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). Born in McAdams, Mississippi, Hull merged artmaking and the Southern art of “visiting” to craft a creative practice that allowed her to commune with her inner spirit, her Creator, her community, and visitors from around the state, region, and world. Using found objects and paint and glue from Walmart, Hull produced a vibrant, immersive, and evolving art environment at her home of 34 years in the small town of Kosciusko, Mississippi. She adorned every surface and corner of her house, front porch, and garden with carefully arranged assemblages of everyday objects and signs, often painted with her signature dot pattern.

Love Is a Sensation will celebrate Hull’s legacy through selections from her vast creative output, documentation of her home/studio environment, ephemera from her personal archive, and layered installations of her work. This exhibition is presented in partnership with the L.V. Hull Legacy Center, a project of the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko in Kosciusko, Mississippi, which will present a parallel exhibition and related programming concurrently with Love Is a Sensation.

Black, female, and self-taught, L.V. Hull represents a long tradition of rural Mississippi artists who work outside the mainstream artworld and who have been historically marginalized, resulting in an incomplete account of American creativity and art history. Love Is a Sensation will contextualize Hull as an important Mississippi artist who was deeply rooted in community, but also a creator engaged in the significant global tradition of placemaking.

Love Is a Sensation will coincide with the Mississippi premiere of a documentary film of the same name by Hull’s friend, Yaphet Smith, who is also a core member of the team developing the L.V. Hull Legacy Center. The film offers an affectionate home movie portrait of Hull that complements the exhibition’s presentation of her work.

L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation is presented with support from Teiger Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Feild Co-Operative Association, Mississippi Humanities Council, Visit Mississippi, and Visit Jackson. 

About the L.V. Hull Legacy Center
Opening March 2026, the L.V. Hull Legacy Center will be a new visual arts campus in Kosciusko that includes L.V. Hull’s preserved home, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2024. Hull’s home is the first home of a Black female visual artist to be included on the Register at the level of National Significance. Visitors to L.V. Hull: Love is a Sensation are encouraged to visit a corresponding exhibition at the Legacy Center that will focus on Hull’s relationship to place, as well as the many people who united to support her during her lifetime and to preserve her legacy following her death in 2008. The Legacy Center provides additional opportunities for visitors to learn more about the full spectrum of Hull’s practice, including her place in the rich cultural history of Kosciusko, which is the birthplace of both civil rights activist James Meredith and cultural icon Oprah Winfrey.

About the Curators

Ryan N. Dennis is Co-Director and Chief Curator at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), where she has led major projects including Theaster Gates’s acclaimed The Gift and The Renege and the community-focused Rebirth in Action with Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy. Formerly Curator at the Mississippi Museum of Art, she organized notable exhibitions such as Leonardo Drew: City in the Garden, Betye Saar: Call & Response, and the nationally celebrated A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration. She also co-curated the 2021 Texas Biennial and previously served as Curator and Programs Director at Project Row Houses in Houston, collaborating with over 100 BIPOC artists and launching innovative residency and public art programs. Dennis holds a master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute and is widely published, lecturing and teaching on contemporary art and community-based practices nationwide.

Annalise Flynn is an independent curator and arts administrator based in Sheboygan, Wis. Her current clients include the Kohler Foundation, for whom she manages SPACES Archives–Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments, the world’s largest repository of archival documentation related to artist-built environments; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she teaches “Better Homes & Gardens,” a survey dedicated to artist-built environments; and the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko and the Keysmith Foundation, with whom she is working oh the preservation of the artist L.V. Hull’s home and legacy. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and a master’s degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Art History, Theory, and Criticism.

Yaphet Smith is a screenwriter, lawyer, and documentary filmmaker based in Austin, Texas. He is dedicated to enriching life through story, with an emphasis on stories that reflect Black people’s full humanity. He is currently exploring the power of storytelling through the preservation and activation of the legacy of artist L.V. Hull. To this end, he serves as the liaison with Ms. Hull’s estate, President of the Keysmith Foundation (the steward of her historic home), and Vice President of Curation for the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko, which is developing the L.V. Hull Legacy Center on Hull’s street. Smith is also the director of the forthcoming documentary, Love Is a Sensation, an affectionate one-hour home movie portrait of Hull and her quest to present a cherished work of art to blues legend B.B. King.