Two exhibits opening at Paducah School of Art & Design on August 29 with reception for community

Exhibits featuring work of Paul Aho, and the Paducah Photo Club

Paducah, KY (08/28/2024) — On August 29 two new exhibits will open at the Paducah School of Art Design featuring several area artists.

"Paul Aho, Long Story Short: A Forty Year Journey" will be on exhibit at the Bill Ford Gallery, and "The Paducah Photo Club Group Exhibition" will be featured in the Hallway Gallery.

The work of artist and former Paducah School of Art and Design Director Paul Aho will be featured in the retrospective exhibition titled "Paul Aho, Long Story Short: A Forty Year Journey." Aho's paintings, photographs, prints, book and sculptures will be included in the exhibit.

Along with Aho's work, The Paducah Photo Club, which includes Aho's advanced photography students, will also be exhibiting their recent photographs in "The Paducah Photo Club Group Exhibition." Artists included are Lynn Bartlett, Basil Drossos, Paul Grumley, Patty Hughes, Cindy Jones, Teresa Joyce, Phyllis Russell, Tina Sexton, Andrea Underwood, Mark Watkins, and Stephanie Young.

A gallery reception will be held for both exhibits on Thursday, August 29, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The exhibits will run through September 29, with gallery hours Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The reception and exhibits are free and open to the public.

Paul Aho was the first recipient of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council's Ubertalli Award for Artistic Achievement and is a two-time recipient of the South Florida Cultural Consortium's Visual and Media Artists Fellowship. Aho graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University, Tallahassee, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Florida, Tampa.

Exhibitions of his work include the 59th Annual All Florida Juried Competition, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Inaugural 2008, Cuadro Gallery, Dubai, U.A.E.; Undertow: A Survey of South Florida Contemporary Art, Istanbul, Turkey; Legacy, Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa; Art Futures, Gallery Center, Boca Raton, Florida; The Bridge Art Fair, Miami Beach, Florida; New American Talent, Laguna Gloria Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Select, Schmidt Center Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton; Norte Americanos, Arcaute Arte Contemporaneo, San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico; The Impossibility of..., Mark Shulgasser Photo Gallery, West Palm Beach; and Paul Aho and Immi Storrs, Clarke Galleries, Stowe, Vermont. He is included in Marquis' Who's Who in American Art, Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World. Aho has also completed Rio de Ais, a thematic installation supporting environmental concerns for the Indian River Lagoon, commissioned by the Florida Art in State Buildings Program for Florida Atlantic University.

Aho has held administrative positions as chief program officer for the Palm Beach Photographic Centre, dean of the School of Art at the Armory Art Center and North American sales representative for International Fine Arts Expositions, presenters of the prestigious Palm Beach Classic Art & Antique Fair. He has also served as director of visual art services and public art programs for the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, and as an adjunct professor of art at Florida Atlantic University and Palm Beach Community College. Most recently he served as dean and then director for the Paducah School of Art and Design at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, where he also teaches classes in digital photography.

An avid surfer since the age of 11, Aho curated the exhibition and authored the book, "Surfing Florida-A Photographic History," developed through University Galleries at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). The project, documenting the history of surfing in the state and the impact its surfers and surf industry have had on the sport's international development, opened at FAU in March 2012. It traveled the state to Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL; Surf Expo, Orlando, FL; and Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville. FL. The exhibition is now the property of Palm Beach County Surf History Project, and University Press of Florida published a significantly expanded version of the exhibition's extensive research with a book of the same name, "Surfing Florida: A Photographic History."

For more information about Aho's work, visit: www.paul-aho.com.

About WKCTC:

West Kentucky Community and Technical College is a member of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System and is dedicated to providing affordable, accessible, and flexible education to meet the needs of our community. We offer a wide range of programs and services to support student success and workforce development.