WUKY Gallery
Make WUKY one of your Local Arts destinations. Along with WUKY's state-of-the-art studios, you can now check out our gallery of local artist(s).
Artist: Nancye McCrary
Exhibit Dates: October 28 - January 28, 2027
Meet & Greet With the Artist
When: Wednesday, October 28th 2026 @ 5 PM
Where: WUKY Studios, 2640 Spurr Rd, Lexington KY 40511
Light hors d'oeuvres
Artist Statement:
I have exhibited paintings and mixed media works throughout the United States and Sweden. Beginning in printmaking at the University of Tennessee, I earned degrees in Art Education and taught visual art in public and private elementary, middle, and secondary schools. I also directed an Arts program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission in a development center for children and youth with disabilities, (Knoxville, TN). Later I served as an Artist-in-Residence for Learning through Education in the Arts (LEAP) (San Francisco, CA), Youth in Art and the Very Special Arts (Marin County, CA). While teaching children and youth, my students earned numerous awards by the National Scholastic Arts and were selected to exhibit at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery (Nashville, TN), the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the San Francisco Ballet. I have also taught studio courses (painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics), art history, art appreciation, and art education on the post-secondary level, designing and serving as Program Chair for a new Art Education teacher preparation program at a small women’s college in North Georgia. More recently, I served as an Assistant and Associate Professor in Fine Arts and Curriculum & Instruction (Teacher Education) at the University of Kentucky and St. Catharine College, where I chaired the Department of Professional Studies.
After leaving academia, I have been able to pursue a lifelong dream of painting full time and maintaining a studio nestled on 43 acres in central Kentucky. In a recent solo exhibit, Sacred Places, I juxtapose images of what are commonly considered sacred sites with images of the unacknowledged sacred places in the natural world. My concern is to highlight our tendency to preserve human-built sacred sites while rapidly destroying the sacred in our natural world. Living in a time when glaciers are melting, rainforests are burning, and people are masking themselves against pollution and contagions, it seems more urgent than ever to reconsider what we view as sacred and how we must embrace and protect those places. It is a consciousness that acknowledges the sanctity of a walk in the woods.
Standard Gallery Hours: Monday through Friday, 10am-4pm. To schedule a viewing of the exhibit, please call (859) 257-3221.
Would you like to exhibit at the WUKY Gallery? Please submit an application.
On Display October 28th - January 28th, 2027
Nancye McCrary