Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. Bursts of color and a bright vibe of joy beckon inside the “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation” exhibition, newly installed at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. That same magnet pulled scores of visitors to Hu ll’s Kosciusko home for years — a home the self-taught artist embellished to the nth degree using the raw materials of found and donated objects, paint and glue. For Hull, who was born in 1942 and died in 2008, home and garden became her canvas, as did just about everything else within reach — fan blades, beads, buttons, jewelry, lighters, sneakers, tiny toys, bigger tools, television sets, spray bottles and more. Always more. Her home was simultaneously a studio, a gallery and an immersive art environment that was also packed with standalone pieces. “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation,” on view through June 14 at the Mississippi Museum of Art, is presented in partnership with the L.V. Hull Legacy Center and represents the first major museum exhibition devoted to Hull’s art and life. The Legacy Center, a project of the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko, includes Hull’s preserved home in a new visual arts campus scheduled to open in Kosciusko this June with a parallel exhibition and related programming.  Plaquettes in the “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation” exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art offer a close-up look at the creative detail Hull brought to her art. The magnifying glass she used is also on display. Credit: Sherry Lucas Hull’s home/studio was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2024, and became the first of a Black female visual artist to be recognized as nationally significant. The title of the Jackson exhibition stems from a saying of Hull’s, repeated in different works. “The whole quote is ‘Love is a sensation, started by a conversation, spread by the population and hurts like an operation,’” said guest co-curator Yaphet Smith, a friend of Hull’s, an Arts Foundation of Kosciusko board member and president of the Keysmith Foundation, steward of her historic home. Hull’s saying inspired, too, the title of Smith’s documentary, clips of which are included in the exhibition. The Mississippi Museum of Art hosts a premiere screening of his documentary “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation” April 9.  “Love was such a driving force in her practice of art,” Smith said. “That really came out as I recorded her … love of self, the love of her Creator, friends and family, neighbors, and then the strangers that used to come from around the world to visit with her.” The large photo of Hull on her front porch at the exhibition’s start puts her at ground zero of this colorful, creative explosion. Her polka-dot dress echoes the paint dot patterns that show up on shoes, pots, signs and more that surround her, for a near-intoxicating visual buzz. A display in the “L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation” exhibition shows the scope of everyday objects that Hull adorned and transformed in her creative practice. Credit: Sherry Lucas Inside, individual artworks, ephemera from Hull’s archives and video clips offer a chance to zoom in and appreciate the details. Curiosity and intrigue first drew exhibition co-curator Ryan Dennis to Hull’s work, and she hopes viewers experience the same pull toward a closer look. Annalise Smith, who works with the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko to preserve Hull’s home and legacy, is also part of the exhibition’s curatorial team. “What makes this show special for me personally,” Dennis said, “is that, if you encountered L.V.’s work in Kosciusko while she was living, you were surrounded — really immersed in this art environment. “What we have done here is take out these gems and allow for them to breathe a little bit, and you can spend some time with the paintings. You can really see what these words are on these paintings.  “You can see how she put together these assemblages, these plaquettes,” Dennis said. She hopes it sparks people’s own creativity to create art from things so close within reach. Hull merged artmaking and hospitality in her practice, welcoming neighbors and visitors to the 900-square-foot home she purchased in 1974 and transformed over decades with her unique creative vision. “Coming into her truest artist self, she wanted to share that with the world,” Dennis said. “The invitation is just so beautiful, and it’s nice to also be able to extend that here.” In Hull’s hands, a tabletop Christmas tree base provides the structure for a tabletop bottle tree packed with small, gaily painted glass and plastic bottles. No need for Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots to fight for attention, when Hull’s painterly touch adds so much vibrant visual action to the toy. L.V. Hull’s tabletop bottle tree, made with acrylic paint, plastic and glass bottles. Credit: Estate of L.V. Hull Zooming in on her plaquettes becomes a journey of discovery — a tiny toy or perhaps a Santa face amid the buttons, costume jewelry bits and other charms. Hull leads viewers through her B.B. King plaquette in a video clip, pointing out the gas pump, sunglasses and guitar that connect to the blues icon and fellow Mississippi artist. An archive tableau offers a further peek into the perspective and outlook of this self-proclaimed “Unusual Artist,” with a paint-flecked sheet of notebook paper and its handwritten list of “wisdom drops,” as Dennis called them. “A smile is the most important to wear” reads No. 6 on the list. “My hope is that people get a sense of the personality of L.V.,” Dennis said. “She’s obviously joyful, but she’s obviously also a pistol of sorts. She’s witty. And at the end of it, she’s fueled with love and creativity, and we want people to take that away.”  The exhibition’s concurrent run with “Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground” at the museum enhances the impact with intriguing parallels in the two one-woman shows centered on Mississippi artists.  Both highlight artists deeply connected to place, community and national contemporary art trends. “They’re from different communities, and yet the community is really what informs the work,” said Betsy Bradley, Laurie Hearin McRee director of the Mississippi Museum of Art. Fussell uses items donated by friends, family and fellow townsfolk in Water Valley. “L.V. Hull started making art when she was able to buy her own house. So, her art was decorating her house — painting on her house, adorning her house, creating beauty on every object in her house. Some people also in the community would drop off beads or buttons or whatever for her to use,” Bradley said.  “It’s this connection and relationship between members of the community and creativity and making art, I think, that really ties them together. “It really speaks to this need to create beauty and art out of everyday objects … this generous impulse that they both had to create and share with the community.” Visit msmususem.org for details on admission, hours and related events. ...read more read less