UK Artists to Create Kroger Murals

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 20, 2014) — Three artists with ties to the University of Kentucky School of Architecture and UK School of Art and Visual Studies will create murals for the new Kroger being built on Euclid Avenue in Lexington. Associate Professor of Architecture Liz Swanson, 2008 UK architecture graduate Aaron Scales, and art alumnus John Lackey will create the three large-scale murals to be featured in the grocery store.

Kroger in partnership with LexArts commissioned local artists to design and create one exterior and two interior murals for the store. From the more than 50 submissions, a selection committee of local arts and community leaders and representatives from the neighborhood selected the winning artists. Joining Swanson among the winners is Scales, who will work on his piece with brother Jared Scales as part of the duo known as BroCoLoco, and Lackey, owner of Homegrown Press.

Lackey's exterior mural, which will face Marquis Avenue, has a budget of $25,000. Swanson and BroCoLoco's interior murals will be located in a seating area and the produce section of the grocery and have budgets of $10,000 each.

Stuart Horodner, director of the Art Museum at UK, was a member of the committee that selected the winning murals. Other committee members were: architect Graham Pohl; Urban County Councilmember and owner of Farmer’s Jewelry Bill Farmer; West Sixth Brewery owner Ben Self; artist and art educator Georgia Henkel; Bryan Station High School student Ella Hellmuth; and LexArts Community Arts Manager Nathan Zamarron.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu