Work by UK's Graduating Artists Comes Together in 'Nexus'

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 28, 2016) – The University of Kentucky School of Art and Visual Studies is showcasing the work of 20 BA (Bachelor of Arts) art studio seniors in their exit show titled, "/ˈneksəs/." The school is hosting a full atrium of work through April 29 in the newly renovated Art and Visual Studies Building and encourages the Lexington community to participate in this capstone event. A reception honoring the artists will be held 4:30-7:30 p.m. today (Thursday), April 28. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Student work that is part of this show has been exhibited locally as well as in regional exhibitions, and even published in journals. Expect to see a variety of art in the mediums of ceramics, fiber arts, metalworking, painting, drawing, printmaking and many other visual forms. All students have achieved a high level of quality and will be exhibiting their best work.

The exhibition "/ˈneksəs/" (or "Nexus") channels the idea of a series of connections linking two or more phenomenon and is the theme that surrounds the show. This year’s exhibition displays an immense amount of talent as each senior exits the university to continue his or her personal art careers. Show participants include:

Jeremy Brown

Brown is a motion graphics artist from Louisville, Kentucky. He is self-taught in various forms of art with video and graphic design content. Brown has created countless videos/works in both the gaming and the artistic worlds. His senior portfolio was developed with the idea of variety and style in mind. No two pieces are alike, showing his ability to create various works of motion graphic and video art in many different ways. He utilizes many programs during his creative process including Adobe After Effects CC, Adobe Illustrator and Sony Vegas Pro 13 to make his pieces. Brown currently lives in Lexington, where he continues to create and design various video and motion graphic related projects.

Ashley Carroll

Carroll, who is originally from Columbus, Ohio, knew at a young age that she had a strong interest in art and even participated in her town’s local art club. Currently she works with different methods of printmaking, creating installations, both big and small. Her interest in graphic design has aided her with her creativity when it comes to screen printing. Her inspirations derive from the key terms: feminism and identity. Carroll focuses on the art term "play," meaning the concept comes from the act of art making itself; make first, conceptualize later. This style of work is interesting to see because the artist does not always know what the outcome will be; it is a trial by error way of making.

Mary Celeste Clark

A native of Lexington, Clark is graduating with bachelor's degrees in both art studio in the College of Fine Arts and media arts and studies in the College of Communication and Information. She received the Presidential Scholarship to attend UK and has been on the Dean’s List every semester she has attended.

William Cross

Cross, who was born deaf, has been very reliant on visuals for communication. The Lexington native attended public school rather than the state's deaf school in Danville. He worked on his core education at Bluegrass Community and Technical College before transferring to UK. He studied architecture a year and a half before transferring into the School of Art and Visual Studies focusing on art history and art studio. Cross started doing commissions for work and selling his art at the first "Open Studio" in the Art and Visual Studies Building last December — and hopes to do more in the near future. He usually gets his ideas and inspiration from a small world that he created when he was child and needed to escape from reality. His imaginary world was becoming so huge and profound that he had to share it with others. In art school he learned how to integrate many different fields of study in arts media into his imagination, trying to draw it out into reality. Cross has been able to draw his stories in digital arts form by making comics and animations, which he has been doing for more than five or six years.

Molly Durham

Durham, a native of Casey County, Kentucky, is a senior seeking bachelor's degrees in art education and art studio. While studying at UK, she has spent much time working with educational programs within the community via tutoring and volunteer opportunities. Durham aspires to travel after graduating, participating in programs with the youth along the way. Through art, she hopes to inspire her students to entertain diverse perspectives and to develop deeper sympathies for those around them. Her work places emphasis on subtle concepts and is often inspired by music and the culture that surrounds it. She is interested in a large variety of media including painting, drawing, digital design, screen-printing and photography.

Janessa Gates

Gates is the daughter of Jim and Kelly Gates, of Winfield, Illinois. At UK, she was awarded a College of Fine Arts Scholarship recognizing excellence is academic/creative endeavors. In addition, she attended Griffith College in Dublin, Ireland, for a semester where she studied photography. Her interests include: traveling, reading books, hiking, painting, pottery and bookmaking. She has been very active in Chi Omega sorority as a member and officer. As the chapter's Recruitment Art Chair, Gates was in charge of designing all costumes, sets, backboards and banners for their events. After she graduates in May, she plans to find a job as a creative production artist/photographer. Gates previously interned with Missy Donavan Photography where she learned to work in a professional environment and how to manage her own business. Her photography portfolio is a collection of all forms of inspirations and ideas based on world travels and experiences. Her photographic portfolios are separated into different categories that included: street, portrait, landscape, nature, Ireland and backpacking. For her senior photography project, she asked 250 strangers on the street to write down a secret about them on a chalkboard and took the photo of each individual holding their secret.

Leah Hemenway

Hemenway was born and raised in Lexington and began the exploration of her artistic expression at a young age. She holds an associate's degree from Bluegrass Community Technical College in Lexington, and transferred to UK to work on her bachelor's degree in art studio with a double minor in art history and geography. Her interests include both ceramic and fabric elements, but they are not limited to these mediums. A resident artist for the statewide organization Kentuckians Against Heroin, Hemenway is creatively passionate about the education of the local community about the dangers of drug addiction.

Trebecca Henderson

Henderson is an art studio senior focusing on photography. A native of Lexington, she has been photographing and documenting cemeteries throughout her college career. Her recent focus has been on the more remote and older cemeteries across Kentucky and Ohio. Henderson has mostly worked with 35 mm black and white film, but is currently working and experimenting with a Holga and medium format film. She has been in three group shows recently: "53," "Here & There" and the "UK Photo Digital Canvas." Henderson has been featured at the Cincinnati Public Library's downtown location earning a spot in the top 25 photographs for the Frame Cincinnati competition.

Kimberly Hubbard

Originally from Washington, Hubbard is married to Jeff Hubbard, who attends school at Asbury Theological Seminary. She has been in the Army National Guard since 2008, and earned 60 credits from George Washington University through her Army occupational training. Her academic achievements include making the Dean’s List every semester, being awarded the College of Fine Arts Scholarship, and membership in the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. A resident of Wilmore, Kentucky, she is inspired by the idea of life, specifically the value of human life, and expressing the idea conceptually in a variety of media including cardboard, aluminum mesh, tape, fabric, yarn, glass, wood, paint and more. Hubbard enjoys creating large installation pieces that immerse the viewer in her work.

Janie Kegley

Janie is a practicing fiber artist and arts entrepreneur from Louisa, Kentucky. She has studied art her entire life and will be graduating from UK with bachelor's degrees in both art studio and arts administration. While her next career step is still undetermined, Kegley will be continuing her art and freelance work. Her art includes a wide variety of materials and emphasizes fiber art processes. She incorporates hints of history inside her work, all while expressing intense color. Kegley has been known to include kinetic sculpture and lighting design to further intensify the presence of her art. Recently, her work has been shown at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science in Indiana at the 44th Mid-State Craft Exhibition.

Roddy Komo

Komo was born and raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the capital city of Kinshasa. His love of art came from Kin la Belle; the city is full of artist musicians, painters, sculptors, drawers and much more. At a young age he discovered the love of drawing and wanted to go the Academy of Beaux-Art in Kinshasa to continue his higher education. However, Komo's parents decided to move to America, where he's gone on to pursue his bachelor's degree in art studio from the School of Art and Visual Studies in the College of Fine Arts at UK.

Ye Ma

Ma is from Inner Mongolia. Art is the most important part of her life; she studied oil painting for four years from 2011 to 2013 at Inner Mongolia University and then transferred to UK. In 2014, Ma became an art studio major at UK where she started to study contemporary art. She has studied 3-D form, 2-D surface, "Intro to Digital Art Space and Time," fiber art, black and white darkroom photography, and drawing. In 2015, she won the first place award in the Foundation Exhibition. Ma plans to continue to pursue art after graduation.

Aaron Mabson

A native of Lexington, high fantasy is the main subject matter of Mabson’s work. As such, his illustrations are designed to not only tell stories but also transport his viewers into a world where fantasy and magic are prevalent. All images are made to tell a story that is not just visually appealing for its audience but takes them and places them into the situations themselves. Choosing to focus on high aesthetic appeal, all images are dynamic, balanced and detailed through every square inch of their medium.

Suzanne Kathleen Napier

Napier, is the daughter of Mary and Bob Napier, of Lexington. She won best in show at the Bluegrass Regional High School Art Show in 2012 and was awarded the College of Fine Arts Scholarship for 2015-2016. Her senior portfolio consists of several pieces she created during her time at UK, including photography, illustration and traditional drawing. She is showcasing in particular her digital photography, pen illustration, as well as graphite and chalk pastel figure drawings. After graduating in May, she hopes to eventually earn her master's degree in art therapy and find a position working with troubled children and/or mentally and physically handicapped adults.

Abigail Omlor

A native of Lexington, Omlor's artworks include photography of places she has traveled and nature, as well as drawings of perspective, old photographs and sometimes things from her imagination like comics. Inspirations for the work include her travels, history, books and movies. References for the artwork include photographs taken, places she finds on Google Street View, and people or situations she observes. The materials used for most of the art is either a Nikon DSLR camera with one of three types of lenses plus Photoshop or paper and graphite for drawings. When Omlor started college, she planned on being a scientific illustrator, so she majored in both art studio and biology. As the years passed, she began taking a lot of photography and a few animation classes in addition to science and drawing classes. Today she still plans on being a scientific illustrator, but has other options if the need arises from her experience with animation, photography, travel and science.

Victoria Roman

Roman is the daughter of Dr. Jesse Roman and Iris Otero, who were born and raised in Puerto Rico. Her parents have always supported the artist as well as influenced her work. While her college career consists of most semesters on the Dean's List, her accomplishments in the art world consist of multiple group showings throughout the years. Medical imagery inspires the majority of her pieces, with subject matter consisting of CT scans, flesh, lung pathologies and spines. 

Josh Richards

A native of Versailles, Kentucky, Richards' work recently was selected to exhibit at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts as part of FiberArts International. He has also shown sculptural art in Lexington, Cincinnati, Detroit and Chicago. Richards is the recipient of the Fine Arts Merit Fellowship, a UK Travel Grant and a UK Summer Research Grant. He has been nominated for the prestigious Windgate Fellowship sponsored by the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, in Asheville, North Carolina. Richards' work combines handmade craft processes with ready-made assemblages that explore texture, color, material, display and functionality. By merging commercially manufactured carpet with hand woven rugs and castings, he exaggerates differences in quality, tactility and versatility. Using a traditional floor-loom, Richards creates hand woven carpets and rugs using experimental and unconventional materials like carpet pad, carpet, construction fencing and materials used in building.

Hannah Schomaker

Schomaker, is the daughter of Denise and Charles Schomaker, from Fort Thomas, Kentucky. She started her studies at the University of Cincinnati before transferring to UK. During her education at UK as an art education and art studio major, she has always been on the Dean’s List. Schomaker also led the Art Education Student Chapter as president during 2015-2016 school year. For her senior portfolio, she draws inspiration from her past experiences, fashion, nature and culture. She has portfolios in many mediums, but focuses on fiber art. Schomaker creates silk paintings, weavings, felt pieces, wearable art, clothes, accessories and jewelry.

Kwangwon Son

Son, a Korean student, has studied for 10 years at UK. During that time he has participated in the weekend community drawing sessions and annual exhibitions guided by Professor Tony Roccanova in the Reynolds Building, the former art studio facility for the UK School of Art and Visual Studies. In addition, Son has worked in ceramics making tea sets, cups and Korean masks.

Sibei Tan

Tan is a transfer student who came to UK in 2013 from her hometown in China. There, she studied digital video, digital photography and 3D designs at the Art College of Inner Mongolia University from 2011 to 2013. At UK, Tan is focusing on artwork creations and preparing for graduate study. In August 2015, she designed, sold and tailored a dress for the online sales platform Tao Bao. Tan took part in a photography show at Art College of Inner Mongolia University in 2012 and UK's Foundation Exhibition in 2014.

The UK School of Art and Visual Studies at the UK College of Fine Arts is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in the fields of art studio, art history and visual studies and art education.

UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how you can support continued investment in your university and the Commonwealth, go to: uky.edu/uk4ky. #uk4ky #seeblue

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