Semmes Gallery
Semmes Gallery is one of three gallery spaces at the University of the Incarnate Word. Frequently hosting students, guest artists, solo and collective exhibitions, it is a dynamic gallery featuring works as diverse as the artists themselves. At any given time, guests may find paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, photography, digital art and more.
Spring 2023: SAISD Campus Collaborative Art Fair 2023
Opening Reception: Fri., Mar. 24, 2023, 6 - 8 p.m.
Exhibit on Display: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday, Mar. 24 – Friday, Apr. 14, 2023
Students and teachers from San Antonio Independent School District's (SAISD) special campuses are pleased to showcase their best work from the 2022-2023 school year. This exhibit includes artwork from Advanced Learning Academy, CAST Med HS, CAST Tech HS, Cooper Academy at Navarro, Fox Tech HS, St. Phillips ECHS, Steele Academy, Travis ECHS, Young Women’s Leadership Academy, YWLA Primary, and Young Men’s Leadership Academy.
Artwork Credits:
Trinkets
Kalea Alexander, 11th grade
White Charcoal drawing
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
(except UIW holidays)
Kelso Art Center / Semmes and Condos Galleries
(Broadway and Hildebrand on UIW campus)
Free and Open to the Public
Spring 2023: UIW Department of Art Senior Capstone Exhibition: "Ambivalence"
Opening Reception: Fri., Apr. 28, 2023, 6 - 8 p.m.
Exhibit on Display: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday, Apr. 28 - Friday, May 26, 2023
- Ariadna D. Ardavin-Musa
- Olga M. Aviles
- Cristal N. Cosey
- Jennifer M. Jenkins
- Benjamin M. Lukasik
- Katrina E. Macias
- Ian C. Manseau
- Faith McWalter
- Cindy A. Passement
- Erika D. Pena
- America Y. Sanchez
- Victoria M. Serna
- Kahsandra Williams
Previously at the Semmes Gallery
Spring 2023: "Homeless in San Antonio"
Opening Reception: 6 - 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 17, 2023
Exhibit on Display: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Exhibit on display: Friday, Feb. 17 – Friday, March 17, 2023
Guy Blair, born in Connecticut in 1951, is largely self-taught as an artist in the medium of pastels and watercolor. He always wanted “to do” art, but was devoted to his ministry as a priest. In the past eight years he has seriously paid attention to his desire to paint.
For the past 40 years as a Catholic priest he has ministered to both the deaf and homeless communities.
“Homeless in San Antonio” is a blending of his service to the homeless as well as his interest in art.
Each homeless person who is portrayed was interviewed (given $10.00 for their time) and permission obtained for their portrait to be painted.
“As we walk by homeless people on the streets of San Antonio, most people tend to look through them or judge them as perhaps deserving of the situation they are in. This attitude allows people to build an emotional barrier, giving them permission not to connect with the homeless as destitute people whose suffering and tears are as real as our own.”
His art work is represented by Art Gallery Prudencia, 2518 N. Main St., San Antonio, TX. 78212
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
(except UIW holidays)
Kelso Art Center / Semmes and Condos Galleries
(Broadway and Hildebrand on UIW campus)
Free and Open to the Public
Fr. Blair Art
Spring 2023: Elizabeth Rodriguez: "Las Mera Meras"
Opening Reception: Fri., Jan. 13, 2023, 6 - 8 p.m.
Exhibit on Display: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday, Jan. 13 - Friday, Feb. 10, 2023
Las Mera Meras is a painting of a group of red peppers reflected on a shiny maple tabletop. They are serious, tough, and unified. I used to see a group of women just like that at Mi Tierra Cafe downtown. They would meet once a week for breakfast and sit at the same table every time. A guest would meet with them usually a public official, including the mayor, city manager or people running for office to have discussions, sometimes heated, very heated. I imagined they would be solving this, that, and the other problems of the world. Las Mera Meras is a symbolic portrait of these strong Latina women.
San Antonio native Elizabeth Rodriguez began her career as a self-taught artist in oil painting and later apprenticed with other artists. A 15-year collaboration with artist Jesse Trevino taught her to work with mosaics, ceramics, watercolor, murals and much more. Rodriguez received her B.A. from Our Lady of the Lake University. Commissions and exhibits include Navarro State Historic Site and Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts In Houston, Main Plaza and Market Square in San Antonio, TX, “Contemporary Latino Art: El Corazon de San Antonio, Texas A&M San Antonio,” and solo exhibition, “On the Eve of Consciousness”, Bihl Haus Arts in March 2015.
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
(except UIW holidays)
Kelso Art Center / Semmes and Condos Galleries
(Broadway and Hildebrand on UIW campus)
Free and Open to the Public
Fall 2022: "50th FASA Anniversary Exhibition"
Opening Reception: 3 - 6 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022
Exhibit on Display: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 6 – Friday, Dec. 9, 2022
The annual Fiber Artists of San Antonio Art Exhibition will be held November 6 through December 9, at the Kelso Art Center, University of Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX. The theme of the exhibit, “Fifty Years of Fiber Art,” celebrates the organization’s fifty-year history.
Fiber Artists from across the region and the U.S. present work inspired by culturally significant milestones of each decade since the 1970’s - fashion or design, pop culture, music, architecture, notable people, places or events, or even a more personal story about the artist’s experiences.
Jurored by Paula Owen, president emerita of Southwest School of Art, this compelling exhibit spans time and technique, reflecting the stories, trends, and topics of the last fifty years told through the medium of fiber.
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
(except UIW holidays)
Kelso Art Center / Semmes and Condos Galleries
(Broadway and Hildebrand on UIW campus)
Free and Open to the Public
Fall 2022: "Todo Bajo el Cielo" (Everything Under the Sky)
Opening Reception: 6 - 8 p.m., Friday, Sept. 9, 2022
Exhibit on Display: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 9 – Friday, Oct. 21, 2022
The work of Mexican photographers Anayantzin Contreras and José Luis Rodriguez Ritte explores the tensions embodied by their country’s syncretic heritage: tensions between nature and culture, instinct and intellect, design and improvisation, the local and the global, history and contemporaneity.
In Contreras’ work, the landscape becomes introspective, disembodied and ethereal, while natural forms are abstracted into line, texture and arcane geometry; Rodriguez Ritte explores idiosyncratic beauty without indulging in the narrow optics of the ethnographic gaze: the portrait is a convergence of personal and social truths, while architecture lays bare contradiction and paradox, but also imagination. Both artists focus on revealing the complexity and sophistication that, combined with a contemporary sensibility, reveal the adaptive, receptive nature of a culture in a constant state of renewal. “Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente.”
Curated by Gabriella Boschi Scott
Anayantzin Contreras
Born in Mexico City and currently residing in Monterrey, Mexico, Miss Contreras studied Photography in the Brigham Young University (Utah) program and Architecture at UdeM (Universidad de Monterrey) and works as a professional architect. Her photographic works have been featured in individual and collective exhibitions and are in private collections in Mexico and abroad.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Ritte
Born and currently residing in Monterrey, Mexico, Rodriguez Ritte studied Architecture at UdeM (Universidad de Monterrey), and holds a Master of Arts in Education from the same university; he has a Master of Fine Arts in Animation and Digital Arts from Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña in Barcelona, Spain; and studied fine arts and art history in Florence, Italy. He is a professor of photography and digital media at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey (I.T.E.S.M.) in Monterrey, Mexico.
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
(except UIW holidays)
Kelso Art Center / Semmes Gallery
(Broadway and Hildebrand on UIW campus)
Free and Open to the Public