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.