Morgan Lehman Gallery is pleased to present Terra firma, a group exhibition featuring artworks from Boston University’s MFA Painting 2026 graduating cohort.

This exhibition brings together nine artists whose work reflect the intense study, shared dialogue, and furious making of the last two years. What has emerged are frameworks through which these artists see what painting can hold. Terra firma is a Latin term that means “solid ground.” The exhibition takes its title from the idea that painting, as both material and shared discursive space, offers a terrain that can be explored by both artist and viewer alike.

Through their practices, these artists articulate distinct yet interconnected approaches to painting. Raquel Philippe, Anna Pugh, Alessandra Pozzuoli, and Young one (Hayoung Cheon) engage the mutable qualities of memory. In their work, time becomes both content and material. Gesture and texture trace layers of lived experience.

Working between perception and invention, Steven Baldino, Scout Curtin, Samantha Hayslett, Kasey Ott, and Leah Nashel treat observation as a starting point, then filter what is seen through processes of distortion and translation. These painted realities occupy a new mediated space where inner logic collides with external forces.

Terra firma marks an auspicious moment for this cohort and as a debut, offering a singular statement grounded in the belief that painting is vital. The cohort’s diversity of approaches results in a field of practices that reflect the expansiveness of painting now.