Title of Exhibition: Art House 310 First Friday – Amy Herrmann & Samantha Gales
Date: Friday, Feb. 6, from 6 to 10 p.m.
This event is free to attend and open to the public. Show hangs through February 22nd, 2026. Art House 310 is located at 310 S. Laura. Two blocks SE of Douglas & Washington in downtown Wichita.
NOTE: Open gallery hours throughout the exhibition are generally Tuesday and Thursday, 6-9pm and Sunday, 1-4pm.
AMY HERRMANN
Reflections of a Life, Well … Lived.
I’m not an easy person to know. I’ve never mastered the art of small talk and have trouble shaking off the world news of the day. But my art usually centers around more optimistic glimpses of beauty that I find in the shadows and reflections of my surroundings when my guard is down and I’m content (often when sunshine and beer are involved). There’s nothing particularly deep about the subjects or themes in any of my work. They’re mostly snippets of my immediate surroundings, usually with my loved ones just out of view. I’ll never be a serious portrait artist, a fact that has been reinforced by the laughter emanating from my family at my recent attempts to capture them in pastels.
I received my BFA at KSU. I work mostly in soft pastels and acrylic paint. I use only my own photographs as source material. I used to feel guilty about applying filters to my source photos but that has ceased after seeing how AI is changing the entire art world. Still not sure if I’ll embrace it or fight it tooth and nail, but I guess that’s a discussion for another day. For now, I lean on a few digital conveniences to make choices about composition and color. I enjoy making decisions about how much texture to add and with what material can best achieve an effect.
This show has pieces that span about 35 years, though most have been finished in the past 5. Not much has changed from my early work, same fascination with what might be revealed in a window’s reflections, what it feels like to brush my hand along chipped paint, delighting when I see glass that’s old, wavy, and imperfect. I’ll leave it to the viewer to decide if these represent a life well-lived, or a life, well…lived.
See more of Amy’s work on Facebook: @amy.herrmann.art
SAMANTHA GALES
Twenty-Six
Sam Gales is a mixed media artist based in Wichita, Kansas. She specializes in illustrative, stylized self-portraits that explore her journey as a young adult. Her Twenty-six series brings together both new works and earlier pieces that reflect her playful, lighthearted nature. Across her practice, Gales is drawn to the delicate balance between the macabre and the bright—creating imagery that is at once fun, playful, and subtly unsettling. In this series she does touch on some heavier themes, so viewer discretion is advised.
An age that most should be expecting change, and big events. Twenty six; one should be focusing on financial security, finding a stable job and starting a retirement fund, possibly a 401k. Twenty six; looking forward to the future!
But wait… No.
That’s not fair. I didn’t even get a chance. Why’s everything falling apart? Why is everyone leaving? Everyone’s moving away…well, we’re adults aren’t we? I’m so behind, I can’t keep up. Nothing feels like it’s ever enough.
That’s life, they say.
Grow up, stop crying.
People age, everyone’s dying.
Life’s hard and everyone struggles
But why does it feel like my workload always doubles?
It’s hard to stay afloat when the goal post is ever changing.
And seeing my peers soaring only makes me regret my aging.
I use humor to distract from my reality, that being Twenty-six isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
As I navigate my way through this difficult year, here’s to hoping
Twenty-seven
Doesn’t end in a pap smear
