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Art on Main

Art on MainA program of the City of Auburn, Art on Main is Auburn's newest art exhibition space. Artists are selected through an annual application process to install 3-dimensional or multi-media art installations in a public window-front exhibition space in downtown Auburn. The program offers a $1,000 artist stipend to support the installation of new or existing work as site-specific projects. Art on Main is located on East Main Street between N. Division St. and Auburn Avenue.

For information on this art opportunity visit our Call To Artists page.


Current Exhibition

KT

KT Hancock- January 8 - March, 2024
Date Night

"Date Night" creates a luminous story starting with a single cyclist, dancing in the desert and ends with a romantic gesture beneath the moon. Words within the installation elude to destinations as ICE to describe the lone cycler, Dry is used to describe the desert cactus scene and Pizza and Pasta equates the to classic Date Night. Within the installation we also ask "Are We Here Yet?" as the dancers end in a sweet caress.
For more information about the artist, visit their website: kthancock.com


Past Exhibition

Corrosion Bloom
Brooke Fotheringham - October 14 - January 1, 2024
Corrosion Blooms

Sculpture artist Brooke Fotheringham is presenting in our Art on Main space this quarter. "This lenticular triptych is an exploration of entropy and corrosion, a daydream about how the universe is continually breaking things down to their base elements in an infinite cycle of rebuilding. Infrastructure crumbles as oxides grow and bloom out of them. The generative and destructive no longer opposites, but rather a series of reactions and evolutions on a shared continuum."

"My source images for this installation include honeysuckle flowers, ginger root, glass tile, and reflections from a pan lid filled with water. This installation was inspired by how the corrosive can become generative. I drew inspiration from the bismuth crystallization process, how metals craze when heated, and how I imagine manmade materials might age in atmospheres harsher than our own."


 Past Exhibition

McGahan - Pushing Color
Deanne McGahan - July 7 - October 1, 2023
Pushing Color


Sculpture artist Deanne McGahan is taking our Art on Main space as an opportunity to break into using color in her work. "I've always struggled with adding color into my work as I tend to find it distracting in 3D forms" says McGahan. "My work is about moving forward, and through that, I've learned that I have to take more risks to make the world evolve, whether that's the society around us or the world as a whole. No color, no change. Creating art is how I navigate life and I hope the work that I can create can give that energy of Finding Color within anyone."

While this work looks weighty, it is lighter than traditional poured concrete. "In my process I hand press 2 inches of concrete into a one of a kind mold. Reinforcing PVA fibers are mixed into a back layer, adding strength and lightness." explains McGahan.


Maggie Andersen "Re-Imagined"
Maggie Andersen - April 11 - July 5, 2023
Re-Imagined

Clothing speaks in a universal language, and artist Maggie Andersen is weaving this silent communication into her work centered around the female figure. Using reclaimed recycled materials including metal hardware, chains, and permanent wave rods, Andersen creates life-sized wall sculptures of the female bust. These figures, hand fabricated using these unusual, recycled goods, are made to provoke thoughts on society and humankind through the industrial made fluid.


Window front art exhibition
Stephanie Krimmel - January 12 - April  2, 2023
Thousands of Small Steps

In May 2018, Stephanie Krimmel began making a digital painting every day. It started as a challenge to herself to reclaim her creativity and became a sustaining passion that continues to grow. The resulting series, called the Daily Art Habit, is now built over almost 1700 consecutive day’s work and provides source material for ‘Thousands of Small Steps.’

The installation consists of over 1200 4x4 inch printed postcards organized by color and bound together into approximately 100 accordion books. Installed as a group, the daily pieces from the series work together to celebrate growth and perseverance by demonstrating the cumulative effect of daily practice.


Window front art exhibition
Bella Kim - October 12, 2022 -January 2, 2023

In a world is faced with the need to save the planet from human-caused global warming, Bella Kim wants to be part of that movement and reduce the consumption of energy and resources while creating her art. Kim finds it is easy to locate leftovers and packages from food or merchandise that are going to be thrown away. She sees their colors and textures as unique, special, and still gorgeous. Kim collects these plastics and prepares them for transformation, then cuts, washes, and dries them. She regroups them based on colors and textures, then sews and patches the various sized pieces to create the whole artwork.

Bella Kim loves to see the harmony of small and insignificant patches, which blend so well together, often making patterns, textures, and unexpected effects such as transparency, shadows, and even 3-dimensional structures. Most of her work is expressed in the composition of lines and planes. Inspired by Korean traditional and western abstract art, her creativity is often sparked by imagination from nature, and the world around her. This transformation of useless materials into meaningful results gives Kim endless joy and she hopes that people will appreciate how ordinary materials can be used for art.


Window front art exhibition
Michael Dinning - July 16 to October 2, 2022

 Michael Dinning has created an installation of artwork based around the central theme of American Fabric. The artwork is focused on imagery and ideas about the American experience, and the history of the country, as well as current issues and concerns. For this exhibit Dinning uses both free-standing and wall-hanging mixed-media pieces; all of which employ painted canvasses coupled with a wide variety of found objects, rustic wood and hardware, and light elements. The central concept is to present a collection of artwork that focuses on the issues of personal identity, history and location, those things that are specific to American history and society, as well as our identities within those confines.


Image of a sculpture

Anthony May Heinz - April 14 - July 4, 2022

Anthony May Heinz blurs lines between the real (natural) and artificial (human-processed) to portray relationships concerning nature, humans and technology. He rearranges and recombines fragments of these forms to reflect the omnipresence of grids in our world. Each fragment represents a disruption of time as recorded visually in woody vegetation (through the growth and change of its original, organic whole). Through geometric deformation, each material is interwoven so both sets of form mirror one another continuously, to allow possibility for non-orientable navigation. This conceptual play of fracturing and grafting like substrates illustrates particularities of past/present/future of Earth, to perceive time found in nature through an anthropocentric lens.


Image of a sculpture

Elena Thomas - January 14 -April 9, 2022

Where the Squares Aren’t is a sculptural installation created to be site-specific to the Art on Main window-front gallery on Main Street in downtown Auburn. It is made up of interlocking wood squares combined with black reflective acrylic and two-way mirrored acrylic. The artist made specific lighting choices to create shadows and reflections. As the piece goes from day to night the shadows and reflections change, offering a changing visual experience. By using reflective material, repetitive shape, and lighting, the work is meant to draw people in and challenge their visual perception. The acrylic sheets also show the reflections of people walking by, adding another layer of public engagement into the work.