Exhibitions

Looking in, Looking Out

Kelsey Gilmore 
Class of 2017, BA in Business Administration

January 20 - March 13, 2026

Gallery Event

Reception | Thursday, January 22, 2026, 4:30 - 6 p.m.

Location | Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery, JoAnn Mazzella Murphy '98H Arts Center, Iona University

Iona University Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery is pleased to present Looking in, Looking Out, works by Kelsey Gilmore, a solo exhibition of paintings, works on paper, and prints by emerging artist Kelsey Gilmore. The exhibition will be on view from January 20 through March 13, 2026, at the Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery in the JoAnn Mazzella Murphy ’98H Arts Center, with a special reception on Thursday, January 22 from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

About Kelsey Gilmore

Originally from Northport, NY, and currently based in South Salem, NY, Gilmore’s work is deeply rooted in observation, memory, and a nuanced relationship with the natural world. Her recent pieces reflect an evolving exploration of figuration and abstraction, blending emotional immediacy with formal investigation.

Gilmore is a Class of 2017 Iona University alumna (BA in Business Administration) and received her MFA in Painting from Western Connecticut State University in 2022 and was awarded an Artful Visual Arts Initiative Grant that same year, supporting her study in Rome through the Rome Art Program. Since then, she has exhibited her work nationally, gaining recognition for her introspective and intuitively driven practice.

Her work is shaped by outdoor meditations and studio-based improvisation. "I ingest material from nature—shapes, colors, light, and shadows—and then bring that into the studio where a more intuitive, inward painting process unfolds,” she explains.

The exhibition invites viewers into Gilmore’s unique visual language: a realm where abstract forms echo natural elements, and the boundary between the external world and the internal self becomes fluid. She reflects, “The surface and I are separate, split in two, but we slowly dance around each other, bending, and reaching until eventually we become one.”

Through gestures both delicate and bold, New Works by Kelsey Gilmore presents a body of work that is as much about looking outward as it is about looking within—a visual journal of presence, longing, and transformation.

The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Past Exhibitions

• dependent / variable | works by Joseph Branciforte
• A Retrospective of Four Decades of Work | works by Dr. Jerome Levkov: Scientist and Artist
• Visual Arts Student Exhibition 2025 | Curated by Professor Thomas Ruggio & Professor Jeffrey Price
• RADICAL ACTION: Tracing Dorothy Day | Kristi Pfister
• The North Star | works by Diego Garcia
• The Women Dandies of The DRC: Dressing Dapper As Gendered Resistance In Central Africa | Photographs by Junior D. Kannah
• Love Your Mother | Jennie Thwing
• Visual Arts Student Exhibition 2024
• Carthage | Paintings by Fedele Spadafora
• The Gratitude Project: Paintings and Poetry by the US Poets Laureate
• Time is a River | Curated by Cara Lynch
• A Gift Of Light | Works by Br. Kenneth Chapman
• Visual Arts Student Exhibition 2023
• Saving Beauty: The Contemporary Icons of Threatened And Endangered Species of Angela Manno by Angela Manno
• My Own Rose-Tinted 3D Glasses by Werner Sun
• Dublin Bay by Liam Hourican
• FORMATION: Images of the Body by Tobi Kahn
• Personae by Carlos David
• Visual Arts Student Exhibition 2022
• The Weight of Optimism: Works by Heather Layton
• Considering the Goddess: A Survey of Sculptural Works by John Cino
• Cesare Dandini’s Holy Family with the Infant St. John: A Rediscovered Florentine Baroque Masterpiece
• A Hidden Wholeness: The Zen Photography of Thomas Merton*
• Art as a Spiritual Practice
• A Woman's Work..., Curated by Beth Giacummo
• Struggle - An Exhibit of Our Times, The Lincoln Park Conservancy, Inc.
• Female Gender Identity and Equality by the New York Society of Women Artists
• Unapologetically Me by Alvin Clayton
• Women in the Abstract: A Solo Exhibition by Award-Winning Artist, Steve Lyons
• Visual Arts Faculty Exhibition
• Plastic Paradise by Elena Kalman
• Female Gender Identity and Equality By New York Society of Women Artists (NYSWA)
• The Visual Arts Student Exhibition, curated by The Visual Arts Faculty
• SHE Voices: Expressions of Femininity, featuring Esther Kong Lo, Gloria Crouch-Nixon and Judith Weber.
• Influenced by Matisse: New Works by Alvin Clayton
• Shifting Focus: Hidden in Plain Sight, Curated by Rick Palladino
• More Fun Than Fun, featuring Andrea Beizer, Alysa Bennett, Ruby Silvious, Carol Taylor-Kearney, Peter Treiber, and Ruth Wolf