Join us at Temporary Monument ATL/LEX for live music by Chlorine (2:00 PM) and John Haywood (3:30 PM).

Sunday, April 26 | 2:00-5:00 PM | 325 West Main Street, 2nd floor

This program is part of Temporary Monument ATL/LEX, a pop-up exhibition that brings together artists from Atlanta and Lexington. Organized by the Temporary Art Center in collaboration with 2nd Story and the UK Art Museum, in addition to cultural producers Daniel Freed and Katherine St. Paul Hill, and real estate developer Katie Kaufman, with support from VisitLex.

About the Musicians:

For a decade Chlorine (@chlorine_ky) has been the sound diary of Joseph Mangum, pulling threads of post-punk, minimalism, industrial, folk music, ambient and tape music. Based out of central KY Chlorine has made over a dozen releases. In the current configuration, Joseph is joined by Adam Drury (drums and sax) and Jaimie Adkins (guitar).

In Letcher County, KY, John Haywoodis a tattooer (Parlor Room Art and Tattoo), painter, and musician. He performed banjo on the Grammy nominated Tyler Childers album “Long Violent History”; contributed vocals and banjo to Childers’ version of “Two Coats”; and performed with Childers at Radio City Music Hall, Bonaroo, and Red Rocks Amphitheater. Haywood has released a solo banjo cd of old-time east Kentucky songs, and albums with his rock band Appalachiatari, and his punk band L.I.P.S. He was apprentice to banjo master/historian George Gibson, a member of the late Lee Sexton’s band, and a member of Rich n the Po’ Folk.

Join us at Temporary Monument for a performance by Clovers, music by DJ Mimi and Octomedusa, and a Cash bar by Burl Brew. $15 entry fee (pay at the door). 

Saturday, April 25 | 8:30 to 11:30 PM | 325 W Main Street, 2nd Floor

This program is part of Temporary Monument ATL/LEX, a pop-up exhibition that brings together artists from Atlanta and Lexington. Organized by the Temporary Art Center in collaboration with 2nd Story and the UK Art Museum, in addition to cultural producers Daniel Freed and Katherine St. Paul Hill, and real estate developer Katie Kaufman, with support from VisitLex. 

About the Performers

Bringing backwoods boogie to the dance floor, Clovers is a pop star, party starter, and performance artist. In collaboration with her producer, DJ, and bodyguard, DJ/Body, she creates infectious earworms and undeniable bangers sure to make you want to move. A Clovers show is always an experience—but what exactly can you expect? Better not tell you now.

DJ Mimi aka @t0rp1e will be playing a set inspired by Clovers music: “I love adapting to environments/ people around me and adding my own contributions to the vibe as well. I love music, and dancing so much and do my best to spread that joy unto others.”

@octomedusa- Grooves are guaranteed. Prepare to dance.

Join Lexington artists for a panel discussion about the history of pop-up exhibitions and artist initiatives in our city. Participants include Becky Alley, Kurt Gohde, Rae Goodwin, Georgia Henkel, and Bob Morgan; moderated by Rachel Hooper.

Saturday, April 25 | 3:00-4:30 PM | 325 West Main Street, 2nd floor

This program is part of Temporary Monument ATL/LEX, a pop-up exhibition that brings together artists from Atlanta and Lexington. Organized by the Temporary Art Center in collaboration with 2nd Story and the UK Art Museum, in addition to cultural producers Daniel Freed and Katherine St. Paul Hill, and real estate developer Katie Kaufman, with support from VisitLex.

About the Panelists:

Becky Alley is a Senior Lecturer in Curatorial Studies and the Gallery Director of the Bolivar Art Gallery at the School of Art & Visual Studies (SAVS) at the University of Kentucky. Her artmaking practice in sculpture and installation is process and materials focused, often examining aspects of ritual, memory, and decay. In 2024, along with curator Samantha Simpson, she established Muse Collective/ blink projects, which develops exhibitions in non-art spaces—a rented truck, garage, and outdoor pod.

Kurt Gohde is a Transylvania University art professor known for his collaborative and community-focused projects. Working with Kremena Todorova, he created the “Unlearn Fear + Hate” and “Lexington Tattoo Project,” both utilizing language, photography, and numerous participants to address issues of identity, place, and social issues. His most recent art action took place on February 28, when Gohde orchestrated the recreation of a historic “meat shower”  in association with the Kentucky Meat Shower Festival in Owingsville.

Rae Goodwin is Professor of Art Studio in the School of Art & Visual Studies (SAVS) at the University of Kentucky. Her interdisciplinary work includes, performance, mixed-media sculpture, and drawing; and she has exhibited widely and performed at/with the Queens Museum, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, McColl Center for Visual Art, La Pocha Nostra, and Dimanche Rouge, among others. In 2024, she created the performance space, Portal, in the basement and backyard of her home in Lexington.

Georgia Henkel is a mixed-media artist whose work explores human and animal figures and issues of time, mortality, and the grotesque. She often utilizes significant personal objects from her extensive collection of taxidermy, bones, clothing, dolls, etc. Henkel was a beloved art teacher at the Sayre School for decades and has been an active participant in numerous Lexington art projects as well as educational initiatives in Havana and Baracoa, Cuba.

Bob Morgan is an acclaimed Lexington artist whose assemblage sculptures, photographs, and installations often commemorate people he has known and cared for. In 2014, along with Jonathan Coleman, he co-founded the Faulkner Morgan Archive, an organization that preserves Kentucky’s LGBTQ+ history. Morgan was the driving force behind Galerie Soleil, a visual arts studio and exhibition space that operated between 1994-2009. It was in the building on Short Street that currently houses the Mama Tequila Restaurant.

Rachel Hooper is a Lexington native and the Curator of the University of Kentucky Art Museum. She was Associate Curator and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fellow at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston from 2007-2011; and was a Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from 2006-2007. From 2018-2024, she taught courses on modern and contemporary art at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA.

Join us to celebrate the opening of SURFACE TENSION, an exhibition that brings together works by Jana Cariddi, Carlos Rosales-Silva, Trish Tillman, and Ben Tollefson, four artists who approach the surface of their work as an active site where play and experimentation give way to deeper social and psychological inquiry. Whether activating formal qualities like texture, finish, and color or mobilizing the narrative potential of illusion and artifice, these artists engage both the material and conceptual dimensions of "surface," locating meaning in the tension between what is seen and what lies beneath.

6:00 to 7:00 PM: Artists Jana Cariddi, Carlos Rosales-Silva, and Ben Tollefson in conversation.

Reception with light refreshments to follow.

Join us in celebrating the culminating exhibition for the 2025-6 cycle of Bridge Work! Artists from Lexington, KY; Madison, WI; and Milwaukee, WI will all be in attendance and eager to answer questions about their work and the program.

*** The exhibition and reception are at the Lexington Art League’s Loudoun House (209 Castlewood Drive) ***

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This exhibition brings together new work by artists participating in the 2025–26 cycle of Bridge Work, a multi-city professional development program for emerging artists. Designed to help participants establish a sustained studio practice, sharpen artistic vision, and cultivate networks of support, Bridge Work empowers artists to situate themselves within the broader arts ecosystem while contributing to their local creative communities and beyond.

Now active in three cities, Bridge Work is hosted by the Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin; Plum Blossom Initiative in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and 2nd Story in Lexington, Kentucky. Through mentorship, studio visits, workshops, and exhibitions, the program creates opportunities for connection and exchange—between artists, across geographies, and with the publics their work engages. Celebrating the commitment and momentum of the current cohort, In/Form features recent work by Madison Boeder, Nomka Enkhee, and Madison Winters (Milwaukee); Jason Kash and Morgan Hardigree (Lexington); and Chele Ramos and Maria Schirmer Devitt (Madison). Spanning a wide range of mediums and approaches, these artists reflect a diversity of perspectives shaped by distinct backgrounds and evolving practices.

Join us on March 28 from 1:30–3:00 PM for World Building with Gwenda Bond, a creative writing workshop led by New York Times bestselling author Gwenda Bond. Inspired by Meg Mitchell’s exhibition A FRAGILE UNFOLDING, this interactive session explores the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting to support a fictional story. Participants will be given exercises and prompts to help develop their own narrative environment. Writers of all levels are welcome to take part in this hands-on workshop.

Gwenda Bond is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the first official Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds, the Lois Lane YA series, and the romantic comedies Not Your Average Hot Guy, The Date from Hell, and Mr. & Mrs. Witch. Her most recent novel is a magical art heist book, The Frame-Up. She has a number of forthcoming projects. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Locus Magazine, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She co-founded and chairs the nonprofit Lexington Writer’s Room, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with a veritable zoo of adorable doggos and queenly cats. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or sign up for her Substack newsletter at gwendabond.substack.com.

Meg Mitchell's A Fragile Unfolding exhibition centers around an interactive virtual environment displayed on a curved widescreen monitor, controlled with an Xbox gamepad. As videogames continue to become more culturally pervasive and the tools to make them employed to increasingly disparate ends, the age-old question about whether videogames are art has taken a backseat to artists like Mitchell simply working in, around, or vaguely next to games – no label required. This talk will focus on situating Mitchell's A Fragile Unfolding within the larger spectrum of videogames and art-that-can-be-understood-as-having-something-to-do-with-games. 

Dan Solberg is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator and freelance writer/designer living in Lexington, KY. He's interested in the ways videogames and games-adjacent projects blend arts and technology into wildly divergent outcomes. Dan currently works as Curator of Education at the UK Art Museum, devising and leading interpretive programs and organizing education-forward exhibitions. He previously worked as an educator at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC and also served as lead editor and designer of DED LED, a compilation of videogame criticism originally published between 2013-2016. Dan holds a studio art MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis.

Bridge Work artists Morgan Hardigree and Jason Kash each discuss the work they created for GNATLAND, their 2-person exhibition that explores transformation as both a personal and material process.  A joint Q+A will take place following their respective talks.

Bridge Work is a 9-month program professional development program for emerging artists. During the past several months, the artists have been working at studios provided by the Lexington Art League, our partner in this program since 2024. They regularly meet with arts professionals to receive feedback and develop their ideas and the specific artworks on view in their exhibition at 2nd Story.

ARTIST BIOS:

Morgan Hardigree is a Lexington, Kentucky-based interdisciplinary artist working in color pencil, printmaking, jewelry-making, and assemblage. Completing her BA in Art History and Studio Art at Transylvania University in May of 2025, she loves the surreal and uses memories, her own poems, movies, and found objects as inspiration for her practice that centers trans-femininity and queerness. Her writing and art has been published in both the Rambler and the Transylvanian, and she presented her art historical research at SECAC’s 2024 conference. Hardigree has participated in group shows in Transylvania University’s Morlan Gallery, the Shearer Student Gallery, and LexArts along with staging and curating her recent solo show Centipede Circling the Sun.

Jason Kash is a visual artist based in Lexington, Kentucky, where he received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Kentucky. For Jason, art has the unique power to transform thought into a bodily experience, communicating on a more fundamental level than language. Through his assemblage process, his work discusses themes of growth, transformation, and decay and their connection to human and nonhuman realms. While he is an active maker, Jason is also a firm believer in the power of art to create community, shaped by his experiences in metal casting and public sculpture. 

***DOORS OPEN AT 5:30 P.M.

6:00 to 7:00 P.M. ARTIST TALK

Meg Mitchell discusses her artistic practice and the ideas that inspired her current exhibition.

7:00 to 8:00 P.M. EXHIBITION RECEPTION

Check out A Fragile Unfolding, immerse yourself in Meg Mitchell’s digital and physical worlds, celebrate with the artist, and enjoy refreshments!

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Meg Mitchell received a BFA in Sculpture from the University of South Florida in 2005 and an MFA in New Genres from the University of Maryland College Park in 2008. She is currently aProfessor of Digital Media in the Department of Art at UW-Madison.

Mitchell has shown her work in numerous group and solo exhibitions, at venues such as the Museum for Applied Art in Vienna, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Conner Contemporary, the DC Art Center and the International Waldkunst Zentrum in Germany. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications, such as Art Papers, Art in America and the Washington Post. In 2012 she was also awarded a Expanded Artist’s Book grant from Columbia College Chicago for her project in collaboration with Denise Bookwalter, “Rain/fall,” a data driven artist’s book and mobile application.

Join us on SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13 to celebrate the opening GNATLAND: NEON ORGANISMS OF THE NEW AGE, an exhibition of new work by Morgan Hardigree and Jason Kash.

GNATLAND brings together Morgan Hardigree’s neon-drenched worlds and Jason Kash’s biomorphic assemblages to explore transformation as both a personal and material process. This exhibition is part of Bridge Work, a professional development program for emerging artists that is facilitated by 2nd Story in partnership with the Lexington Art League.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

MORGAN HARDIGREE is a Lexington, Kentucky-based interdisciplinary artist working in color pencil, printmaking, jewelry-making, and assemblage. Completing her BA in Art History and Studio Art at Transylvania University in May of 2025, she loves the surreal and uses memories, her own poems, movies, and found objects as inspiration for her practice that centers trans-femininity and queerness. Her writing and art has been published in both the Rambler and the Transylvanian, and she presented her art historical research at SECAC’s 2024 conference. Hardigree has participated in group shows in Transylvania University’s Morlan Gallery, the Shearer Student Gallery, and LexArts along with staging and curating her recent solo show Centipede Circling the Sun.

JASON KASH is a visual artist based in Lexington, Kentucky, where he received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Kentucky. For Jason, art has the unique power to transform thought into a bodily experience, communicating on a more fundamental level than language. Through his assemblage process, his work discusses themes of growth, transformation, and decay and their connection to human and nonhuman realms. While he is an active maker, Jason is also a firm believer in the power of art to create community, shaped by his experiences in metal casting and public sculpture. 

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23

4:00—5:00 PM (ET)

ZOOM LINK: https://temple.zoom.us/j/99136273475 

What is queer theory? What does "queer materiality" mean? How do contemporary artists engage with these ideas and integrate them into their work?

If you're curious to learn more, please join us for a virtual panel conversation with artists Soso Capaldi, Feather Chiaverini, and Jesse Harrod. The discussion will be moderated by Kyle Herrington, a Philadelphia-based curator who champions emerging, underrepresented, and queer artists and collectives.

This program is presented in conjunction with BIRDS OF A FEATHER, Feather Chiaverini's solo exhibition at 2nd Story. The exhibition is open through December 5, 2025.

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PANELISTS  

Soso Capaldi (they/them) is a black, queer artist exploring ideas of religion and spirituality. They work with any medium they can get their hands on. With the help of the creatures in their work, they are hoping to land softly and create safe spaces for themselves and others on paper and in the physical world. Capaldi earned their MFA in ceramics from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and a BFA in Drawing and Painting from Penn State University.

Feather Chiaverini (he/they) is a fiber and performance artist from South Florida currently based in Philadelphia, PA. He explores how queer theory, horror, class, and pop culture shape our identities and how these tools can be used flexibly to shape the self. Inspired by the theater and everyday hustle of his family’s costume shop, he uses costumes as material rather than adornment, creating immersive installations, soft sculptures, and digital environments that reimagine our horizons. Chiaverini's work has been presented at 2x Grizzley, Blah Blah Gallery, James Oliver Gallery, Trout Museum of Art, N’namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Ice Box Project Space, among others. He taught classes at Oxbow School and currently adjuncts at Tyler School of Art, where he is also the Residency Director of the Queer Materials Lab. He received a BFA from the College of Creative Studies in Detroit, MI and an MFA from Temple University Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, PA.

Jesse Harrod (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist based between Philadelphia and New York. Working across sculpture, painting, and stop-motion animation, Harrod reimagines forms of gendered, sexual, and disabled embodiment. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented by Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia; Bowtie Projects, Los Angeles; Drake Hotel, Toronto; and Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY. Harrod’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at SculptureCenter, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, which also commissioned a work in 2021. They are a recipient of a Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship and a Temple University Faculty Award for Creative Achievement. Harrod has held residencies at the Rauschenberg Residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, Banff Centre, and others. Born in South Africa and raised in Canada, they hold an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University.

Kyle Herrington is a curator, writer, and arts administrator who has been practicing professionally for over 15 years, focusing primarily on projects that center the work of emerging and mid-career artists operating within queer, marginalized, or underrepresented practices and contexts. Kyle holds significant experience serving the stakeholders and audiences of community-facing arts organizations, most notably during his 11 years at the Indianapolis Art Center where he served as the Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Events from 2014 – 2020. In 2023, he was the Curator-in-Residence at the Fire Island Artist Residency, where he now serves on the Board of Directors, and currently works as an independent curator based between Philadelphia and the Midwest. Kyle holds a BFA in Fine Arts from Ball State University and an MA in Curatorial Studies from The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” has become an iconic example of European fairy tales. Rarely is there a child who is not familiar with some form of the tale. While the Disney interpretation implements the infamous “happy ending,” the original tale, written in 1837, takes a much more severe take on the life and expectations of women at the time. This talk will focus on female-animal hybrids in folklore, most specifically on mermaids and Andersen’s depiction in his iconic tale. We will explore themes of selfhood and rejection, a woman’s sacrifice and worth as well as the societal levels of the sea versus land. All of these themes help elucidate how far Disney diverted from Andersen’s original “The Little Mermaid.”

This program is presented in conjunction with BIRDS OF A FEATHER, Feather Chiaverini's solo exhibition at 2nd Story, which uses mermaids as a metaphor for transformation, in-betweenness, and the fluidity of identity, particularly in relationship to queerness.

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Dr. Bess Dawson is an Associate Professor of German Studies at the University of Kentucky. She previously taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where she received her master’s and PhD), Georgetown College and Louisiana State University. At UK, she regularly teaches German language courses as well as topics courses on both folklore and sports.

While her primary research focus lies in sports literature and film of early 20th century Germany, she continues to return to fairy tales—the subject of her master’s thesis. Each year, she teaches a large lecture course at UK entitled “Fairy Tales in European Context,” which teaches critical thinking and analysis by comparing fairy tales from across centuries as well as across Europe. One of these discussions focuses on the literary tales of Hans Christian Andersen, including “The Little Mermaid,” which brings us to the heart of today’s lecture.

Miriam Kienle and Josh Porter will discuss their collaborative projects rooted in the Faulkner Morgan Archive, which collects and preserves materials connected to Kentucky’s LGBTQ+ history. Their work highlights how garments, protest graphics, and everyday objects function as both personal expressions and public assertions of identity, challenging dominant narratives in art and history. Together, they will reflect on how curators and community archives can expand what is exhibited, valued, and remembered, and how these partnerships affirm belonging while reshaping the historical record.

This program is presented in conjunction with BIRDS OF A FEATHER, an exhibition by Feather Chiaverini featuring hand-made costumes, watercolor paintings, and soft sculptures that are inspired by photographs and ephemera the artist found in the Faulkner Morgan Archive.

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Miriam Kienle is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Kentucky, specializing in modern, contemporary, and American art. Kienle’s teaching and research interests include gender & sexuality, critical theory, new media, curatorial studies, and the digital humanities. Her book Queer Networks: Ray Johnson's Correspondence Art (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) analyzes Johnson’s role as an initiator of the international correspondence art movement through the lenses of network studies, queer theory, and histories of interpersonal communication. In 2024, she co-organized a national symposium Queer Art | Queer Archives to explore the unique challenges of art historical research on LGBTQ+ artists. Her writings have appeared in such publications as Archives of American Art Journal, Feminist Studies, Oxford Art Journal, Media-N, Panorama, and Nierika, and has curated exhibitions at national and international venues including the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. 

Josh Porter (he/him) is an independent curator, photographer, writer, and designer based in Lexington, KY. As a curator, he is dedicated to elevating and showcasing the significant contributions of contemporary artists, particularly those who are often underrepresented. In that work, he places a large emphasis on queer art and storytelling. This commitment extends beyond traditional gallery spaces as he strives to foster more intimate engagements between art and communities. He currently serves as the Assistant Executive Director of the Faulkner Morgan Archive, a Kentucky-based institution with a dedicated focus on sharing Kentucky’s LQBTQ history. Through his work with FMA, he has seen the impact that collecting, archiving, and exhibiting queer stories can have. His desire to work with queer artists and queer narratives drives his professional work. Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community is integral to his identity, and he seeks to celebrate the rich tapestry of queer experiences through his work.

5:00 to 6:00 P.M. ARTIST TALK

Artist Feather Chiaverini discusses the ideas informing his practice, and how the Faulkner Morgan Archive inspired his current exhibition.

6:00 to 7:30 P.M. EXHIBITION RECEPTION

Check out Birds of a Feather, revel in Lexington’s queer histories, try on costumes, celebrate with the artist, and enjoy refreshments!

MIKE Book Release/signing and pop-up exhibition. One day only! Get an advanced copy of Elijah Howe’s new book for a discounted price and see a pop-up exhibition of photographs included in the publication.

Through a mix of family archive photos and Elijah Howe’s own images, MIKE is a son’s reflection on the life of his father, seen through the eyes of those closest to him. From his youth as the lead singer of a heavy metal band to his quieter, middle-aged years as a husband and father, the photographs build a layered portrait of Mike Howe’s identity. Yet, after his death, the narrative unravels into chaos and emptiness, conveying the profound and unsettling impact of loss. MIKE is a poignant look at how we remember and carry those who have passed, revealing how absence can be as powerful as presence. MIKE is published by TIS Books.

Elijah Howe is a photographer from Humboldt County, California. He received his BA in photography from Humboldt State University and his MFA from the University of Kentucky. He has recently had solo shows at 2nd Story Gallery and Bolivar Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky and has work in the permanent collection of the Monroe Moosnick Medical and Science Museum at Transylvania University.

Mike Howe (August 21, 1965 – July 26, 2021) was an American heavy metal singer who performed with Metal Church, Heretic, and Snair. After leaving Metal Church, Mike pursued a career in carpentry and was a father to two sons. He rejoined Metal Church in 2015, producing two more albums before his death in 2021.

In conjunction with Tomiko Jones's exhibition These Grand Places, please join us on Thursday, July 24 at 6:00 PM for a talk by Boyd Shearer about the complicated history of several public parks in Kentucky.

In These Grand Places, Tomiko Jones considers the history and current state of protected public lands, from national parks such as Capitol Reef, to national monuments like Bears Ears, to national recreation areas including Glen Canyon. Gathering stories from those she encountered during her onsite residences in public landscapes across the Southwest, Jones sought to understand, among other things: the politics of protection, what is meant by “public” land, and which "publics" are actually welcome (or feel welcome) in such places.

Boyd Shearer engages this line of inquiry about public land, but brings it closer to home by focusing on four public parks in Kentucky. Douglass Park, Cherokee State Resort Park, Hensley Settlement, and Blue Heron represent parks in Kentucky with unique histories. Douglass and Cherokee State Resort Parks were established for African Americans during the era of legal segregation in the early 20th century. Hensley Settlement and Blue Heron became part of larger national parks after the founding communities abandoned them during the 1950s amid broader social and economic changes. Using archival imagery, maps, and recent aerial photography, this presentation explores these parks and their entangled boundaries between city and wilderness, public and private, and past and present.

Boyd Shearer is a Senior Lecturer of Mapping and GIS at the University of Kentucky Department of Geography with a research focus on topographic visualization and terrain analysis. He has 25 years of experience in cartographic design and map publishing.

Join us on SATURDAY, JULY 12 to celebrate the opening Double Vision, an exhibition of work by Lawrence Tarpey and John Wilde.

This exhibition brings together works by Lawrence Tarpey and John Wilde, two singular artists who share a commitment to representation, imbued with a healthy dose of Surrealist illogic: surprising juxtapositions, elements of desire and decay, and dreamlike scenarios merging reality and fantasy. Learn more HERE.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Primarily a self-taught artist, Lawrence Tarpey took some studio classes at the University of Kentucky, and relied on subscriptions to Art in America and other art magazines to inform himself about modern and contemporary art. His work shares affinities with Chicago Imagist artists such as Jim Nutt and Karl Wirsum, and with Surrealist practitioners including Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, and Joan Miró. Beginning early in the 1980s, he has been a part of Lexington’s music scene as a member of bands including Active Ingredients, The Resurrected Bloated Floaters, Born Joey, Rabby Feeber, and The Yellow Belts. Tarpey has exhibited his work at galleries and art venues including Heike Pickett Gallery, Momentum Gallery, Institute 193, and the University of Kentucky Art Museum.  

John Wilde studied art and art history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he later taught courses from 1948 until 1982. His paintings and drawings are in museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AK; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; Art Institute of Chicago; Detroit Institute of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; among others. Works by Wilde (from the John and Shirley Wilde Estate) are represented by the Tory Folliard Gallery in Milwaukee, WI.

Documentary photographer Stacy Kranitz will take us on a journey through photographic representation of the Appalachian Mountaineer across time to explore how poverty is depicted through the lens as witness, propaganda, oppressor and redemption.

**Please note the location for this event: Farish Theater at the Downtown Lexington Public Library

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Working within the documentary tradition, Stacy Kranitz makes photographs that acknowledge the limits of photographic representation. Her images do not tell the “truth” but are honest about their inherent shortcomings, and thus reclaim these failures (exoticism, ambiguity, fetishization) as sympathetic equivalents in order to more forcefully convey the complexity and instability of the lives, places, and moments they depict.

Kranitz was born in Kentucky and currently lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee. She is a recent Guggenheim Fellow. Additional awards include a George Polk Award and a Center for Documentation Fellowship. She has presented solo exhibitions of her photographs at the Rencontres d’Arles in Arles, France and the Tennessee Triennial. Her photographs are in several public collections including the Harvard Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, and Duke Universities, Archive of Documentary Arts.  She works as an assignment photographer for publications including Time, the New York Times, Vanity Fair and ProPublica. Her first monograph, As it Was Give(n) to Me, was published by Twin Palms in 2022.

Artist Talk: 6:00 - 6:30 pm

Reception: 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Please join us for an opening reception and artist talk for our new exhibition, Tomiko Jones: These Grand Places.

These Grand Places is a multi-year project that Jones began in 2017, during Donald Trump's first presidential term, when he signed proclamations that removed protections from more than 2 million acres of national monument land, which opened up previously protected areas to potential drilling, mining and logging. Prompted by these policies, Jones, over the next several years, traveled to many of the sites under federal review.

During her immersive residencies, she documented human-influenced environmental changes, political interventions in the landscape, and her own interactions with the land and its human and non-human inhabitants. The resulting interplay of photography, written impressions, and collected ephemera offers a poignant meditation on the politics of public land and its impact on our notions of national identity.

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Tomiko Jones’ photography and multidisciplinary installations explore social, cultural, and geopolitical transitions, considering the twin crises of too much and too little in the age of climate change. A major mid-career retrospective of Jones’ work, titled The Intimate Infinite (January 3 – March 22, 2025) and curated by Cecily Cullen, was recently presented at the Center for Visual Arts (Denver, CO).

Jones is the recipient of awards including the En Foco New Works Fellowship (New York, 2014), 4Culture and City Artists (Seattle, 2010), and Pépinières Européennes pour Jeunes Artistes (France, 2008). She was an invited resident artist at Museé Niépce in Chalon-Sur-Saône, France (2008), and selected for a project-specific Fellowship at The Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France (2009). She has received recognition for her photographic works by Analog Sparks (2023) and Photo Lucida’s Critical Mass Top 200 (2022). 

Jones received her MFA and Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Arizona, Tucson, where she studied with Professors Sama Alshaibi and Frank Gohlke. She is Associate Professor of Art at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vilas Professorship, Early-Career Investigator Award (2024-27). Her professional experience includes a Visiting Artist and Curator-in-Residence position at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, Assistant Professor and Photography Program Coordinator at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Mendocino College, New Mexico State University and Drury University Summer Institute for Visual Arts.

Photographer Elijah Howe shares insights about the concepts informing CHAINED ROCK, an exhibition about a fictional town that functions as a composite portrait of life in rural Kentucky.

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Elijah Howe is a photographer who creates work that engages the fragmentary nature of photography and explores people’s relationships with one another as well as their relationship to the land. His forthcoming monograph, “Mike,” is being published by TIS Books. Howe has work in the permanent collection of the Monore Moosnick Medical and Science Museum at Transylvania University.

Howe is from Humboldt County, California, where he received his BA in photography from Humboldt State University. He currently lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky where he received his MFA from the University of Kentucky.

Curator, art professor, and former museum director and gallery owner, Sue Spaid contextualizes the work of David Kaiser, Hannah Dewhirst, and Ingrid A Schmidt within a larger contemporary art dialogue. Spaid connects these three Lexington-based artists, whose work is currently featured in the exhibition DOPA MINE, to an expansive legacy of artists, ideas, and art histories.

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Sue Spaid, PhD, has been active in the art world as a collector, curator, art writer, university lecturer, and museum director since 1984. Currently the co-editor of Aesthetic Investigations, Spaid’s forthcoming monograph is Making Values Explicit. The author of The Philosophy of Curatorial Practice: Between Work and World (2020) and five books on art and ecology, she teaches philosophy at Northern Kentucky University and contemporary art history at the University of Cincinnati.

She served as the Executive Director at the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore (2010-2012); Curator at the Abington Art Center and Sculpture Park, Jenkinstown (2007-2009); and Curator at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (1999‒2002). From 1990‒95, she ran Sue Spaid Fine Art, a Los Angeles gallery that launched dozens of artists’ careers.

As an independent curator, she has organized exhibitions for artist-run spaces, university galleries, commercial galleries, and museums such as Santa Monica Museum of Art, Armory Center for the Arts, SPACES, and the Abington Art Center and Sculpture Park. She has also served as curator of both the Bellevue Art Museum’s Pacific Northwest Annual (2001) and the Mississippi Museum of Art’s Mississippi Invitational (2006). During her “Yes Brainer Tour” (2005‒06), she traveled via car to thirty-eight states presenting “The Gist of Isness” along the way.

Artist and educator J. Daniel Graham shares his handmade stringed instruments and demonstrates elements of his process. Come learn about the complex history of the banjo while getting to hear some old time songs on a variety of unique banjos and violins. This program is presented in conjunction with CHAINED ROCK, an exhibition by Elijah Howe about the people, history, and culture of rural Kentucky.

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J. Daniel Graham was raised in a military family and moved every two years for most of his life.  He comes from a family of storytellers who love investigation and creativity. Introduced and encouraged into creative outlets at an early age Daniel has never forgotten the lessons of craft from his mother (a basket maker and calligrapher) and lessons of engineering and risk from his father.  His training in the Arts comes from an Undergraduate Degree at the University of Florida in Printmaking and a Masters Degree from the University of Georgia with the same emphasis.  Between the two programs of formal education Daniel lived in Washington DC and trained as a furniture maker under woodworker Dennis Sitka.  Currently Daniel is a Professor of Art at Georgetown College in Georgetown Kentucky where he teaches a variety of courses including Sculpture, Printmaking, 3D Design, Ceramics and Luthiery.  He lives in Georgetown with his wife Holly, his daughter Olive, his son Thatcher, and their dog Cricket.

Hear from David Kaiser, Hannah Dewhirst, and Ingrid A Schmidt about the ideas and processes informing their respective art practices, and their thoughts on the shared affinities among the works on view in DOPA MINE.

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Ingrid A Schmidt and Hannah Dewhirst are co-founders of SUBSTUDIO. With a background in architecture, interiors, contemporary art, and fabrication, they build immersive sensorial environments that relate to the body, landscape, and culture. Schmidt and Dewhirst firmly believe in dissolving traditional boundaries of practice, experimenting across a number disciplines and at many scales.

Their work has been exhibited across Europe and Asia, and their custom textiles and tufted rugs have activated retail spaces and festival stages, and have been used in immersive environments for clients including fashion brands Bottega Veneta and Burberry. They were recently commissioned to create a site-specific installation for 21c Museum and Hotel, Lexington, which is on view through 2025.

Both Schmidt and Dewhirst are Assistant Professors at the University of Kentucky College of Design, and received their M.Arch degrees from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

David Kaiser holds an MFA and BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago specializing in painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. He uses the term “Organic Ideation” to describe his approach to creating artworks. His artistic practice is grounded in painting and drawing. He often manipulates the natural behavior of paint and other materials to seek phenomena and concepts, which transcend the material itself.

His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at the University of Kentucky Art Museum (Lexington KY); 65Grand Gallery (Chicago, IL); Eastern Kentucky University (Richmond, KY); Sullivan Gallery (Chicago, IL);  Harold Washington College (Chicago, IL);  Lawton Gallery, University of Wisconsin (Green Bay, WI); SPACES (Cleveland, OH); Site 9 (Chicago, IL); Beacon Street Gallery (Chicago, IL); Diverse Works (Houston, TX); Evanston Arts Center (Evanston, IL), among others.

Kaiser is the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and a Studio Instructor at the University of Kentucky. He has taught at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Maryland Institute College of Art, Robert Morris University, and Eastern Kentucky University.

Join us on SATURDAY, MARCH 1 to celebrate the opening CHAINED ROCK, a solo exhibition of work by Elijah Howe.

In CHAINED ROCK, Elijah Howe presents handcrafted objects and post-documentary photography exploring the people, places, and cultural traditions of rural Kentucky.

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Elijah Howe is a photographer from Humboldt County, California where he received his BA in photography from Humboldt State University. He currently lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky where he is an MFA candidate at University of Kentucky. Howe’s work is interested in the fragmentary nature of photography and people’s relationships with one another as well as their relationship with the land. He is currently working on a Monograph titled “Mike” with TIS Books and has work in the Permanent collection of the Monore Moosnick Medical and Science Museum at Transylvania University. He has recently shown his work at Bolivar Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky and Touching Ground Gallery in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Join us at 2nd Story on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 to celebrate the opening of our new exhibition DOPA MINE.

This exhibition brings together labor-intensive paintings by David Kaiser and recent wall hangings by SUBSTUDIO (Hannah Dewhirst and Ingrid A Schmidt). Aligned in their rigorous commitment to abstraction and experimentation, these artists create works that have a call and response relationship to each other, and share formal concerns including shape, line, color, and repetition.

Using his book “The Art Life: On Creativity and Career” as a jumping off point, Stuart Horodner leads a practical workshop for artists in Lexington. (Snacks and coffee provided)

If you are hoping to clarify your goals, build more professional skills, and assess exhibition opportunities, this event is for you. The discussion focuses on finding helpful role models, understanding the arts ecology you live in, and developing a strategic plan for yourself. 

You will receive handouts with helpful prompts, reading lists, and regional resources.  

Perfect for graduate students, emerging and established artists, the workshop is the result of Horodner’s decades of experience as a curator, gallery owner, and advisor to professional practice programs around the United States. 

Stuart Horodner is Director of the University of Kentucky Art Museum. 

This workshop is FREE, but you must RSVP to leah@2ndstory.art to reserve your spot (and if you must cancel, let us know ASAP). 10 participants maximum — reserve your spot!

Image: Gillian Wearing, "Everything is connected in life..." from the series, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, 1992-93.

Join us for an exhibition reception to celebrate The Agony and the Ecstasy, showcasing new work by Claire Thompson and Latonia Dishueme-Bangudi.

Both Latonia and Claire will give an informal artist talk, beginning at 6:00 PM. A celebratory reception will follow their talks.

This exhibition is part of Bridge Work Lexington, a professional development program for emerging artists. Bridge Work is a partnership between 2nd Story, the Lexington Art League, and Project Ricochet’s Urban Art Collective.

Bridge Work Lexington is supported by Project Ricochet (Urban Art Collective).

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About the Artists

Born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, Latonia Dishueme-Bangudi is an artist whose creative talent flows through family heritage. Coming from a lineage of artists on her maternal side, she has always seen art as a natural part of her life. Initially focused on honing her drawing skills, Latonia began working with oil paints in 2012, bringing a refined sense of composition and technique from years of prior practice. Recent exhibitions of her work have been presented at the WUKY Gallery and LexArts, with forthcoming shows at the Pam Miller Downtown Art Center and 2nd Story. An active member of Project Ricochet’s Urban Art Collective, Latonia continues to expand her creative expression and presence within Lexington’s art community and beyond.

Claire Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist from Lexington, KY who works primarily in oil painting and risograph printmaking. She received her BFA from the University of Kentucky in 2023 with her solo exhibition EVERYONE LOVES YOU VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY MUCH at the Bolivar Gallery. Other recent solo and two person exhibitions include EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER DREAMED OF AND MORE at the Lexington Art League; Beautifully Grotesk, a book arts exhibition at the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library; and ICON: Queer Worship of Celebrity at Visionaries + Voices in Cincinnati. She has been a part of group exhibitions through Muse Collective, The Faulkner Morgan Archive, Field Projects, Yeiser Art Center, Carbon Copy Gallery, The Print Room (Aberdeen, Scotland), The Carnegie (Cincinnati), and Golding-Yang Gallery. Her work has been written about in Undermain and LVL3, as well as being featured in soft core (edited by Rebecca Orr). She is also the co-owner and co-operator of Lexington-based risograph press, Grotesk Press.

Join artist Tyanna Buie, Associate Professor of Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, for a discussion of her monumental work included in All in the Family. Buie will discuss how she mobilizes her artistic practice to reimagine her own history as a way to define her present and build her future. In her words, "I construct an intersectional identity between self-portraiture, personal narrative, family history, pop-culture, art history, and moments of significance within Black culture."

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A Chicago and Milwaukee native, Buie earned her BA from Western Illinois University and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, she is Associate Professor in Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI.  

Buie's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at such venues as the University of Hawaii at Hilo; The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, WI; The Racine Art Museum, WI; Red Bull House of Art, Detroit, MI; N’NAMDI Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI; Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI; Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, MN; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; International Print Center, New York; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI; Lawrence University's Wriston Art Center, Appleton, WI; Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Simone DeSousa Gallery, Detroit, MI; and the Alice Wilds, Milwaukee, WI. 

She has received numerous awards including the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship (2012); Love of Humanity Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation (2015); Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant (2015); Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Visual Arts (2019); Grant Wood Fellowship in Printmaking at the University of Iowa (2019/20); Fellowship.art / gener8tor (2020); and Ruth Arts/Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award (2023).

Join us at 2nd Story to hear from Kentucky-based photographer Rachael Banks, who will discuss her work as it deals with trauma and nature as central to her family and upbringing in the mid-South. The talk will explore the overlapping roles between family members and photographic subjects as well as the challenges of documenting family life.

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Rachael Banks is a working artist and Associate Professor of Photography at Northern Kentucky University. Her research interests include folklore, ecology, and epigenetics. Rachael's work addresses trauma and nature as central to relationships and experiences with the individual, the family unit, and its lasting effect on communities. She compulsively photographs deer and black dogs.