L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation

Client: Mississippi Museum of Art

Exhibition on view March 20–June 14, 2026

L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation is the first major museum exhibition devoted to the art and life of the self-proclaimed “Unusual Artist” Ms. L.V. Hull (1942–2008). Using found objects and paint and glue from Walmart, she produced a vibrant, immersive, and evolving art environment at her home of 34 years in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Black, female, and self-taught, L.V. Hull represents a long tradition of rural artists who work outside the mainstream art world and who have been historically marginalized. This exhibition contextualizes Hull as an important Mississippi artist who was deeply rooted in community, while also a creator engaged in the significant global tradition of placemaking.

Love Is a Sensation presents six thematic tableaux: her studio (arm chair + TV tray); her yard and its evolution; archival materials such as photos, art supplies, and guestbooks; plaquettes (assemblages); her dedication to love and her admiration of B.B. King; and an arrangement of an array of her work that evokes the interior of her home. These areas offer glimpses inside Hull’s world with colors that reference her porch, the paneling in her home, and the intensity of love and the blues. The artist’s presence is conveyed through a life-sized photomural of Hull that welcomes visitors, short videos in which she speaks about her work in her home, and pull quotes featuring her words.