Season Archives

Black Bone

Jan. 13-Feb. 14, 2017 
(closed Jan. 16)

featuring the work of Brian Campbell, Angel Clark, Willis “Bing” Davis, Natasha Giles, Jared Owens, Kelly Phelps, Kyle Phelps, Bobby Scroggins, Bianca Spriggs, Kiptoo Tarus, Frank X Walker, Valeria Watson, and Lavon Van Williams

Black Bone is an exhibition of visual artists and poets sharing how those connected to Affrilachia tell the story of the United States through visual and written culture. Titled after the Affrilachian Poet’s first literary anthology released in January, this month-long exhibition showcases artists and poets from states touched by the Appalachians—notably Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina and Ohio. The term “Affrilachia” was originally coined by Frank X Walker and is, according to the Affrilachian Poets website, “an ever-evolving cultural landscape poised to render the invisible visible. Affrilachia embraces a multicultural influence, a spectrum of people who consider Appalachia home and/or identify strongly with the trials and triumphs of being of this region.”

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Enough to Swear By

Oct. 28-Dec. 4, 2016 
(closed Nov. 23-25)

featuring the work of EJ Brown, Diem Chau, Althea Crome, Donna Conlon, Thomas Doyle, Lorenzo M. Duran, Robert Haven, Dalton Ghetti, Allison May Kiphuth, Lorraine Loots, David Mohallatee, Bob Morehead, Heather Moreton, Slinkachu, Kate Sprengnether, Laura Stein, Ericka VanHorn and Lee-Anne Wessel.

This exhibition features mittens so tiny a grain of rice would fit in a finger, sculptures carved from pencil tips and horse bridles and saddles so small, a miniature pony would be too large to fit. “Enough to Swear By” features artists from around the world, and just down the street, who are working in small scale to large effect.

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American Mortal

Sept. 16-Oct. 14, 2016

featuring the work of Becky Alley and Melissa Vandenberg

Becky Alley and Melissa Vandenberg create works of commemoration set within the context of United States politics. With the fever pitch of presidential elections just weeks away, the two artists jump into the political fray with sincerity and satire as they try to untangle ideas of nostalgia, gender and the homeland.

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Dirt Poets: Conceptual Clay

March 1-30, 2016

featuring the work of Sharan Elran, Brian Harper, Ashley Lyon, Zoé Strecker, Tetsuya Yamada and others

The second in a pair of clay exhibitions, this show of conceptually oriented artwork contrasts the first exhibition titled “Works That Contain” (curated by Michael Frasca) of functional ceramic vessels. Rather than contain, the work sought for “Dirt Poets” challenges and expands the viewer’s ways of thinking and perceiving. The two exhibitions, although shown a year apart, explore the intersections of craft and art and celebrate work made with similar materials and techniques, but different purposes. “Dirt Poets: Conceptual Clay” is curated by Transylvania Professor of Art and sculptor Zoé Strecker, who is also participating in the exhibition.

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Inter/Active

Jan. 15-Feb. 19, 2016

featuring the work of Flâneuse, Endia Beal, and Kenya (Robinson)

Three artists contribute to America’s current discourse of race, identity and power by examining identities of blackness, whiteness and gender. The work in this exhibition asks: What does the “authentic self” mean? Where are the lines drawn between appropriation, caricature and performance? And how does the power of privilege operate? “INTER/ACTIVE” communication is an exchange of ideas where artist and viewer are active and can have an effect upon one another. And the art works in the show are literally interactive, encouraging gallery visitors to physically interact with the pieces in a dynamic, two-way flow of information.

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Swept up in Whispers

Nov. 2-Dec. 4, 2015

featuring the visual art and poetry of Alexandra Domínguez and Juan Carlos Mestre

Creative power couple Alexandra Domínguez and Juan Carlos Mestre present prints, artist books, and poetry in this special international exhibition. Mestre was named winner of Spain’s National Poetry Prize (2009), the National Award for Literacy Criticism (2012) and an honorable mention in the National Prize of Engraving (1999). Domínguez was awarded the Juan Ramón Jiménez Hispano-American Prize of Poetry (2000), the Rincón de la Victoria Prize of Poetry (2006) and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile exhibited a retrospective of her paintings and prints.

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Home and Field: Digital Explorations of Community

Sept. 11-Oct. 16, 2015

featuring the work of Michelle Jaffé  and Stevie Morrison

“Home and Field” offers two significant multi-media installations exploring ancestry, community, home, and the notion of the other. New Yorker Michelle Jaffé  displays “Wappen Field,” a group of futuristic silver helmets suspended from the ceiling. When stepping into the head gear, viewers find that each helmet is also a haunting sound installation. Nascent artist Stevie Morrison cleverly uses Google Maps to recreate 900 blocks in Lexington, Kentucky, allowing gallery visitors to take an extraordinary walk around town with an ordinary in-gallery video camera.

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