Three innovative exhibitions featuring works by contemporary artists are on display at Sheldon Museum of Art.

“Uncommon Likeness: Identity in Flux” brings together major paintings, photographs, and sculptural works by a diverse group of international artists, exploring the complex relationship between identity and the politics, struggles, and pleasures of the body.

“Lago” is the first museum exhibition of a series of color photographs made by Oregon-based artist Ron Jude, who returns to the California-desert landscape of his childhood in search of clues to his own identity.

In “ChimaTEK: Kaleidoscopic Camouflage,” multimedia artist Saya Woolfalk responds to a work by Alma Thomas in the museum’s collection, creating a new, site-specific chapter in a decade-long fictional utopian narrative.

“The artists included in these exhibitions pose compelling questions for themselves as well as the viewer on the how identity can be defined, negotiated, reimagined, and revealed,” said Wally Mason, Sheldon’s director and chief curator. “The body and extensions of self continue to provide fertile ground for meaningful inquiry and critique.”

All three exhibitions will be on display through Dec. 31.

“Uncommon Likeness: Identity in Flux” is drawn from the museum’s holdings and prominent private collections.

The exhibition includes works by Carlos Alfonzo, Nick Cave, Enrique Chagoya, Anita Dube, Philip Guston, iROZEALb, Kyle Meyer, Richard Mosse, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Heidi Schwegler, Cindy Sherman, Shine Shivan, Yinka Shonibare, Laurie Simmons, Do Hoh Suh, and Kehinde Wiley.

Chagoya will present a lecture related to his painting “Le Cannibale Moderniste,” which is part of the “Uncommon Likeness” exhibition, at 6 p.m. Oct. 27 at the museum. The talk, “Mindful Savage Guide to Reverse Modernism,” is free and open to the public. It will also be available live online.

In “Lago,” Jude attempts to reconcile the vagaries of memory with a human need to generate narratives based on lived experiences. The exhibition features a series of recent color photos of the desert near California’s Salton Sea, which is where Jude spent part of his childhood.

Jude will discuss his images in a free lecture, “Those are Not Mountains You See,” at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 11 in the museum. It will also be broadcast live online.

In “ChimaTEK: Kaleidoscopic Camouflage,” Woolfalk, a Brooklyn-based artist, has spent a decade creating a fictional utopian universe that blends cultural anthropology and science fiction to examine issues of identity, ethnicity, gender and culture. The exhibition adds to Woolfalk’s ongoing artistic narrative that includes a response to the Sheldon’s painting, “Winter Pool” by Alma Thomas.

For more information on Sheldon exhibitions and events, click here.