KSU Downtown Gallery continues long history featuring art from the region

Natalie Petrosky's "Sticks•Rocks•Leaves" exhibition is on display this summer at KSU Downtown Gallery. Photo via KSU Downtown Gallery

First opening in 1997, the KSU Downtown Gallery has operated as a bridge between the city and the university, showcasing the work of local artists downtown for almost three decades.

The gallery was formed under a different name and in a different building. It began as Gallery 138, like its then address on East Main Street.

Created under the leadership of former School of Art Director William Quinn, the original site was donated by former faculty in the university’s math department, T.N. and Christine Bhargava. It has functioned downtown long before the area’s revitalization.

The downtown location is currently at 141 E. Main St., near Kent Natural Foods Co-op.

The downtown space has hosted numerous events and exhibits over the years, including displaying work from Kent State’s National Ceramics Invitational, hosting a poetry makerspace and helping commemorate the careers of local artists like illustrator Jerry Kalback and poet Major Ragain.

The venue’s current show, featuring alumnus Natalie Petrosky’s work, runs until July 27th. The exhibition space offers free admission and is open six days a week, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

The School of Art Collection and Galleries, which runs the gallery, operates several other spaces on the university’s campus, including three in the Center for the Visual Arts: the CVA, Payto and Crawford galleries. The university library hosts another called the Michener Gallery.

Kent’s downtown features two spaces run by the school: the downtown gallery on East Main and a space in the Kent State University Hotel.

The reasoning behind exhibits off-campus is that they showcase exceptional research taking place at the School of Art and in the area, according to Anderson Turner, the director of exhibitions and collections at Kent State’s School of Art.

The creative research displayed in the gallery covers a wide range of mediums and interests. Exhibits have included Kalback’s drawings studying Major League Baseball in the early 1900s, an exhibit on the history and legacy of a campus sculpture called Partially Buried Woodshed and a study of textures, shapes and contrasting colors in “Tim Stover: Linear Integration.”

The Downtown Gallery in particular helps people connect with the northeast Ohio area by unveiling exhibits that feature work from local artists, including faculty and alumni.

“The mission of that space has always been to feature work of regional artists,” said Turner.

The gallery helps Kent’s art school not just inform and educate students, but to support individual artists.

“Artists are always looking for quality venues that can support them showing the work they’re making,” Turner said.

The biggest supporter of his work? To Turner, it is the community.

“They really support all the programming I have been able to do in the 19 years I’ve been doing this job,” he said.

The art chosen for exhibition is determined by proposals submitted to a faculty gallery committee. Community members can apply through the link on the KSU galleries website at galleries.kent.edu. Applicants need to submit a resume, an artist statement, a proposal for the exhibit and 10-20 images of their work.

The selection committee meets a few times each semester, with all of the galleries’ exhibits typically planned out 1-3 years in advance. This planning ahead helps ensure money can be found in the meantime.

Turner continuously works to secure dollars for the spaces, and he is always looking out for new ways to keep upcoming exhibits funded. The operation is a part of the School of Art, and the spaces receive funding from the Ohio Arts Council, as well as various other entities and donors.

For example, when the school hosted the Mid-America Print Council conference, they received money to help cover costs. Partnerships like these help keep programming coming.

“We do things on a very tight budget and most often on almost no budget at all,” Turner said.

The current exhibit is titled sticks • rocks • leaves. It features work of mixed media influenced by Petrosky’s gardening. The pieces were all made in 2024, with the majority having started at a five-week residency at the Webb School of Knoxville in Tennessee.

Petrosky had been in talks with Turner to put on a downtown show since last fall, and she found out she had a show in February while at the residency. It was a more quickly planned exhibit than average, with Turner finishing make-up shows shifted by the pandemic in January.

During her time out of state, Petrosky began on two bodies of separate work. Excited with fabrics she was finding in the area, and thinking one group of work was more well rounded then the other, she started focusing solely on the symmetrical nature-inspired paintings that appear in the gallery now.

Petrosky is an example of both an alumnus and a faculty member displaying art in the venue. She graduated with a BFA in painting and completed an honors thesis in glass at Kent State in 2012. She now teaches drawing and other foundational courses at Kent State’s main campus, and previously taught courses at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Cuyahoga Community College.

Recalling seeing other students she looked up to while studying at Kent exhibit in the downtown space, Petrovsky feels honored to be a part of the gallery’s history of good exhibits and the area in general.

“I’m just real happy and proud to be part of the Kent community,” she said.

Luke Jenkins
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