MFA Thesis art exhibition: victoria mercado-lues
2026-04-21 12:00 - 2026-04-25 17:00 (America/New_York) | Greensboro Project Space, 111 E February 1 Pl, Greensboro, NC 27406, USA
Garden of Corporeal Fantasy

MFA Thesis Exhibition

by Victoria Mercado-Lues

Exhibition: April 21 – 25, 2026

Reception: Friday, April 24th, 6-8p

Brightly saturated and fantastical, Garden of Corporeal Fantasy explores the meeting of nature and flesh in oil paintings and ceramics. With invented creatures and visceral biological imagery, the works reframe the gaze towards the bodily through a lens of wonder — a less punitive lens than the centuries-long and still recurring traditions of bodies as commodified, objectified, or sinful.

This exhibition addresses our discomfort surrounding the body by combining it with the godly imposing presence of the landscape, like waterfalls and billowing clouds. In this combination, the work is imbued with a devotional, almost sacred quality, borrowing visuals of the holy and filling it with the biological. The sticky, hairy, fleshy becomes something worth staring at with open fascination, the same way we are in awe of exotic plants, or deep-sea creatures, illuminating the sublime inherent in the corporeal.

By zooming in on the glistening, wet thresholds, the work blurs the boundary between interior and exterior anatomy. Tendrils and drips converge to give birth to strange life forms and new worlds that explore sensuality, womanhood, and the fantastic.

Documenting a coming of age, Garden of Corporeal Fantasy acknowledges the fullness of becoming a woman: the awareness of feeling both precious and strange, once intimately known, yet foreign to yourself. In creating these fantastical ecologies, the work insists on its own terms for beauty, redefined through tender curiosity.

More About Victoria

Victoria Mercado-Lues (b. 2003) is a Mexican-American artist whose oil paintings, ceramics, and collage conjure vivid ecologies of invented creatures and fantastical flesh. Her work merges the biological with the devotional, reframing the body as a site of wonder rather than shame.

Mercado-Lues received her BFA from the University of South Florida and her MFA from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where she was awarded a residency through GROW in partnership with Creative Greensboro. Her work has been exhibited nationally at the Carolyn M. Wilson Gallery, International Museum of Surgical Science, Proxy Design Gallery, and the Sechrest Gallery, among others.

Learn more at victoriamercadolues.wixsite.com/arts | IG: @victoriamercadolues

MFA Thesis Art exhibition: kathryn hood
2026-04-28 12:00 - 2026-05-02 17:00 | Greensboro Project Space, 111 E February 1 Pl, Greensboro, NC 27406, USA
Homebody

MFA Thesis Exhibition

by Kathryn Hood

Exhibition: April 28 – May 2, 2026

Reception: Friday, May 1st, 6-8p

Homebody is an exhibition of collages and sculptures in which Kathryn Hood carves her perceptions of tense muscles into paper and upholstery foam. She embraces the body-mind connection, an essential tool for self-understanding, as she houses ungrounded avatars within handmade paper and muscular furnishings outside of formal traditions. Hood composes the interior feelings of ideas & emotions with the exterior feeling of tension. This duality of perception reflects the disparate nature of themes explored, such as femininity, domesticity, and the performance of identity.

Homebody is the residence of textured perceptions. This space is an act of resensitization.

More About Kathryn

Kathryn Hood (b. 1996) is a collagist, sculptor, and creative doer who carves tense muscles into paper and foam then furnishes them in acts of resensitization. She investigates the thresholds of perception & of living with/as a sense of self. Hood’s 3-dimensional work evolved from a fascination with her maternal grandmother’s porcelain dinnerware. Evaluating its character and its politics, she applies its label of domesticity to bodily sensations and identity performance. Hood lives and works in North Carolina.

Learn more www.kathryn-hood.com | IG: @kathrynhoodart

Collage
2026-10-24 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States

The Nutcracker Suite: Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble I
2026-11-20 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
Event Details

Purchase Tickets

Download Program

Parking

The importance of philanthropy has never been greater. Please consider a gift to the School of Music to support our mission and ensure the future of music at UNCG.

Join Our Email List

choirs, music, voice

Instagram

Facebook

X

YouTube

Symphony OrchestraJungho Kim, conductorJaninah Burnett, sopranoMichaela Kelly, soprano

Jazz Ensemble ISteve Haines, director

Program

GEORGES BIZETFarandole from L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2 (1879)

RICHARD STRAUSSFour Last Songs, op. posth. (1948)Morgen (1894)

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKYThe Nutcracker Suite, op. 71a (1892)

DUKE ELLINGTON/BILLY STRAYHORNThe Nutcracker Suite (1960)

About the Program
Celebrate the season with a program that bridges classical masterworks and jazz innovation. The evening opens with Bizet’s spirited Farandole and features soprano soloists Janinah Burnett and Michaela Kelly in Richard Strauss’s luminous Four Last Songs and Morgen.

At the heart of the concert are two unforgettable interpretations of The Nutcracker. The UNCG Symphony Orchestra performs Tchaikovsky’s cherished orchestral suite, followed by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s groundbreaking jazz reimagining. Heard side by side, these works reveal how the same musical ideas can inspire vastly different sounds, styles, and traditions.

Back to Program

About the Soloists

Versatile singer, actor, musician, writer, arranger, and educator, Janinah Burnett has thrilled audiences domestically and internationally in opera, recital, musical theatre, jazz, television, and film. Some of her signature operatic roles include Mimí in La bohème, Lëila in Les Pêcheurs des Perles), Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Micaëla in Carmen, Marguerite in Faust, and Violetta in La Traviata. An original cast member of Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème on Broadway as Mimí, she won a Los Angeles Theater Alliance Award and performed on the Tony Awards.  Janinah was on the roster of principal artists at the Metropolitan Opera for eight consecutive seasons debuting as Bianca in La Rondine.

More recently Janinah was a member of the closing cast of Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, making appearances as “Carlotta Giudicelli” since 2016.

In February 2021, Burnett released her debut album, Love the Color of Your Butterfly, which features musical arrangements and collaborations with some of the world’s best jazz musicians. Released on her own record label Clazz Records, Love the Color of Your Butterfly is an amalgamation of jazz, opera, art song, oratorio, rhythm and blues, and spirituals and introduces her concept of “Clazz,” which encourages collaboration and redefines the parameters of genre while embracing parts of history that are erased, widely unknown and forgotten. Love the Color of Your Butterfly has been featured in numerous publications including the Financial Times, Playbill, Broadway World, Downbeat Magazine, and Opera News.

Soprano, researcher, and teacher Dr. Michaela Kelly is Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Previously, she taught as lecturer at Scripps College and Chapman University. Michaela was recently awarded a 2026 Faculty Research Grant from UNCG to support her upcoming album release of Windows: Five Songs of Love by Alan Louis Smith with the Navona Record Label. Upcoming engagements for 2026-2027: soprano soloist for the Brahms Requiem with Cumberland Choral Arts, soprano soloist with Raleigh Camerata, soloist for Vier Letzte Lieder by Strauss with the UNCG Symphony Orchestra, soloist with the Piedmont Wind Symphony saxophone ensemble, as well as recitals in California, Michigan, and throughout North Carolina. Michaela will also be the guest clinician for the 2026 Guilford County All County Treble Chorus.

A flexible and dynamic performer, Michaela has sung with the Los Angeles Opera Chorus and Los Angeles Master Chorale on their GRAMMY award winning album “Ortiz:Yanga.” She is an avid recitalist and passionate about art songs. Recently, Michaela performed as a fellow at the Cincinnati Fellowship of the Song and sang a mini-recital highlighting the benefits of cross training at the NATS National Conference. During her first year on faculty at UNCG, she sang as the soprano soloist with UNCG Chamber Singers in Schubert’s Mirjam’s Siegesgesang, as part of a vocal trio for UNCG’s annual Collage, as well as with the UNCG new music ensemble, Present, Continuous. Michaela was a recipient of the inaugural American Art Song Prize at SongFest where she performed a recital curated and coached by Libby Larsen, John Musto and Martha Guth. She has performed as a recitalist at Toronto Summer Music Festival, the Classical Music Institute, Source Song Festival and has appeared as a soloist with the UNCG Chamber Singers, Claremont Concert Orchestra, Thornton Wind Ensemble, I Cantori di Carmel, New England Conservatory Opera, and NEC Choirs and Orchestra.

Michaela was a recipient of the 2024 Emerging Leader Award from the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). Michaela currently serves as Co-Vice President of North Carolina NATS and previously served as Vice President of Programs for NATS – Los Angeles. Her article “The Composition of a Voice Lesson: How a Motor Learning Classification Framework Affects Teacher Effectiveness” was published in the May/June 2025 edition of the Journal of Singing. She has presented her research at the Pan-American Vocology Association Symposium, Mid-Atlantic Regional NATS Conference, North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference, Cal-Western NATS Conference, and NATS National Conference. This research will culminate in an upcoming online course with Embodied Music Lab titled “The Reflective Studio Music Teacher” which will be released in the spring of 2027.

Dr. Kelly holds a Bachelor’s of Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a Master’s of Music in Vocal Pedagogy from the New England Conservatory, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance from the University of Southern California.

Back to Program

UNCG Orchestras
The vibrant UNCG Orchestra program has long been recognized for performance excellence, adventurous programming, and high artistic standards. A diversity of offerings allow students the opportunity to perform repertoire for ensembles ranging from the largest cornerstone and contemporary works for full orchestra, to intimate pieces for chamber orchestra, to string orchestra.

Students in the UNCG Orchestra program are dedicated to the performance, study and cultivation of orchestral music of the highest quality. The UNCG Orchestras offer outstanding performances throughout the year and enhance the institutional spirit and community of UNCG. We seek to promote music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by supporting secondary school orchestra programs and other organizations through our outreach activities and other annual events on campus.

UNCG Orchestras

Back to Program

Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program
The Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program is a small, highly specialized program within the School of Music in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). The program offers a comprehensive curriculum in improvisation, arranging and composition, jazz history, theory, ear training, pedagogy, and piano skills, leading to a Bachelor of Music inPerformance with a concentration in Jazz Studies.

The program’s faculty are internationally recognized jazz artists and educators, providing students with exceptional mentorship and professional guidance. Through participation in several small jazz combos and two large jazz ensembles, students gain extensive performance experience and benefit from unique opportunities to study and perform alongside their faculty mentors.

Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program

Back to Program
