11 years of her work are on display, focusing on themes of environment, plants and climate change. 

She is also an avid grower of exotic plants. Many of the paintings are in her niche. 

“Symbiosis” is a group adaptation featuring the other four artists. 

Yelena Petroukhina is a Russian artist from Little Rock, Arkansas. She is a high school art instructor. Her main focus is ceramic sculpture. One of her sculptures displayed is called “Rider I.” It is a ceramic sculpture of a woman riding what appears to be a mountain goat. Her sculptures are beaming with color. She mainly creates sculptures of Russian toys from her childhood and women’s gendered toys. 

Lisa Krannichfeld is an independent artist out of Little Rock. Her creations for the exhibition were two paintings covered in resin. Her work has been featured in many national exhibits as well as internationally, including Australia, Asia, and Europe. 

Emily Wood is a visual artist who graduated from the University of Arkansas with a Master of Arts degree. Her subject explores the hidden labor of women. She creates panels of wood with hidden faces of women inside them, like a garden. 

Melissa Wilkinson is an artist from New York. Her work is dedicated to paintings of birds with something hidden inside them, like eyes, roses or color. 

Baum Gallery Director, Rachel Trusty, said that Jessica Mongeon was already arranged to present her solo piece. When she met Mongeon, she wasn’t exactly sure about how much space she wanted to use for her exhibition. Two spaces were filled. 

Trusty said, “I knew that we needed a complimentary show [for] the third, and we needed it fast.” 

She ultimately decided to work with local artists, with the exception of Melissa Wilkinson. 

The two exhibitions work together simultaneously. Trusty said that she wanted the two exhibitions to have a conversation, which is why she titled the group exhibition “Symbiosis.” Trusty said, “Thinking about women’s labor, women’s work, how we make art, what we make art about, right? Is gardening a subject worth talking about, you know, right? And so I think a lot of their work explores these kinds. It might not be obvious, but they’re navigating some of those

questions.” 

Baum Gallery will be running from August 25, 2025, to October 3, 2025.