locative collage; archival giclée print; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Emily Denlinger: Gain of Function: New Mutations
at the Art Gallery at Jefferson College in Hillsboro, Missouri, USA
4 November 2025-29 January 2026
Emily Denlinger’s collage artwork explores the human condition: issues of identity, survival, truth, and power. In this installation, Denlinger shares a selection of artwork created over the past four years that has been part of the evolving “Gain of Function: New Mutations” series. “Gain of Function: New Mutations” is an ongoing project, started in 2020. The work is created in response to research surrounding the intersections of power dynamics, military industrial complex, community & identity, ecology, simulations, mutations, and surrealism. “Gain of Function: New Mutations” tries to digest the most dystopian aspects of contemporary life and offer the viewer a path to understanding the complex forces that shape our present day and future.
locative collage; archival giclée print; 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
In recent “New Mutations/Old Traditions” work, Denlinger considers how different people and communities remained resilient through the recent pandemic and global events. How do we retain and grow hope? How do the people we surround ourselves with help facilitate that in our lives? Communities all over the world perform costumed rituals to ward off evil and welcome positive energies into their lives, often around the new year. These events and folk traditions build community resilience. Created from fashion magazines and vintage National Geographic, these magazines are sources of visual information that is known to be biased and not a reflection of reality for many people. Denlinger works to subvert the imagery into something more universal referencing contemporary society, human interactions, and attempts to understand and control the world around us.
Based in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA, Emily Denlinger is a Professor of Digital Arts and Photography at Southeast Missouri State University. The artist presented this series at Kolaj Fest New Orleans 2025 and excerpts are being published in a zine in December 2025.
(text adapted from material provided by the artist)
INFORMATION
Art Gallery
Administration Building
Jefferson College
1000 Viking Drive
Hillsboro, Missouri 63050 USA
(686) 481-3000
Hours:
Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM