Media Credit: Emily Hughes/ NT Daily Stephanie Green, TWU student, looks at artwork by Roma Misra last week at the TWU Student Center Gallery. [Click to enlarge]

"As I sat on the floor in front of my canvases, this experience of strangers connecting on a deep level without saying a word to each other stayed in the back of my mind. I was also thinking about the nature of things. How the cells in our bodies are programmed to work a certain way and despite disease, will continue to replicate in every human being that is yet to come. How the stars will remain in the sky, despite black holes and meteorites. How, despite human nature, certain relationships will continue to survive."

Roma Misra, from an artist statement for "Frozen Kinetic."

Thirteen years ago, Roma Misra repeated a prayer of healing called Mrityunjayam. As 50 voices recited the mantra in unison, Misra says she felt commonality merge the souls in the room into one. The memory of that day inspired her to meditate upon the sameness of humanity's makeup.

For her second installation as a Texas Woman's University painting graduate student, Misra has created a celebration of humanity's innate connections with the concepts of "Frozen Kinetic," five mixed-media works on canvases that are 4 feet by 9 feet.

"A seed becomes a tree, and a cell is really the building block of everything in this world," Misra said. "That's the relationship that I'm looking at."

Her vibrant "Take a Deep Breath" includes a curious organelle-like sculpture of plaster and yarn at its base. Three untitled paintings layer texture and shape to pay homage to life's inner design.

But the most self-defining piece of the show involves onlookers in its very makeup. "Critical Mass" is hung next to pages of adhesive opaque dots, available for passers-by to place on the acrylic and plaster painting at their will. Subtly shaped x's, smiley faces and flowers have begun to arrange themselves on the piece, probably started by the 14 students from Barbara Gordon Montessori school who took a field trip Monday to see the exhibit.

"The show was really about connection and about how one small block is very much part of the design that we have that makes up the world," Misra said. "That was one of the core ideas, to do it in a very simple way, nothing very complex. There's nothing more uncomplicated or comfortable than stickers."

The artist's exhibit is free and open to the public. It will be on display on the first floor of TWU's Student Center until Oct. 14.

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