In CRYSTALBLUFFMADONNA, oversized jewelry-like forms stretch, puncture, and deform the architecture, transforming the gallery into something between a body, a construction site, and a cartoon. Electroplated copper sits alongside custom tapioca-starch rubber; surfaces slip between metal, flesh, plastic, and ornament without committing to any one identity. The walls appear caught in the act of becoming something else.

The work of HANNAH SMITHdraws inspiration from Dada and its embrace of nonsense as a tool for challenging common sense. This approach is also informed by their experience working in digital fabrication and 3D modeling software. In digital space, materials are remarkably fluid: chrome can become rubber with a click, stone can become slime, and physical limitations seem temporarily suspended. The ease with which digital tools allow movement between radically different material states echoes Dada's enthusiasm for unexpected juxtapositions and irrational connections. Both suggest that categories are more flexible than they appear. Many of the rules that shape contemporary life—what is valuable, acceptable, productive, or beautiful—are neither natural nor inevitable. They were invented, and they can be reinvented.  Rather than offering fixed meanings, the work invites viewers to entertain alternate possibilities, however absurd they may initially seem.

Beneath the humor and visual excess is a quieter concern for the systems that shape our relationship to the world around us. Many of the materials in this exhibition emerge from ongoing experiments with alternative fabrication methods, including bio-based and unconventional compounds. Yet the work avoids straightforward solutions or moral lessons. Instead, it embraces play as a way of imagining different futures. These sculptures are less interested in delivering answers than in creating productive glitches—moments when familiar assumptions briefly stop working.

HANNAH SMITH is an interdisciplinary artist and a Lecturer at the University of Kentucky in digital design and 3D fabrication. Through recognizable imagery and unconventional materials, Smith’s playful artistic practice offers a vision of society in which blue-collar aesthetics embody political and social ideologies of discontent. Over the past few years, they have been awarded a UK Sustainability Council grant to conduct non-toxic material research, a Midwest Nice materials grant, a Future Art Award from Mozaik Philanthropy, and an artist grant from the Great Meadows Foundation. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Polish Sculpture Center, Oronsko, Poland (2025); QRTC, Athens, Greece (2022); The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft Triennial, Louisville, KY (2022); Sculptors Alliance, New York, NY (2021); 48-Stunden Neukölln Biennale, Berlin, Germany (2020); and the CICA Museum Seoul, South Korea (2019) among others.

You can learn more about the artist and their work here. here.

EVENTS:

-Opening Reception: Friday, August 14 from 5-8PM

-Workshop with the artist on Friday, August 14 from 5-8PM

Exhibition runs through Saturday, September 26, 2026

Open hours: Fridays 11-4PM or by appointment.