Visual Arts

While the Bolivar Art Gallery has temporarily closed its doors to visitors and converted its galleries to classroom space, we remain committed to our mission to engage students and the public in contemporary themes and issues meaningfully impacting artistic and curatorial practices.

Currently, we are thrilled to host virtual shows from talented BFA graduates Maggie Simic, Meredith Coffey, and Marissa Braccia. Check back throughout the fall for student exhibitions and events in the visiting artist series.

We would like to announce the launch of the University of Kentucky School of Art and Visual Studies Digital Senior Exhibition “Experience in Amateur Hour.” This exhibition is a presentation of capstone research which began classrooms and studios and finished online via zoom meetings—with work completed in students' kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms across the nation.

Discussion to be led by Miriam Kienle, Susie Thiel, and EveMarie Bessenbach.

Part of the series: When Art Challenges/When Art Offends: Navigating Ideology, Tolerance, and Censorship in Music, Dance, Theatre, and the Visual Arts

The Kentucky Fried Zine fest (KFZ),  is an independent event whose purpose is to showcase DIY zines, comics, book & paper arts, and the work of independent publishers, with an emphasis on zine creators from the Kentucky/Southern region. We intend to create a space for individuals to meet, interact and learn from one another about DIY publishing.

More information coming soon.

Curator Janie Welker leads a tour of Redressing the Sixties with featured artist, Susan King.

image: The announcement for Susan King’s 1971 undergraduate student show at UK.

Eat/Art
12 – 12:40 pm

We present a significant artwork from the Museum’s collection and discuss its importance in our four decade-long history. Light lunch served; reservations are required. Contact Kate Sprengnether at ksprengnether@uky.edu or 859-257-6218 to make your reservation

Eat/Art
12 – 12:40 pm

We present a significant artwork from the Museum’s collection and discuss its importance in our four decade-long history. Light lunch served; reservations are required. Contact Kate Sprengnether at ksprengnether@uky.edu or 859-257-6218 to make your reservation

Curator Janie Welker leads a tour of Body Language with the two exhibiting artists, Mike Goodlett and Hunter Stamps.

image: Mike Goodlett in his studio, 2019. Photo credit: Amy Pleasant

Lectures: Feb. 18, 7pm, 21C Museum Hotel | Feb. 21, noon, Bolivar Art Gallery, Art & Visual Studies Building
Exhibition: Feb. 21 - March 20

Denise Webber (b1958 Leicestershire UK) is a British artist working with photography, drawing, audio, and video. She spent her early years in Ammochostos (Famagusta) in Cyprus, until the outbreak of war, when she and her family were evacuated under shell bombardment on the last British convoy to leave the city in June 1974.

The digital age has gifted us infinite Pinterest, Behance, and Dribble scrolls of refined visual inspiration. These feeds betray the numerous iterations, the dead-ends, the frustration, and (if one is lucky) the a-ha moments necessary to create the designs we admire. The pretty pictures are barely footnotes in the creation story of their design work. Which is why they’ve left them (almost) completely out of this exhibition. You’re getting everything else instead.