Season Archives

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.

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.

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.

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.

May 1- 15, 2015 

Art majors and non-art majors alike contribute work in a wide variety of media to this joyful exploration of creativity. 

Curated by Michael Frasca

Mar. 2 – Mar. 27, 2015
(By appointment only the week of Mar. 9)

“Functional” is an exhibition of nationally recognized ceramic artists who earn their livings by creating vessels for everyday use and pleasure. The works contain the “things of life” and are an exploration of form, surface and the space within.  The artists use a broad range of techniques for making, glazing and firing.  

Featuring Libby Rowe 

Jan. 14 – Feb. 21, 2015

Texas artist Libby Rowe deconstructs notions of home, house, and neighborhood in this one-person exhibition that features photography and sculpture. In three major works, Inside/Out, (sub)Division, and Dwell, Rowe cleverly casts a fresh gaze on the façade-like quality of the American home, questions the success of the urban subdivision, and considers the philosophical meaning of  “dwellings.”

Oct. 29 – Dec. 2, 2014
(Closed Nov. 26-28 for Thanksgiving)

Photographer Maxine Payne has been working with anthropologist Anne Goldberg on the Rural Women and Globalization Project since 2006. They have documented the lives of rural women using oral history and photography in five sites: San Luis, Costa Rica; Bagamoyo, Tanzania; Vinh Linh, Vietnam; Douglas, Arizona, and Agua Prieta, Sonora, on the United States-Mexico border; and rural Arkansas. BONUS! Rural Women was inspired by Payne’s discovery of the work of Depression-era photographers John and Mancy Massengill, whose original work is on view at Institute 193 from Oct. 2 – Nov. 15. 

featuring BRRR, Coupe, Dronex, and Left-Handed Wave 

Sept. 12 – Oct. 17, 2014
(Closed Oct. 13,14 for fall break)

Five of Kentucky’s most celebrated graffiti and street artists exhibit writing, tags, illustrations, and more. Street Tested is an entré into the flourishing subculture of graffiti artists; learn more about this form of urban art, the vocabulary, and the far-reaching influence of Kentucky’s graffiti artists. Curated by Lexington’s Dronex, Street Tested coincides with the PRHBTN’s latest installation of Lexington murals by world-renown street artists, including Bastardilla, ROA, How & Nosm, and more.