Measured Stillness | Alexis Kuhr

The art of Alexis Kuhr is an antidote to the art of spontaneous expression. Instead, hers is highly methodical and measured, materialized through careful planning and rigorous application of predetermined procedures, much like the way a master printer operates. 
- Young Min Moon, Resistant Rhythms: The Graphic Works of Alexis Kuhr, 2024

Measured Stillness begins with showcasing formative works from 1995, continuing through Kuhr’s sixteen year career at the University of Minnesota, and arriving at the last series, Carbon Ash Glue (2020-22). Ranging from working on wood panels to her iPad, the exhibition highlights Kuhr’s beginnings and eventual return to the expressive quality of the inked line. Drawing acts as the star of her work: the quality of the hand traced by graphite, the repetition of geometries that build and collapse space, and the manipulation and layering of found imagery and pattern. To borrow from Kuhr’s words, which form the exhibition’s title, this precision of line and shape, collage and color fields, coalesce into what she might have deemed as “measured stillness.” 

Always fully engaged in teaching, learning about her students, and improving curriculum, Kuhr challenged developing artists to critically engage with ideas, materials, and processes of art, as well as the current sociopolitical climate. She began her sixteen year career at the University of Minnesota in 1998. During her time with the Department of Art, Professor Christine Baeumler remembers Kuhr as “fiercely supportive of faculty, students, and staff as part of the whole community and skillfully advocated for the Department of Art, while fostering the personal and professional growth of students and colleagues alike,” and for her “thoughtful insights into the process and theory of art-making, and her gentle sense of humor.” Professor Emerita Joyce Lyon notes that Kuhr “brought the same characteristics—humane intelligence, curiosity, integrity, rigor—to her artmaking practice…” In 2014 Kuhr joined the UMass Amherst Art Department as Department Chair after serving as Department of Art Chair at the University of Minnesota. 

A graduate of the University of California Santa Cruz, Kuhr received an MFA in painting from Stanford University. She has taught at Stanford, UCSC, Vassar College, and Mount Holyoke College in addition to the University of Minnesota and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her work appeared in over forty group exhibitions and twenty-three solo shows with exhibitions in China, Mexico, New York, and throughout the United States. Kuhr received the prestigious Prix de Paris, France, as well as fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Public Program and Reception:
Saturday, February 7, 6:00-8:00 pm
Program, 6:00-6:30 pm, InFlux Space E110, Regis Center for Art 
Reception, 6:30-8:00 pm, Regis Center for Art

Join us for a program honoring the late Alexis Kuhr who served as a Department of Art faculty member at the University of Minnesota from 1998 to 2014. Seating for the program is first-come, first-served. InFlux Space doors open at 5:30 pm.  A reception with light refreshments will follow the program. That same evening visit Beyond Disciplines (January 27-March 7, 2026) at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, featuring works by Department of Art faculty and staff across a variety of media and conceptual explorations.

Planning Your Visit:

Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm, Free and open to the public

The Quarter Gallery is housed in the Regis Center for Art at the University of Minnesota and is accessible by U-Card only. Please call 612-624-7530 upon arrival to gain access to the gallery through the building's main entrance located on 21st Avenue South. Parking is available nearby on the street, at the 21st Avenue South ramp, 5th Street South lot, and 19th Avenue South ramp. Hourly or event rates may apply.

Image: Alexis Kuhr, Untitled (detail), 2001. Oil and graphite on panel, 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.3 cm). Photo courtesy of Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts Amherst. ©Alexis Kuhr