The McDonough Museum of Arts’ winter exhibition will include shows by five artists.

“Julia Betts: The Dams Are Broken,” “Anna Chapman: Underworld / Otherworld,” “Abby Cipar: Sometime, Somehow, For You,” “Will Hutnick: Queer Horizons” and “Sidney Mullis: Caught Skies & Pillowed Pines (Black Forest)” all open on Tuesday and will be on display through Feb. 28 at the Youngstown State University-affiliated museum.

McDonough Director Claudia Berlinski said there’s no common link through the different shows.

“We are thinking of these as individual solo exhibitions,” she said. “I just look at the work and try to pick work that will read well from one gallery to the next, not that they’re interacting, but when you walk from one to next, you can say, ‘Oh, these work well together visually.'”

Berlinski became aware of the artists in a variety of ways. One she first saw on Instagram. Another’s work was seen at other exhibitions in the region. A couple of the artists submitted proposals.

Mullis was recommended by another Pittsburgh artist who exhibited at YSU’s Judith Rae Solomon Gallery.

“I love that she creates these little worlds, and they’re sort of fantastical and whimsical,” Berlinski said of Mullis’s work. “The sculptural individual pieces almost have an animated, alien quality about them, and then it works together nicely in what she refers to as a forest.”

Mullis is a sculptor whose work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and has been featured in several art periodicals.

Hutnick is the director of artistic programming at the Wassaic Project in New York and has had numerous solo exhibitions nationwide.

What struck Berlinski about his work was the texture he is able to create using oils and pastels that give his work a textural quality.

“Just how vibrant and active they were, yet very organized and just really visually interesting,” she said.

Cipar, a University of Akron art graduate with a master’s degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, is the McDonough Emerging Artist for 2025.

Cipar’s three-dimensional fabric sculptures photograph well, Berlinski said, but they need to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.

“The form of them are very much like growths or tumors, but when you see them in person, they’re shiny and sparkly, and they have these flowers and beads,” she said. “They’re ugly but beautiful creatures.”

Chapman earned her bachelor’s degree in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and a master’s degree in art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her “Underworld / Otherworld” focuses on death and grieving.

“She had come to me before and showed me her portfolio,” Berlinski said. “She was younger and was just out of undergraduate school. She sent a proposal very recently, and the work is so much more mature and really interesting.”

Betts is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University whose work has been exhibited nationally. “The Dams are Broken” explores the human body as a fragile vessel yearning to break through boundaries and let its identity come forward.

“Julia Betts’ work, I think, is very unusual, her technique as well as the way it looks,” Berlinski said. “She installs her work at different heights on the wall, and there are these clusters of people with things that you can maybe assume are their belongings. ‘The Dams Are Broken’ is the title, and it’s almost like they are tumbling out of water, even though there is not water imagery present.”

Instead of an opening reception, a closing reception is planned from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 28. Berlinski decided to try something different after January exhibitions in recent years have been plagued by frigid and / or snowy weather.

All five artists also will give lectures at the McDonough while their work is on display.

“Since we’re part of the university, students have questions about technique and about thematic concepts and things like that,” Berlinski said. “I think it’s also always interesting for the students to see the progression of the artists’ careers, which they sometimes talk about. I think it’s a very important component for our student body and for the community. Then what we’ve been doing is opening the galleries so that people could go back in and see the work again, or see it for the first time that evening after the lectures and/or ask specific questions of the artist while they’re in the body of work.”

If you go …

WHAT: “Julia Betts: The Dams Are Broken,” “Anna Chapman: Underworld / Otherworld,” “Abby Cipar: Sometime, Somehow, For You,” “Will Hutnick: Queer Horizons” and “Sidney Mullis: Caught Skies & Pillowed Pines (Black Forest)”

WHEN: Tuesday through Feb. 28 with closing reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 28. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

WHERE: McDonough Museum of Art, 525 Wick Ave., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: Admission is free. For more information, go to ysu.edu/mcdonough-museum or call 330-941-1371.

ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING: Each of the artists will give a lecture at the McDonough during the run of the exhibitions. All of the lectures are free and open to the public. The schedule is: Anna Chapman, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday; Julia Betts, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 5; Abby Cipar, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 12; Sidney Mullis, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 20; and Will Hutnick, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 27.