Dewhirst named inaugural Gray Design Building Gallery Director

The University of Kentucky College of Design has appointed Hannah Dewhirst as the inaugural gallery director for the Gray Design Building Gallery, a new leadership role that will guide the development of the gallery as a hub for exhibitions, research and public engagement. 

Dewhirst, an assistant professor in the School of Interiors, will lead the gallery as both a curatorial and educational platform that connects student learning, faculty research and the broader creative community.  

In this role, Dewhirst will coordinate four to five exhibitions each year, featuring visiting artists and designers, faculty research, collaborative projects and student work. She will oversee exhibition development and installation, collaborate with faculty to integrate exhibitions into coursework and create opportunities for students to engage with the gallery through roles such as docents and gallery assistants.  

The position also includes expanding partnerships beyond the College, including participation in community events such as the new UK Art Trail and LexArts Gallery Hop, and strengthening collaborations with visiting critics, designers and cultural organizations.  

“I am interested in utilizing the Gray Design Building as a critical instrument: a site where design is tested, staged, debated, and made public,” Dewhirst said. “I see the gallery as an active pedagogical and research apparatus that supports experimentation, hosts provisional work, and makes visible the labor of design across scales, media, and disciplines.  

The gallery director position was created as part of the Provost IMPACT Award project “Expanding the University of Kentucky Arts Ecosystem,” a cross-campus initiative led by the College of Design in partnership with the College of Fine Arts, UK Arts in HealthCare and the Office for Student Success. The project aims to transform the Gray Design Building Gallery into a dynamic center for art and design that strengthens connections across campus and expands the university’s cultural presence in Lexington. 

College of Design Dean Ned Crankshaw said Dewhirst’s appointment represents an important step in advancing the College’s exhibition programming and its role within the region’s creative community. 

“I’m very pleased that Hannah Dewhirst will serve as gallery director; she brings a strong sensibility for how exhibitions can provoke dialogue and illuminate the connections between art and design,” Crankshaw said. “Under her leadership, the gallery will create new opportunities for exhibitions that strengthen design’s presence within the UK’s arts ecosystem and the wider Lexington creative community.” 

The gallery director will also serve as an ex-officio member of the building’s Lectures, Exhibitions and Publications Committee, collaborating with faculty across the College of Design and the Department of Landscape Architecture to develop programming that reflects the full range of disciplines represented in the Gray Design Building. 

“The experience I bring to this role emerges from sustained engagement with exhibition-making as a mode of inquiry. I hope to position this new gallery, in our new home at the Gray Design Building, as an investigative and reverberant space,” Dewhirst said. 

Dewhirst’s exhibition IN:SPACE | Practice in Motion, curated in collaboration with interiors graduate students Isabel Angulo and Nadia Nizhelskaya, is set to open later this week. IN: SPACE | Practice in Motion features lighting and textile work by artists Patrick Ethen and Virginia Melnyk alongside student contributions created as part of an experiential workshop series, exploring space as a dynamic, sensory environment.  

The UK and Lexington community are invited to the opening of IN:SPACE | Practice in Motion on Wednesday, March 25 at 4 p.m. in the Gray Design Building Gallery located at 349 Scott Street in Lexington, Kentucky. Featured artists Ethen and Melnyk will both be present for the opening. 

Paid parking is available along Scott Street. Further details can be found at https://design.uky.edu/events/inspace-exhibition.