Specter, Meditations on Mentor and Student, and Wild Pigment Project, three new exhibitions opening this summer in the University Art Museum at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 22.

“Cara Despain: Specter,”on view in the UAM’s Contemporary Gallery, is an immersive multimedia exhibition featuring work by Miami-based artist Cara Despain. Using sculptural and video-based installations created with found objects and archival film from the 1940s-60s, Despain explores the irreversible environmental consequences and hidden psychological and microscopic health effects left in the wake of nuclear weapons development and testing across the Southwest.

“Agnes Martin & Karen Yank: Meditations on Mentor and Student” will be on display in the Bunny Conlon Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery. This exhibition explores the work and intersecting lives of the artists Agnes Martin and Karen Yank. For nearly 17 years, Yank and Martin met weekly as a friendship and mentorship flourished. Featured in this exhibition are a selection of Martin’s lithographs on vellum, whose complex and meditative grids are indicative of the renowned artist’s style which impacted upon Abstract expressionism, Minimalism, and Transcendentalism. Yank’s steel wall-based sculptures reference nature and convey abstract emotional content in minimalist/maximalist forms.

“Wild Pigment Project” curated by Wild Pigment Project’s founding director Tilke Elkins will be on display in the Mullennix Bridge Gallery. This group exhibition, which originated at form & concept gallery in Santa Fe, NM, features artists who actively integrate plant and mineral pigments, hand-gathered and prepared in local landscapes, into their studio practice. The project promotes ecological balance and regenerative economies through a passion for wild pigments, their places of origin, and their cultural histories.