The University Gallery is a contemporary art gallery that serves the Art & Design Department, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, as well as the city of Lowell and the greater Merrimack Valley Region. The gallery hosts 4-6 major exhibitions each year, including the biannual B.F.A. show featuring the senior projects from the Art & Design studios. From emerging artists to seasoned practitioners with national and international reputations, the University Gallery's exhibition program showcases a broad variety of artistic approaches, media and content reflecting the curricula of the Art & Design program and enhancing the cultural environment of the community and surrounding area.

The University Gallery is located on the 1st floor of Mahoney Hall at 870 Broadway Street, Lowell, Mass.

Gallery Exhibitions: Admission is free and opening receptions usually include a lecture by the curator or exhibiting artist.

Current Exhibit

Hanna Melnyczuk, Day 31 of Putin’s War: Hiding, pencil on paper, 2022. Image shows legs with military boots standing above small child curled with teddy bear and hidden below ground. Image by Hanna Melnyczuk, Day 31 of Putin’s War: Hiding, pencil on paper, 2022


Don’t Close Your Eyes

Ukrainian Artists Respond to the War

August 18 – September 16, 2023

Reception:
Wednesday, September 13, 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell Department of Art and Design is honored to present Don’t Close Your Eyes: Ukrainian Artists Respond to the War. The exhibit will be on display in the University Gallery at 870 Broadway Street in Lowell, MA  from August 18 – September 16.  All are invited to a welcome back event for the Art & Design Department on Wednesday, September 13 from 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Hanna Melnyczuk will deliver remarks in the University Gallery at noon. 

In a moving statement on the effect that the war between Ukraine and Russia has made on her life and artistic practice, Hanna Melnuczuk writes:

The week before the full-scale war in Ukraine began, I had been working on images for a children’s book… As the war unfolded, the images in my mind’s eye shifted from colorful representations of a child's world to troubling depictions of tanks, missiles, refugees, and mass graves. I began a series of drawings in reaction to the war. I also came across the works of like-minded artists in Ukraine, responding to the war with powerful imagery. These images were being exhibited in Ukraine and parts of Europe. I had a vision of bringing them to the US, so I struck up a partnership with Halyna Andrusenko, an artist from Kyiv. With her help, we sought artists whose works resonated for us in terms of the images they were making in response to the horrific violence and destruction that the war was bringing to a peaceful country.

Don’t Close Your Eyes features a broad spectrum of powerful work in response to the war in Ukraine. This work is a testament to the power of the human spirit, and the abilities of artists to synthesize powerful emotions and responses into works that transcend boundaries of time, geography, and space. Included in this exhibit are:

  • Halyna Andrusenko*
  • Ksenia Datsiuk
  • Nastya Didenko
  • Mitya Fenechkin**
  • Alisa Gots
  • Evgen Klimenko
  • Natalia Kurnosova
  • Lena Kurzel
  • Inga Levi
  • Ave Libertatemaveamor
  • Anton Logov**
  • Rostyslav Luzhetskyy
  • Hanna Melnyczuk*
  • Danylo Movchan
  • Anzhelika Palyvoda
  • Oleksii Pavlusenko
  • Oleksii Revika
  • Vladyslav Riaboshtan
  • Olesia Rybchenko
  • Valeriia Rybchenko
  • Andrij Roik
  • Zakhar Shevchuk
  • Olena Shtepura
  • Karina Synytsia
  • Nickita Tsoy
  • Ilya Yarovoy
  • Olga Zaremba

*co-curator
**Due to the exigencies of shipping work from Ukraine, these works are shown in reproduction only. 

  • Mass Cultural Council logo

    The University Gallery is supported in part by a grant from the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

    • Monday - Wednesday and Friday: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
    • Thursday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
    • Saturday: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
    • Appointments recommended, call 978-934-3494.

    Closed during school breaks.

    Please contact us for more information.

    The University Gallery is accessible to all. Gallery events are free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Wilder Metered Lot, located at the intersection of Wilder Street and Bachelder Street. The entrance to the lot is located on Bachelder Street. After 4 p.m. visitors may park in any open campus lot.

Past Exhibits

View University Gallery Past Exhibits