Sarah McKenzie: Displays of Power
Forthcoming exhibition
Overview
Container, 2025, oil and acrylic on canvas, 42 x 42 in. (106.7 x 106.7 cm)
In Displays of Power, works created in the prison and art environments she frequents will be presented in conversation, shining a light into places kept dark, exposing the quiet politics embedded into the architecture of prisons and museums alike.
Sarah McKenzie is known for her paintings that analyze the aesthetics of institutions, often esteemed art venues, which offer a lens into the psychology of architecture. Through their design, buildings communicate the values of the society in which they were created. Through myriad elements, architecture reflects social codes and priorities—guiding, restricting, or enabling behavior, and controlling how bodies move through space, gather, or commune. The art gallery or museum’s pristine white walls, meant to be interpreted as neutral or blank, communicate control over space, guiding the viewing experience of visitors.
In 2021, McKenzie was the recipient of the Marion International Fellowship for the Visual and Performing Arts, which brought her into correctional facilities to research prison architecture. In the same year, she became involved with the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI), where she began teaching visual art to incarcerated individuals. While working in prisons, McKenzie noted similarities between prison and museum architecture.
Since beginning her work in carceral settings, McKenzie has cofounded Impact Arts, a 501(c)(3) volunteer program through which she continues her work teaching art to residents at Sterling Correctional, Colorado’s largest men’s prison. Her work in prisons has become an integral part of her artistic practice, which has led her to create new bodies of work in addition to curating exhibitions of work by incarcerated artists.
In these institutions designed to bend the perception and will of users, over the course of several years, McKenzie’s practice has expanded to include social practice as a vital part of her artistic research. In Displays of Power, works created in the prison and art environments she frequents will be presented in conversation, shining a light into places kept dark, exposing the quiet politics embedded into the architecture of prisons and museums alike.
Works
