On View Friday, May 8 - Sunday, June 7
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 9, 6–8 p.m.
Karen Allen
Surprise Garden
The paintings and objects in Karen Allen's exhibition Surprise Garden take viewers on a search for undiscovered meanings and stories, one that mirrors the artist's own. Through her process-based practice grounded in paint, paper, fabric, and repurposed items, Allen creates a journey into a personal and idiosyncratic "garden" of painting. “My images are dreamlike, as in a Chagall-esque garden," she says. "My imagination peers in from atop a wall of limitations.” Surprise Garden Allen's third solo at BAU, nurtures a space of memory, loss, and trauma, with an underlying beauty that remains too often veiled from our view in a world of competing narratives.
Karen Allen, Dream Shore, 2025, oil over acrylic on wood panel, 8 in. x 8 in.
Soli Pierce
Stillness Speaks
Soli Pierce’s new exhibition, Stillness Speaks, brings together long-exposure photography, encaustic painting, and sculpture in a meditation on light, time, and presence. Across these practices, Pierce seeks a "still point"—an anchoring force within an often-fractured world. Embracing duration, materiality, and quiet transformation, the work reflects on vulnerability, grief, and the enduring potential for resilience. Stillness Speaks honors stillness as a way of navigating uncertainty and reawakening vitality and possibility. The installation invites a reverence in which light operates as both medium and metaphor, in which Pierce opens a space for quiet contemplation.
Soli Pierce, Nightfall, 2026, long-exposure photograph printed on aluminum, 24 in. x 30 in.
BAU Invitational
For the BAU Invitational, each member of our gallery has selected an artist whose work they admire to participate in a vibrant exhibition that spans painting, sculpture, photography, and works on paper. The resulting exhibition features a broadly diverse set of 14 contemporary artists, most of whom have never exhibited at BAU Gallery. "Through the BAU Invitational, our gallery honors its commitment to creating a more inclusive platform for emerging and established artists alike," says BAU president Robin Adler. "Shows like this foreground works that speak to critical artistic and social concerns and encourage meaningful dialogue among artists and visitors to our space." Invited artists: Julia Arstorp, Gülnar Babayeva, Paola Bari, Carol Bouyoucos, Elvira Clayton, Denise DeVore, Kristin Flynn, Meg Hitchcock, Bibiana Huang Matheis, Qiana Mestrich, Anette Millington, Allyson Montana, Thomas (T-Bone) Muniz, and Samantha Palmeri.
Meg Hitchcock, Ophelia, 2025, matboard structures, acrylic paint, hose, 24.5 in. x 25.25 in. x 6 in.