The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present four new exhibitions at the Emporium Center in downtown Knoxville opening on Friday, November 6, from 5:00-9:00 PM. A free gathering with the exhibiting artists will also feature live music by Kaylie King.
- Masks and Reveals by Ken McMahon in the Lower Gallery
- Enigma by Lois Trader in the Atrium
- Feathered Spectrum: A Colorful Avian Array by Roberta Smashey in the Display Case
- State of Flow by Kira Evans on the North Wall
- Standing in the Shower… Thinking curated by Rachel Waldrop continues in the Balcony Gallery
These exhibitions will be on display November 6 – 25, 2026, at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. In November, the Emporium is open to the public: Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM and on Saturdays, 10:00 AM – 1:00PM. The Emporium is closed November 26 & 27.
Many of the works on exhibition will be for sale and may be purchased by visiting in person or the online shop at https://www.knoxalliance.store
Masks and Reveals by Ken McMahon in the Lower Gallery
When working on developing a new vocabulary of forms for my paintings I will often use photographs that I have taken of various objects or events that seemed unusual or surprising at the time. I came across some photos that I had taken in 2020 of cloth masks that were washed and hung up to dry outside. I have been working toward creating some forms that were less geometric, and more irregular and amorphous than my previous work, and these seemed to contain many of these qualities. I enjoy the quasi-figurative aspect of the forms, and the idea of masks in general seem to carry a variety of uses, nuance and history in our culture. Friends donated additional masks which I used to make more photographs, and from these I developed the abstract paintings in the exhibition.
For the past fifty years my studio work has primarily focused on exploring the construction of abstract narratives; creating a dialogue, interaction and improvisation using non-representational elements, in a variety of spatial constructs. The tension and movement between figure and ground are emotionally engaging for me. Much of the formal vocabulary in the paintings is developed from observation and abstraction of objects and their environments.
Ken McMahon was born in Knoxville, TN, 1955. Studied at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. I then studied at the State University of New York in Buffalo, receiving a Master of Fine Arts Degree. Following graduation, I taught for a brief time at SUNY in Buffalo, and then moved to New York City, working as an artist, for the next fifteen years. I then relocated to Knoxville, and in the past few years I have established a studio and have been able to devote myself full time to making work. McMahon has had four solo exhibitions of work and participated in various group and juried exhibitions. My work is in multiple corporate and private collections.
Artist Website: kenmcmahonstudio.com
Enigma by Lois Trader in the Atrium
Enigma is about weakness, struggle, and the emotions we carry privately — the ones we’d never make public. These works don’t dress that up. They acknowledge it and invite you to acknowledge it too. Using found objects, foam clay, paper mâché, resin, metal, and materials drawn from everyday life, each piece reveals only part of its story. These works explore the disorientation of not belonging, evoke the restless 3 a.m. mind, trace grief from breaking to survival, and confront the silence left when something essential is gone. Enigma offers no resolution; it offers company.
My mixed-media sculptures and assemblages are figurative, emotional, and sometimes strange. I explore grief, caregiving, endurance, and the complicated grace of survival. I began making art in March 2023 at age 66, without formal training, after my mother’s death, while recovering from five years of caregiving during my mother’s dementia. I had things to say that had no other form. Four years later, I am still giving them form.
Lois Trader is a self-taught mixed-media sculptor and assemblage artist based in Loudon, Tennessee. Her work has appeared at the Knoxville Museum of Art, McGhee Tyson Airport, the Mythus National Juried Exhibition at the d’Art Center in Norfolk, Virginia, and in Novum Artis Magazine, as well as in exhibitions in California, Virginia, and Hawaii. Honors include a Certificate of Excellence at the Tennessee Juried Open Art Show; Second Place from the Tennessee Artists Association in 2024 and 2025; two years in a row, Honorable Mentions from the Oak Ridge Art Center Annual Juried Exhibition.
Artist Website: loistraderart.com
Facebook: facebook.com/loistraderart
Instagram: @loistraderart
Feathered Spectrum: A Colorful Avian Array by Roberta Smashey in the Display Case
Roberta Smashey is a stained-glass artist creating both nature-themed and abstract works using the glass foiling technique developed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. By utilizing hand-made glass sheets of various colors and textures, she produces dynamic depictions of the beauty found in nature. The variations in artisanal glass give a unique feeling of depth and movement with this challenging medium. Using the Tiffany technique coupled with the beauty of glass and a lifelong study of wildlife, Smashey seeks to evoke appreciation of our natural world in all who view her creations. Whenever possible, she adds antique glass repurposed from old church windows and often incorporates at least one feature made from the older glass.
In addition to her glass creations, Roberta is a nationally represented wildlife artist represented in several museum collections and fine art galleries. Besides using traditional acrylic painting methods, she creates many of her art works using a rather low-technology method: hand-mixed acrylic paint applied to canvas or museum board with toothpicks and sanded skewers. This semi-pointillism method produces a distinctive texture and appearance and enhances certain textures and colors. Using these techniques, she has produced a series of paintings that incorporate Braille messages, and all of the pointillism paintings are meant to be touched.
State of Flow by Kira Evans on the North Wall
Kira Evans’ collages are influenced by the clothing and drapery of Old Master portraits; using luxury fashion magazines, she hand-cuts and assembles abstract pieces that reimagine the luster of historical textiles.
After growing up in an oil town in West Texas in the 1980’s, Kira Evans studied Advertising/Public Relations and graphic design. She left Texas for Atlanta, GA later moving to Los Angeles where she ran a boutique graphic design business for over 10 years. Her clients included the major film studios, top PR firms and event planners. After moving to Washington, DC, she worked as a Project Manager for a multi-disciplinary firm to open the Ritz-Carlton Dorado Beach in Puerto Rico. She went on to produce creative for one of the largest lobbying firms in DC. Many years of studying art, craft, design and history have developed Kira’s eye and her aesthetic.
Now Kira is pursuing fine art in the area of mixed media collage. She was selected for a residency program in Scotland and has shown in Atlanta, New York and Tennessee where she now lives.
Artist Website: www.kiraevans.com/
Instagram: @kira_evans_art
Standing in the Shower… Thinking curated by Rachel Waldrop continues in the Balcony Gallery
Standing in the Shower… Thinking is one of the more revealing songs on Jane’s Addiction’s debut 1988 studio album, Nothing’s Shocking. The song is set in a physical and psychological time and place that we all know well: the quotidian act of taking a hot shower becomes an opportunity for fertile inner monologues—perhaps about fears and vulnerabilities, sexuality, intimacy and relationships, or simply reminders of daily life. With a range of included works made over the past 10 years, artists Harry Kagan, John Paul Kessling, and Victoria Sauer pursue and exploit the site of a shower—and shower thoughts—to differing degrees. Centering the bathroom, and thereby larger ideas of human figuration, connection, and representations of intimacy and meditation as universal experiences—their paintings, photographs, and ceramics in Standing in the Shower…Thinking approach the subject with both humor and humanity.
Harry Kagan’s artistic tiles, individually small in form yet collectively large when scaled together, speak directly to the domestic construction materials of a bathroom. Artist Website: www.harrykagan.com | Instagram: @harrykagan
John Paul Kesling’s paintings, polaroids, and videos expose the complexities of human intimacy, both romantic and familial. Artist Website: www.johnpaulkesling.com | Instagram: @johnpaulkesling
Victoria Sauer’s paintings from the past decade have scrutinized, in her hyper realistic style, the unspoken and overlooked experiences of everyday life, what she describes as “the moments residing within a level of reality that we find familiar but frequently ignore.” Artist Website: www.victoriasauer.com | Instagram: @victoriasauerart
Just as in the song’s lyrics, the repeated refrain “standing in the shower…thinking” reinforces that none of the ideas are fully resolved: they’re admittedly passing thoughts, almost like intrusive reflections or obsessions, rather than any coherent philosophy.
Rachel Waldrop is director and curator of the Athenaeum, UGA’s contemporary art space in downtown Athens, GA, and director of the Dodd Galleries in the Lamar Dodd School of Art since 2025. From 2020-2025, Waldrop was director and curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. Waldrop has been working with artists, writing about, and teaching in the field of contemporary art for 20 years and held positions in New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Athens. Instagram: @hello_rachelwaldrop
About the Arts & Culture Alliance
The Arts & Culture Alliance serves and supports a diverse community of artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions. The Alliance receives financial support from the Tennessee Arts Commission, Knox County and the City of Knoxville.
Discover more from Inside of Knoxville
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.