Exhibition: JUNE 2026

June 3, 2026

TWO GREAT SHOWS

Main Gallery— MOTHERHOOD: GOOD GRIEF with artist BRIANNA ALLEN

In our main gallery the KAC will be featuring painter Brianna Allen for her solo show.  

From Brianna:

My creative practice explores the complexities of motherhood through painting, performance and playwriting. This body of work honors grief in motherhood- as the pearl it becomes over time.

I prefer to wade into tidepools, where life is whirring and surprising and certainly more alive than what’s offered up at the shore line. Out-of-body perspectives and the color black challenge rose-tinted glasses usually worn while reflecting upon our mothering. 

My ongoing portrait series, “Mother of…” witnesses my own matriarchal relationships in community, and my admiration for a mother’s world-building (and world-holding) capacity. What would be different if mothers were understood to be the Creators that we are? 

This work is made possible by a growing community of over 100 self-identifying mothers whose anonymous story contributions are archived at MomologueCollective.com. Allen’s work is based on the book, “The Momologue Collective: An Anthology by Self-Identifying Mothers,” published in 2022.

Playwright, performer and visual artist, Brianna Allen created The Momologue Collective in 2018, as a platform for self-identifying mothers to contribute anonymous and true short-stories about motherhood to be shared among a creative community. She holds BFA in Painting and Entrepreneurial Studies from the University of Southern Maine. This year she was selected as a playwright for her short play “Mom, Look!” Valdez Theatre Conference, and last year for her full-length play “Boarding Motherhood.” In 2025, she was awarded the Individual Artist Award from the Rasmuson Foundation, as well the Connie Boochever Felllowship Award. She was awarded Artist of the Year in 2022 by the Homer Council on the Arts. She lives on Ninilchik Tribal lands (currently known as Homer, Alaska) and works at Bunnell Street Arts Center. She is the mother of two daughters Josephine, 8 and Manon, 6.

Preview of some works in Brianna’s show:

Back Gallery: SYMBIOTIC CULTURE: INNER LIGHT with Zirrus Vandevere and her solo show.

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.” 

Quick Sneak Peek of Zirrus’ show:

Zirrus’ show will be opening concurrently with Brianna Allen’s solo show titled MOTHERHOOD: GOOD GRIEF!

Artist Talks 6 pm. Refreshments. Music by Robert Parsons

Opening Reception: June 5th , 5-7 pm

Exhibition Dates: June 3rd through June 26th

More Exhibit info:

  • Artist Talks 6 pm
  • Live Music by Robert Parsons
  • Lite Refreshments
  • Free Event
  • Open to the public
  • Location: Kenai Art Center, 816 Cook Avenue
  • Gallery hours: 12-5pm, Tuesday – Saturday