July 3-31, 2026
Smith House Galleries
311 South Main St | Harrisonburg, VA
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, July 3, 5-7 pm
Visit Monday-Friday (11 am-4 pm)
& Second Saturday, July 11 (10 am-2 pm)
Margins of Her Own
by Feixue Mei
Feixue Mei is a designer, researcher, and transmedia artist whose work investigates the intersections of visual culture, identity construction, and contemporary myth-making. Her practice explores how graphic narrative can serve as a site of cultural inquiry, navigating the tensions between inherited social roles and personal agency. As the founder of Boundless Bound Publishing, she often extends her visual narratives into experimental print forms to examine the materiality of storytelling. Mei is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at James Madison University and holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has exhibited globally, with notable presentations at the Fanny Fox Decker Gallery at Maryland Institute College of Art, Palazzo Bembo in Italy, and Nanyang Technological University Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore. Her works are held in the collections of the Rhode Island School of Design and Printed Matter.
Margins of Her Own is a visual inquiry into the tension between the desire for transcendence and the persistent weight of fate. This exhibition manifests a contemporary mythos—a realm where the ethereal longing for freedom collides with the gravity of cultural predestination, bridging the echoes of ancient folklore with the digital fragments of contemporary fandom.
The work unfolds across diverse scales of materiality, extending from expansive visual narratives into the tactile complexities of an unfolding, layered world. These works examine how identity is constructed within the overlapping spaces of cultural heritage and virtual communities. Through the lenses of gender performativity, this collection investigates how women both embody and resist the conflicting roles imposed upon them—navigating between historical archetypes and the hyper-mediated spectacles of the digital age. These roles are simultaneously the wings of ascension and the chains of entrapment. It is a fever dream where myth and reality intersect, capturing the volatile fluidity of an individual seeking narrative agency at the margins of collective memory, shared online fantasies, and social expectation.
Artful Escapades
by Mary Rouse
Mary Jane Lawhorne Rouse – born in Lexington, raised in Shenandoah, and now living near Harrisonburg, VA – has spent much of her life making artwork in and appreciating the Shenandoah Valley. Her formal education includes degrees from Radford University and James Madison University. Further studies in art have included classes at JMU, Beverley School of Art, Purdue University, and the University of New Mexico. More recently, she has enjoyed Zoom classes and workshops. She has served as a board member of Artisans Association of Virginia and Arts Council of the Valley.
With oil painting as her primary artistic focus, Rouse enjoys both experimentation and formal instruction as she discovers innovative methods for utilizing both traditional and alternative tools to manipulate paints, mediums, and found objects, integrating them into her artistic practice.
Her approach to artmaking is rooted in curiosity and a deep respect for the transformative qualities of paint and mixed media. Each piece emerges from a blend of memory and imagination, often inspired by the landscapes, colors, and textures of Virginia. Rouse’s works reveal a lifelong dialogue between formal study and playful exploration. She believes art is not just a finished object but a process of discovery – a journey that continues to unfold through every brushstroke, collage, and creative experiment. Whether she is layering vibrant pigments or repurposing everyday materials, her goal is to evoke emotion and invite viewers into new perspectives. With each painting or assemblage, she hopes to celebrate both the beauty of tradition and the excitement of innovation.
Smith House Galleries
July Exhibition Sponsor
