Ani Sargsyan, Oliver Estes,
& Israel Mendez Lopez
Friday July 10 through Sunday August 2
Painting, ceramics, and sculpture developed while studying at the UNL School of Art reflect the artists’ creative exploration of their distinct experiences and cultural backgrounds.
Ani Sargsyan was born in Vanadzor, Armenia, and spent the early years of her life in the United States. Sargsyan’s body of work incorporates painting, drawing and transfer processes to uncover themes of distance, memory and fragility while celebrating Armenian identity through confrontationally hopeful and reflective outlooks. The Armenian genocide of 1915 fragmented culture and created distance between Armenians and their lands. This fragile quality emerges in her work through the transfer process as it scars elements with tears, holes and rips. Using acrylics and transfer processes, she uncovers Armenia’s rich history and culture by referencing the symbolism and motifs of ancient Armenian manuscripts. By merging these elements with personal experiences and observations from the ongoing conflict in the region, her compositions bring to light the encounters of contemporary Armenian life.
Oliver Estes, from Lincoln, uses raw clay and soda firing to connect material, process, and personal meaning. “In my work I present clay through its full material cycle-raw, bisqued, and fully fired—to emphasize the material’s transformations throughout its life cycle. Shaped through firing processes that I influence but can never fully control, this work explores clay’s intrinsic material behaviors as well as the labor, repetition, and processes that exist within the production of ceramic objects,” he notes.
Israel Mendez Lopez, born in Guanajuato, Mexico uses sculptural work to navigate the complex dynamics of labor, semiotics, and the human experience. His lineage of blue-collar labor and immigrant perspectives drives his work, examining the often-invisible labor that propels our progress. He views these dynamics through an installation-based lens that exists between the logical industrial engineering and the organic, interconnected, mycelial web of humanity and the natural world.
The exhibit is supported by contributors to WallSpace for Artists and Audiences and Give to Lincoln Day.
The Nebraska Arts Council, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and the National Endowment for the Arts provide additional funding for the gallery.
ADDITIONAL INFO:
Ani Sargsyan received her Bachelor of Art in art from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and a minor in museum studies. She received her MFA degree in painting and drawing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sargsyan’s works have been exhibited regionally both in the United States and Armenia. Using acrylics and transfer processes, she uncovers Armenia’s rich history and culture by referencing the symbolism and motifs of ancient Armenian manuscripts. Her work is guided by a soft color palette and ghostly figures to reference the remnants of these quiet memories.
By merging these elements with personal experiences and observations from the ongoing conflict in the region, her compositions bring to light the encounters of contemporary Armenian life.
Oliver Estes received dual degrees in Studio Art and Art History & Criticism at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Through functional and sculptural forms, Estes uses raw clay and soda firing to connect material, process, and personal meaning. His work has been exhibited at galleries throughout the United States and England, including the Kansas City Clay Guild, Savannah Clay Community, Clay AKAR Gallery, LCB Depot, and others. Oliver was a 2025 Summer Artist in Residence at the Cub Creek Foundation in Appomattox, Virginia.
Israel Mendez Lopez is an interdisciplinary artist pursuing a Bachelor of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He has shown work at the Medici and Einsentrager-Howard galleries at UNL. Industrial semiotics and materials become stand-ins for people and systems in this exhibition.
Works are available for viewing and purchase Fridays – Sundays, July 10 – Aug. 2, from noon to 5 p.m.