STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Interdisciplinary artist Sophia Louise Goodpasture will open the 2023-24 art exhibition season at Tarleton State University with Smooshed Too Mush, an imaginative look at sardine can packaging. 

The exhibition runs Aug. 21-Sept. 14 in the gallery of the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center in Stephenville. A free reception and artist talk are scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 6.

Goodpasture, a Granbury resident, has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally. Working primarily through observation, she mostly explores pattern through large-scale quilt studies. Her most recent series, Smooshed Too Mush, shifts from quilting patterns to the small-scale intricacies of sardine can illustrations.

“The exhibition ruminates on playful exterior packaging for tinned fish. The allure of the tin designs is the pull in the absence of any product,” she said. 

“Where the title alludes to a confined product, cloistered to the point of obsolescence, the bold colors on the designs and the atmosphere of lightness assert itself as the product’s successor. For a product whose primary function is preservation, these illustrations cheekily mock this objective, contending instead that gilded form is enough to sustain.”

Goodpasture received her BFA from Ohio Wesleyan University and MFA from the University of Kentucky. She is an art Assistant Professor in the Tarleton Department of Visual Arts and Design.

A founding member of The Texas A&M System, Tarleton State University is breaking records — in enrollment, research, scholarship, athletics, philanthropy and engagement — while transforming the lives of approximately 18,000 students in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Bryan and online. For 125 years, Tarleton State has been committed to accessible higher education opportunities for all while helping students grow academically, socially and professionally through programs that emphasize real world learning and address regional, state and national needs.