Past Exhibitions

In the 86th iteration of the Annual Student Show, the versatility and vibrancy of the Art Center’s studios is on full display. This campus offers a massive range of classes with facilities that are not easily found elsewhere in the community. Whether a student is designing comic book characters in a Summer Art Camp or is rekindling their creative spirit in their retirement through a wheel throwing class, the Art Center and its faculty offer the resources, mentorship, and inspiration to aid its students in making truly exciting discoveries. 

As you walk through the galleries, you will find artworks created by students of the Art Center in the last twelve months. These students range in age from two to eighty two with artistic backgrounds ranging from beginning to professional-level artists. The themes, ambitions, and intentions of the objects displayed in this exhibition are as varied as the artists that created them. The diverse sampler of works featured in the 86th Annual Student Show is an illustration of the unique community of students that make the Art Center a place that inspires creative expression in all people.

Chruchman-Fehsenfeld Gallery, Sarah M. Hurt Gallery, Allen W. Clowes Gallery

Image: Craig McDaniel, Garden with Heater

Refugees from Myanmar (Burma) and the Democratic Republic of Congo share a belief in freedom and democracy, even with different cultures and languages. The art in this exhibit explores how each of these countries have experienced significant conflict and distress that has led people to flee their homes.

Many of the featured artists have sent their work from around the U.S., Thailand, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to be displayed at the Indianapolis Art Center. They would like to share their thanks to the Indianapolis public for enjoying their artworks.

Community Gallery, Ruth Lilly Library

Image: Unknown Congolese Artist, Unknown Title

“It started years ago, in the last year of college, with two semesters of ceramics. Not having the opportunity to pursue more of what I enjoyed so much, it still had a hold on me.

Then, after retirement, came the Indy Art Center. The goal in taking the first class was to see if I could center the clay. If so, I would call it a success and be happy. Six years have passed and I still can’t stop.

The IAC has been a home for me. Not only does it have a wide variety of art experiences and classes, it is alive with so many activities and events. Parents and their children, teens, veterans, and couples doing new things together. It hosts weddings, meetings, film, music, exhibits, the Broad Ripple Art Fair and so much more in the building and on the grounds.

The instructors at the IAC keep up with new trends and techniques and are passionate about their medium. They help students to learn and grow and inspire creativity. Other students are not only fun to be with but learning from others is an added bonus.

All of that has brought me into this.

And the journey, my journey, continues.” -Connie A. Slater

Sarah M. Hurt Gallery

ArtTroop is a free 10-month program designed to empower military veterans and service members through creativity and self-expression. Throughout the program, participants build upon their existing artistic skills and learn new techniques in a variety of art media. This exhibition features the work of our current ArtTroop cohort and program alumni.

Studies continually demonstrate the power of art-making in transforming the lives of veterans adjusting to life after service. Engaging in creative practices promotes emotional awareness, self-confidence, and personal agency – and when these practices take place within a shared environment, the outcomes are even greater. ArtTroop strives to create a positive and stress-free atmosphere to help students build artistic confidence, discover new passions, and develop a creative community with fellow members of the Armed Forces.

We invite you to navigate this exhibition as both viewers and artists. Explore the work of our veteran community, participate in our collaborative installations, and reflect on the significance of community in your own life.

Student Gallery

Images: Great Blue Heron, Laurie Hardin

ArtTroop is presented by Jim and Pat LaCrosse.

Studio LZ creates meaningful art by embracing simplicity as a tool to engage new ideas. Oscillating between material experimentation and interactive public art – Studio LZ believes creativity finds solutions. Studio LZ started in 2010 by Lauren Zoll as the lead artist and works collaboratively with other creatives, designers, and fabricators. Zoll’s studio is a certified women-owned business located in SoBro, Indianapolis Indiana. Lauren Zoll holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art with a focus in metalsmithing and architecture.

Sarah M Hurt Gallery

Image: Studio Lauren Zoll, Garbage Glazed

Caroline Pyle has worked as a public health professional since graduating from Boston and Yale Universities.  After a near-fatal car accident devastated her life, she turned to art as a form of physical and cognitive therapy.  Though she worked in the field of public health prior to the accident, she did not fully understand the intense connection between creativity and personal health until after the accident. “Painting was the only time I experienced a pain-free existence.  I was in a blissful zone,” Pyle says.  “When I painted, the vibrancy that was trapped inside of me, exploded on canvas.  I realized I was still alive in my otherwise broken body…”  

A self-taught abstract artist, Pyle gives her emotions a clear voice, allowing pain and brokenness to be articulated through beauty.  Pyle reflects, “After you’ve been shattered, your breaks make you more brilliant, much like shards of glass.  The breaks experienced in life add texture, vibrancy and perspective”.  Vivid color combinations are the hallmark of Pyle’s dramatic works as well as liberal use of mediums such as glass, gels and pastes. She has learned that life is not a neat package of black and white.  Rather, life is filled with colorful moments that transform, alter and often forever change who we are – it’s color outside the lines.  

Pyle’s newly discovered passion for creativity, which was first a means of personal survival, has now become a voice of hope for broader audiences. She has exhibited nationally, and her original works of art can be found in select fine art galleries and retail outlets.

Ruth Lilly Library

Every year, ArtReach serves over 1,200 youth in the Indianapolis area who may not have access to the creative arts by providing free after-school and summer art programs. Through the leadership of professional artists as their instructors, ArtReach students are given a platform for self-expression while exploring the fundamentals of art-making. Through these programs, students gain self-confidence, problem-solving skills, and a better sense of inclusion and acceptance in the community. This exhibition features the work of students who participated in the Spring 2023 ArtReach program. Learn more at https://indyartcenter.org/artreach/

Made Possible By The Katharine B. Sutphin Foundation

Community Gallery

The Indy Art Center Faculty Biennial is one of the Art Center’s longest-running exhibition series, spanning decades with hundreds of professional teaching artists being featured over the years. The 2023 iteration of this showcase features instructors across all disciplines; representing jewelry, sculpture, painting, photography, new media, and more. The themes, concepts, and ambitions behind the work featured in this exhibition range widely from masterfully captured oil portraiture in Vandra Pentecost’s Memories to the undulating, visceral abstraction in the mixed media sculptures of Gina Robbins. The variety of work seeks to prompt reflection and initiate conversations about each faculty member’s personal process, highlighting the diversity of methodologies that contribute to the creative practices happening across the Art Center’s studios.

Churchman-Fehsenfeld Gallery, Sara M Hurt Gallery, Allen W Clowes Gallery, Frank M Basile Exhibition Hall

Image: Kalie Holdren, Branching, Stoneware

Acrylic Adventures is an exhibition of new works by students in Dan Cooper’s Acrylic Painting – All Levels course at the Indy Art Center. Students enrolled in this course worked to create vibrant and expressive paintings while learning to mix colors, create confident brushstrokes, and develop personal artistic styles.

“My earliest experience with art came from looking at the pictures in a bible that my mother kept on her coffee table. As a kid, I spent many hours flipping through and staring at each picture individually. The pictures represented in this old bible were by well-known Renaissance painters. They were vividly colorful, moving, fantastical, and most of them were tragic in their subject matter. On the bible’s front cover perimeter were simple line drawings, depicting the stations of the cross. The stations are a pictorial depiction of a man’s (Jesus Christ) last hours of life. The hours could easily represent a lifetime, as he is confronted with grief, comfort, and isolation through this journey to his inevitable fate.

I call this series (A Fairytale) because I hope that it will have that same wonderous ingredient that stimulated my imagination years ago, opening new worlds to explore in my mind. I understand that a Fairytale may offer profound meaning to children and play a role in shaping their imaginations and perceptions of life, with all its intricacies and burdens. These stories become vehicles of learning that teach how to absorb an image, a sound, or a word, in a meaningful way.

The story of Jesus Christ, and his final journey represents a trail of human strength and frailty. It’s a lesson in compassion while we live in a time where love and empathy are replaced by greed and selfishness. The main character in this story could have been any one of thousands of spiritual leaders. I chose this one because he relates to my own background, education, and experiences. I hope that my completed body of work will inspire other artists, younger artists, children, and adults alike, to bravely speak their truths, explore their vulnerable selves and to reflect true feeling, in their art, relationships and in life.” –David DeCesaris

“It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us” – James Baldwin

Salon Des Savants is an exhibition of new works by students in Elise Howell’s Independent Study: Painting – Advanced course at the Indy Art Center. Artists featured are Rick Beardsley, David Beatty, Joan Cimino, Kimberly Conrad, John Gaebler, Sharon Hoog, Craig Mcdaniel, Lee Ann Miller, Susan Olden-Stahl, and Ursula Niklas Peterson.

FLAVA FRESH!, a juried exhibition series of contemporary fine art, is an award-winning multi-venue Indianapolis-based art events project. It’s part of a mission to bring about greater awareness, appreciation, inspiration, exposure, and support for visual artists. Their focus is to support aspiring novice, newly-discovered, underrepresented, emerging, early-to-mid-career artists utilizing all manner of discipline and media through a series of consecutive professional art exhibition venues.

FLAVA FRESH! serves as a platform to cultivate, incubate, develop, and facilitate innovative creativity and fellowship in the region. The intergenerational initiative has received several honors, including the prestigious Arts Council of Indianapolis 2019 A Full Creative Life For All Award. Quite a few of our participants have garnered national and international acclaim and recognition.

Bekah Pollard’s solo exhibition ‘Play’ had its opening reception on November 10, 2022. Pollard was granted the Skip McKinney Faculty Award in 2021, which resulted in their solo exhibition.

Bekah’s use of vibrant colors, and free-flowing shapes, are sparked by what she refers to as “intuitive painting.”

In Bekah’s words, “This body of work is all about exploring my materials just as they are and simply allowing the paint to be the content of the painting. Rather than painting with a specific concept or goal in mind, my only “goal” was to play and have fun while I was working. Practicing intuitive painting, I let the colors and textures of my paint guide me to create vibrant paintings with joyful colors and playful shapes.”

Wendy Carney is an award-winning realist oil painter. She spent her childhood in Colorado and graduated from the University of Colorado with a B.A. in Economics and International Relations. Carney has lived in Denver, Lund and Stockholm (Sweden), Northhampton (MA), Boulder, New York City, Dallas, Chicago, Telluride, Boston, and Charlottesville before returning to Chicago, where she currently lives.

Carney turned to painting as a way to express her observations of the world. Her nomadic life has provided her with a wealth of subjects and endless inspiration. She cares deeply about the places she has lived and traveled. Through her paintings she seeks to share the detail and richness of those experiences.

Carney’s work has received numerous national and international awards and honors, including from the Art Renewal Center, the International Guild of Realism, Oil Painters of America, American Art Awards, Artist’s Magazine, and Southwest Art Magazine. Her work has been highlighted in feature stories in American Art Collector Magazine and The Artist’s Magazine. Carney’s work is displayed in private collections across the country.

Carney has owned and managed a small publishing company, as well as a nonprofit for children’s literacy. She is represented by The Gallery at Tree’s Place in Orleans, MA and her work can also be found at the Abend Gallery, 33 Contemporary Gallery, and Artsy. She is a member of Oil Painters of America, the International Guild of Realism, and the Art Renewal Center.