This Friday, graduating seniors at Kentucky College of Art + Design will unveil their final thesis exhibitions, showcasing deeply personal, research-driven, and immersive bodies of work developed throughout their final year. Spanning sculpture, animation, digital fabrication, installation, and narrative storytelling, each exhibition reflects the unique perspectives and practices of the Class of 2026.

From explorations of environmental transformation and inherited trauma to meditations on spirituality, anxiety, and historical memory, these projects invite viewers into complex worlds shaped by material experimentation and lived experience.

Beige Price — Intertwined Lives

In Intertwined Lives, Beige Price constructs immersive, large-scale living sculptures using grapevine foraged from woodlands throughout Kentucky and Indiana. Organic materials, field-study drawings, and interactions with community members all inform their artistic practice. Through this work, Price explores a dynamic relationship with the natural world, translating visceral experiences within ecosystems into reflections on metaphysical connection. The exhibition centers on the belief that all life is spiritually and physically interconnected.

Asia Jewell — Echoes of the Ninth

Asia Jewell’s thesis exhibition, Echoes of the Ninth: A Visual Memoir Memorandum, examines the historic and ongoing impacts of segregation and displacement through the lens of Black Native identity. Referencing both New Orleans’ Ninth Ward and Louisville’s Ninth Street divide, Jewell investigates the lasting effects of redlining and systemic racism following the abolishment of slavery. Through this body of work, she explores narratives surrounding Black Native Women and American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS), tracing the ways history, identity, and memory continue to shape contemporary experiences.

Madison Boone — Save Room

Drawing inspiration from dystopian storytelling, video games, and speculative fiction, Madison Boone’s Save Room explores world-building through sculpture and digital fabrication. The exhibition imagines a fictional Appalachia transformed by infection and mutation, presenting fabricated animal heads as sculptural trophies from a post-apocalyptic environment. Boone’s work invites viewers to reflect on environmental change, disease, pollution, and the consequences of human intervention on ecosystems in both virtual and physical worlds.

Carol Ann Raby — Dahlia

In Dahlia, Carol Ann Raby creates psychological tension between beauty and unease through distorted floral imagery and animation. Inspired by personal experiences with anxiety, the work begins with ornate, visually seductive imagery before revealing unsettling distortions and anatomical details beneath the surface. Raby’s work explores how anxiety can unexpectedly interrupt moments of comfort, while also expanding the concept of the uncanny valley beyond the human form. Through familiar yet disturbing visuals, Dahlia examines the hidden discomfort that can exist beneath beauty and routine.

Kerstin Imhoff — Bloodline

Kerstin Imhoff’s Bloodline investigates inherited violence and generational trauma rooted in her family history. Drawing from stories shared by her mother about involvement with the leftist FMLN movement during the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s, Imhoff reflects on how pain, memory, and political conflict can be passed through generations. Through this body of work, she asks viewers to consider the nature of power and the enduring impact that violence and weaponry leave on individuals, families, and collective histories.

Experience the 2026 Senior Thesis Exhibition

The 2026 Senior Thesis Exhibition celebrates the culmination of years of experimentation, research, and artistic growth from KyCAD’s graduating seniors. Visitors are invited to experience these thought-provoking exhibitions and engage directly with the work of emerging contemporary artists as they prepare to launch the next chapter of their creative careers.

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Opening Reception:

May 15, 2026 | 5-7:30pm

849 Gallery

849 S. 3rd St., Louisville, KY 40203