The Called to Serve: We Are Together exhibit features artwork completed by students, staff, and faculty members. These art pieces showcase community support for suffering brothers and sisters in Ukraine and will be shown just outside the Boger Art Gallery.

College of the Ozarks will be displaying the We Are Together exhibition, which will be showcased in the Boger Art Gallery on the first floor of the Jones Learning Center. The gallery will be open to the public, Mar. 19 – Apr. 23, Monday – Friday from 8:30 am – 5 pm. Guests from the community are invited to attend this event, and no tickets will be required upon entry.

The We Are Together exhibit is comprised of two parts. The first part is an invitational exhibition titled We Are Together: Icons of Hope. This will feature the work of prominent Christian artists. The art pieces will first be exhibited in the Boger Art Gallery and then sent to Ukraine to be exhibited in the city of Lviv. There, they will be sold to raise money for a benevolence fund for the artist community in Lviv, Ukraine.

The second part of the exhibition is titled Called to Serve: We Are Together. This exhibit will feature artwork completed by students, staff, or faculty members. These art pieces are meant to showcase community support for suffering brothers and sisters in Ukraine and will be shown just outside the Boger Art Gallery. Selected community pieces will be sent to Lviv, Ukraine for display in the Lviv National Academy of Arts, alongside the professional works from the Icons of Hope exhibit.

The inspiration for the We Are Together exhibit comes from a previous art show that was hosted by College of the Ozarks in the fall of 2023. This previous exhibition was titled East Meets West: Art in Time of War, which is depicted above.

In addition to work completed by the College of the Ozarks community, dear friends from outside the College were selected to submit work as well.  Evangel University professor Mike Buesking’s oil painting “The Work of Our Hands (Psalm 90:17)” will be featured in the exhibit.

“The sense of hope I have concerning Ukraine involves the labor required to build and repair. These work gloves are an invitation to join and participate in that extraordinary effort,” Buesking said. “The work and the laborers from multiple sectors coalesce to be an offering to God – as well as a “hands-on” embodiment of Moses’ prayer at the end of Psalm 90: ‘May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us.’”

The inspiration for the We Are Together exhibit comes from a previous art show that was hosted by College of the Ozarks in the fall of 2023. This exhibition, titled East Meets West: Art in Time of War, featured a collection of pieces done by believing artists from Western Ukraine.

Buesking’s oil painting “The Work of Our Hands (Psalm 90:17)” will be featured in the exhibit.

Eric Bolger, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College, explains the heart behind the We Are Together exhibit in light of the unique relationship the College has with these Ukrainian artists.

“We would like to create and share art with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, because it serves as a reminder that, in Christ, we are indeed together,” Bolger said.

This exhibition demonstrates the beautiful way in which the College’s Cultural and Christian pillars intersect. Dr. Richard Cummings, professor of art, reflects on the significance of the We Are Together exhibition.

“We naturally feel for those who are innocent and suffer hardship, loss, and even death at the hands of the powerful and unjust,” Cummings said. “The fact that we are connected to this community of artists through a shared faith only deepens the empathy that we feel for their suffering and pain. I view our small gesture as both a hope-filled fortification of the body of Christ and as a proclamation of hope—the promised restoration that is to come when one day all things will be made new.”