Kenai Art Center

MURAL SALE August 2025
2025-08-01 17:00 - 19:00 UTC | AK
MURAL SALE! In our back gallery in August, murals from our past mural shows will be stretched and for sale. Buyers will be able to take their murals home immediately after purchase. This sale will open on Friday August 1st at 5 pm and will close on Friday august 29th. First Friday Opening Reception August 1st, 5–7 pm. Refreshments and live music. Open to the public. Free event!

Garrett Ennis Live at the KAC!
2025-08-01 17:00 - 19:00 | Kenai Art Center, 816 Cook Ave, Kenai, AK, 99611
Garrett Ennis Live at the KAC!
We invite you to join us on Friday August 1st to hear Garrett Ennis on guitar at our First Friday Opening Reception. Garrett will be setting the audio scene for the WORLD ON FIRE and the MURAL SALE shows at this opening night event. Garrett is an Alaskan born musician who was taught to play the guitar by his father early in life and went on to become a formally trained and highly accomplished musician. He has played for us before and we really enjoy his style and sound. He will be one of the 5 artists who will be showcased at Friday’s event. To learn more about Garrett and see his full bio please visit here: https://kenaiartcenter.org/exhibition-august-2025/
This event is free and open to the public. Bring family and friends for a great night of music, art and hors d’oeuvres.

Painter MARCO MENDOZA
2025-10-03 08:00 - 17:00 | Kenai Art Center, 816 Cook Ave, Kenai, AK, 99611
Join us in the Main Gallery in October for the art of Marco Mendoza and his show titled THROUGH THE EYES OF A DAYDREAMER. Marco is known for his free flowing and upbeat “graffiti” style paintings. His dynamic shapes and bold colors move and splash across the surface of his large and colorful pieces. Marco has participated in past mural shows and hosted local workshops at the KAC. We are very excited to be showing Marco’s work! Marco’s show will run from October 1st through October 31st.
For more information about Marco, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/marco.mendoza.111431
Opening Reception Friday October 3rd 5–7pm. This reception coincides with our Halloween Call-For-Art show in the back gallery. Live music. Refreshments. Free Event. Open to the public.

JUST OUR TYPE featuring artists Meezie Hermansen and Kimberly Lorentzen
2025-11-14 17:00 - 19:00 | AK
Join us in our back gallery starting on November 14th for this two woman show titled JUST OUR TYPE.
Meezie Hermansen and Kimberly Lorentzen will bring this interactive show to the KAC and in their words this exhibit is “intended to celebrate the written word and the themes of human experience in our community. We are together, just our type of community…There is currently, world-wide, a resurgence of appreciation for the beauty of the manual typewriter as an elegant machine and of the physical experience of using it in a world that has become increasingly digital and virtual.”
In the preceding months to the show opening, be on the lookout for for staged public-use typewriters around town in coffee shops, bookstores, etc with invitations to share thoughts that will then be on display at this interactive exhibit.
Their idea was inspired by conversations asking the following questions:

If art heals, can it heal the neglect of our physical bodies brought about by our minds’ engagement with a largely virtual world?
Can the act of sharing thoughts publicly heal the separation that members of a community can feel in a society that has become increasingly divided along ideological lines in digital and virtual public discourse?

This show will open in tandem with the Mural Show opening reception in the main gallery on November 14th and will run thought December 19th.
About the artists:
Meezie Hermansen is a lifelong Cook Inlet setnetter and a small animal veterinarian with a love for the craft of writing. This has brought her to the world of vintage typewriters. Here, she rediscovered the magic of seeing words appear physically in the world in real time, with no easy editing, resulting in a slower but more distilled writing process.
Kimberly Lorentzen grew up in rural Alaska where the village pace left plenty of time for curiosity and discovery. Whether writing, painting, or working in clay, her goal is to showcase small wonders that are often missed, to point at tiny marvels and yell, “LOOK!” to anyone nearby. She uses whatever is at her disposal to do it. She caught typewriter fever from her friend, Meezie, over long conversations about the trend toward all things fast and digital.

Call For Art--DREAMS OF THE SUN January 2026
2026-01-02 17:00 - 19:00 | Kenai Art Center, 816 Cook Ave, Kenai, AK, 99611
Call For Art: DREAMS OF THE SUN
Artwork submission dates: November 8th through December 19th 2025
Exhibition Dates: January 2nd through January 30th 2026
Opening Reception: Friday January 2nd 2026 5–7 pm

During the dark winter months in Alaska, we often reminisce of spring and summer–when the sun felt always present and real in our sky. From ancient myths to modern science, the sun has inspired awe, reverence, and creativity. It gives life, marks time, and shapes our days with its warmth and brilliance. For our upcoming exhibition, DREAMS OF THE SUN, we invite artists to explore the sun in all its forms—literal, symbolic, emotional, and environmental.
The KAC is interested in unique and original works including but not limited to: painting, photography, sculpture, textile, digital media, installation, and video, etc that reminds us of our love for the light, warmth and glow of the sun. Whether it’s golden hour landscapes, abstract interpretations of solar energy, personal stories of warmth and growth, or explorations of shadow and illumination, this show invites work that reflects the many dimensions of the sun.
We prefer new art but will accept original works that have not been on exhibition in the KAC in the last 5 years. All 2D and hanging art must have traditional “ready to hang” hardware attached. If submitting work that is framed or under glass, the surfaces must be clean and free of smudges and prints.

Art Entry Submission form must accompany all submissions. For form: https:https://kenaiartcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/art-entry-form-12-12-26.pdf
Artist statements of 250 words or less are recommended but not required and should accompany the above form at time of art submission.
The KAC will use our mission statement and vision statement to guide our choice when selecting works to include in the show. The KAC does not accept works that include violence or sexually explicit nudity. See our statements here: https://kenaiartcenter.org/our-mission/
For questions or more information please contact the KAC Executive Director at kenaiartcenter@gmail.com

BLADES OF BRASS Benefit Concert Live at the KAC!
2026-02-07 14:30 - 15:45 | Kenai Art Center, 816 Cook Ave, Kenai, AK, 99611
The BLADES OF BRASS are back! Join us on Saturday February 7th for another live concert to benefit the SOHI and Homer High School band programs.
Established in 2024, Blades of Brass is composed of musicians from Homer to Kenai that are passionate about sharing the excitement and beauty of brass instruments. Come enjoy an afternoon of classical, jazz, and contemporary music!
Suggested donation: $15 per adult. Students and kids attend for free! All proceeds go to the SOHI and Homer High School band programs.
Tickets available at the door (CASH ONLY) or online: https://venmo.com/u/Frances-Jurek

MOTHER OF... featuring artist Brianna Allen
2026-06-05 17:00 - 19:00 | Kenai Art Center, 816 Cook Ave, Kenai, AK, 99611
Main Gallery: MOTHER OF… solo show featuring artist Brianna Allen
First Friday Opening Reception Friday June 5th
Live Music. Refreshments. Free event and open to the public. This show runs from June 3rd through June 26th.
From Brianna:
“I am a multidisciplinary artist who gathers stories to practice self-introspection, community building and consider the broader strokes of social systems around motherhood. My art practice considers how sharing vulnerable stories in exhibit, literary and performance venues inspires a deeper kind of listening. It builds relationships, it awakens joys and insecurities. My social art practice project, The Momologoue Collective is informed by a community of story contributors, creative partners and audiences. I continue to expand upon an interdisciplinary approach that includes paintings, installation, performance, and playwriting. I’m building an archive of voices to timestamp mothers’ lived experiences in America, exploring topics of grief, bodily autonomy, and care systems. My work proposes a reevaluation of care systems towards a future centered in support, listening, protection, education and connection”.
This show will highlight paintings, cement installation work and the written word.
For more info about Brianna and her project: https://www.momologuecollective.com/
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Back Gallery: Artist Zirrus Vandevere.

Zirrus will be installing sculpture pieces made from found/reclaimed materials and SCOBY (the mushroomy looking growth that occurs during the fermentation process while making kombucha). Zirrus describes her work this way:
“The fact that it’s a living, growing thing that sticks to itself and to substrates as it dries in various states of translucency feels symbolic to me on a number of levels. It feels abundant, messy, curious and earthy, like life. Like culture. Like symbiotic relationships that sometimes get messy. Like all things with senescence, unless preserved for a time in one way or another, will return to the soil and meld into nature carrying its own complexity of energy that can neither be created nor destroyed but only changed…
In this way, each container shaped little soul is both entirely unique and ultimately similar to others in its clade. Like you. Or like me.
In my installation for the back gallery, I’m hoping to discover new ways to play with these creatures and how they interact with various substrates in homage to life and to creativity itself, illuminating and protecting the pieces to hopefully instill in viewers some sort of simulacra of curiosity and reverence for all things coincidentally ephemeral and somehow also held within the construct we call time.”
Zirrus’ show will be opening concurrently with Brianna Allen’s solo show titled MOTHER OF…
This show will run from June 3rd through June 26th.
