Fall in Love with the Art Displays in Northern Kentucky
From magnificent murals to stunning sculptures, you'll discover a wide array of eye-catching public artwork in the region.
Northern Kentucky is home to a vibrant public arts landscape that positively impacts the region. Making these gorgeous, colorful murals and intricate, eye-catching sculptures possible is the work of multiple people, organizations and programs. Let’s take a tour of some of the stunning public art displays in Northern Kentucky.
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Enjoy a Quality of Place
Covington, for example, boasts a Quality of Place Grant Program that works to provide flexible funding to people with ideas for how to creatively enhance the city’s business districts while building a sense of place. It has funded over $200,000 for 12 artist projects.
One of the projects is “Everybody’s Bench,” a work located in the 700 block of Scott Street that received $20,000 through the initiative.
“It’s an abstract, stained-glass installation that is a functional bench,” says Kyle Snyder, City of Covington’s infrastructure specialist and executive director of the Covington Motor Vehicle Parking Authority. “Quincy Owens and Luke Crawley created this bench after Morgan Daruwala conceptualized it. Steering the artistic voyage, Chelsea Tucker- Moore orchestrated the collaboration with Owens and Crawley, carefully curating this dream team.”
From “Everybody’s Bench,” you can see another project, “Clive,” which was created by Covington’s AlloyFX, a team of digital specialists with a passion for 3D and technology.
“It’s a big alien head sculpture that holds a magnifying glass,” Snyder says. “When you are standing under him and look up, it is like he is looking down at you. So, part of the point is that it’ll become a destination where people can take pictures with their friends.”
Yet another project is “Shogun Sanders,” a mural located on the Earth To Kentucky building. “It is super quirky with a fine-art feel to it because the shading and color are so dynamic that it draws you into it,” Snyder says.
The mural, crafted by artist Jonathan Queen, propels the fried chicken legend into uncharted dimensions, portraying him as a Japanese shogun warrior with a cosmic essence.
Creativity Through Learning
Also adding to the region’s public art landscape is Northern Kentucky University and its Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement.
“Our work on public art comes into play through our service learning classes,” says Mark Neikirk, the center’s executive director. “The center supports and encourages service learning. For these classes, students work on a community project that is aligned with the learning objectives of the class. For public art classes, we are typically working with a city or a nonprofit or a neighborhood group that has an interest in public art.”
In Newport, for example, classes have created murals that highlight the city’s history, such as a mural depicting the story of the Southgate Street School, an African American school that was in operation from the post-Civil War era through 1955.
“A good way to think about service learning is an internship for the whole class, rather than one student,” Neikirk says. “Everyone in the class works on the common, community-based project.”
Illuminating the Region
A major illuminator of the arts is BLINK, an outdoor event that features large-scale projection mapping, murals and interactive light sculptures from around the globe. Though not held annually, this event has lit up Cincinnati and the surrounding region multiple times throughout the years. In 2022, it attracted over 2 million people, and the event is set to return in October 2024.
“We focus on three major disciplines all themed around light art, so artworks are meant to be experienced in the evenings as it gets dark,” says Justin Brookhart, executive director of BLINK. “Our artwork comes alive. We do projection mapping, where you use high-end laser projectors to illuminate the facades of some of our beautiful and significant architecture. We work with mural painters and bring various lighted installations into the streets…”
From drone shows to parades, Brookhart says that BLINK is an event for everyone.
“If you are interested in art and like to have shared experiences by way of immersive art, you should come visit us,” he says. “It is completely free and accessible for everyone.”
Create Your Own Art
While you can enjoy plenty of great art displays in Northern Kentucky, the region offers ways for everyday residents to participate in creating art.
Board & Brush Creative Studio: Board & Brush Creative Studio in Cincinnati, for example, offers wood sign workshops. These allow people to participate in creative DIY projects without making a mess at home or buying all the necessary supplies. Board & Brush offers in-studio and virtual workshops as well as private events.
Baker Hunt Art and Cultural Center: Baker Hunt Art and Cultural Center in Covington also provides several classes and workshops.
“We offer numerous classes such as painting, clay, stained glass, mosaics,” says Charity Rust-Jordan, the center’s marketing and learner experience manager. “We have been teaching cooking classes for years now, but in 2020, we built a brand-new teaching kitchen to better serve our students and instructors. Our mission is to make art available to all, so in addition to our paying classes, we also provide free art and culinary experiences.”
Communiversity Adult Learning: Also creating artistic opportunities for the community is the University of Cincinnati’s (UC) Communiversity Adult Learning program. It offers classes that are tailored to adult learners and taught by UC educators, experts and artisans from the region.
Examples of classes include Learn to Make Feta Cheese, Bookbinding for Beginners and Create Engaging Meetings. “Communiversity is a place for teachers, artists, local enthusiasts, exercise enthusiasts and anybody with a skill or hobby,” says Britney Fightmaster, the program’s assistant director. “We help them put together a class on their subject expertise and provide a location for them.”
Art Prep: In Highland Heights, Northern Kentucky University’s Art Prep offers community and continuing education programs to students of all ages.
“We believe that the arts are the bridge to imaginative and real worlds that can expand thinking across cultures, help students learn how to solve problems, and further develop talent in our region,” says Randel Plowman, a full-time lecturer and the coordinator for printmaking and Art Prep at the university.
Every summer, Art Prep offers a range of in-person and online art workshops. Plowman says past workshops have included art of collage, experimental character design, raw clay and primitive firing, and art of the risograph.
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