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Tuesday 11am - 5pm Wednesday 11am - 5pm Thursday 11am - 5pm Friday 11am - 5pm Saturday 12pm - 4pm Sunday 9am - 4pm

Capacity Contemporary Exchange

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Capacity Contemporary Exchange

Capacity Contemporary Exchange is an artist-run contemporary fine art gallery and handmade market

Capacity Contemporary Exchange is a contemporary fine art gallery dedicated to presenting innovative local and select national artists and a broad range of art and ideas in its Louisville, Kentucky location. Contemporary exhibitions are focused on encouraging reflection, contemplation, an appreciation of art and thought provoking exhibitions in an inviting space. Capacity Contemporary is also a curated handmade crafted goods market of thoughtful creations for the home, office, and creative spaces intended to inspire a lifestyle of curiosity and beauty. We source and handpick goods and artwork with a focus on artists in the Ohio Valley.

Our gallery and storefront is located at 641 West Main Street in Downtown Louisville, near the 21c Museum and the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts.

10/14/2026

✨Join us at a new exhibition opening reception on 11/5 ✨

Living Impression: Representation and Surface

Living Impression: Representation and Surface is a group exhibition curated by Casey Dressell that features the work of artists Martin Benson, Karen Boone, Valerie Sullivan Fuchs, Emily Sheehan, Julia Coash, Beverly Glasscock, Brian Harper, Elle Hendrickson, Anne Huntington, Celeste Lewis, Mike Ratterman, Cynthia Woolever Molinari, Ray Kleinhelter, Mary Newton, and Lizzie Gulick- contemporary artists whose practices explore abstraction, process, and material as ways of encountering the world. Engaging with land, nature, and the material environment, these artists translate their encounters into gestures, structures, collections, and visual records.

✨Public opening reception held 11/5 from 5-7:00 pm

✨Artist talks 11/5 from 5-6 pm

✨On view November 5-April 10th

✨The Floyd County Carnegie Cultural Arts Center
201 East Spring Street, New Albany, IN 47150

✨Pictured artwork: Cynthia Woolever Molinari, Wing No. 4, multi-block woodcut, 11”x14”

Martin Benson Karen Boone Valerie Sullivan Fuchs emilysheehan13 Julia Coash Brian Harper Elle W Anne Huntington Celeste Lewis Mike Ratterman Cynthia Molinari lizzie gulick

07/15/2026

Inspiration for our new space in Houston, TX ✨

We can’t wait to share the details with you on our next adventure ✨

03/09/2026

We are operating online as we settle into our new city of Houston, TX. So, we have a new page on our site-Made by Us-featuring handmade fiber, ceramic, and original artwork.

We will be adding new prints, artwork and items as they are made.

Visit capacitycontemporary.com/made-by-us

Thanks for following along with us 👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏽

12/31/2025

As we prepare for a big move we are in a season of reflection.

This year has been a blend of gratitude, contemplation, closure, and forward-looking energy.

We look forward to working with more artists and what 2026 has in store 🌞.

11/12/2025

The lights are now off in our little shop, but the heart of what we do lives online ❤️

Miss you already-come visit us at capacitycontemporary.com and shop our 20% sale through the weekend and sign up for our email newsletter to stay up to date on Capacity news ❤️

10/30/2025

“To be an artist is to believe in life.” – Henry Moore

Thanks to everyone who came out to our last reception on Main Street. We will miss this space and everyone who walked through our door ❤️

We are dedicated to working with artists and will continue showing art- and, are always imagining what is on the horizon.

10/27/2025

Our final show, One More Round has concluded but we wanted to share more about the artists and work in the show:

Janna Wardle
Lagniappe
paper flowers, pockets from reclaimed jeans, crepe paper, acrylic, yarn
4’ x 3’ 9”

The propagation wall was her lagniappe, her little something extra that unlocked the key to a new understanding of the fundamental nature of reality.

Once she started growing food, she wanted to prioritize space for edible plants. But at first they weren’t super productive. She enriched the soil with kitchen scraps like eggshells and coffee grounds, but it wasn’t until she started planting flowers, just for beauty, that the pollinators really arrived and the garden tipped over into abundance.

And she got it. It was a different view of reality altogether. Not a zero-sum model where if you added one thing you had to take away another. But a different kind of math. Where you added a flower and it actually helped the vegetable.

She had unlocked the secret of the universe, or at least the truth of the natural world. Scarcity didn’t really exist, or if it did, it was man-made, existing in factory systems. Abundance was how nature worked. If you added something, it didn’t take away from the overall system. It made everything else better. It was the lagniappe. And beauty, it was necessary.

Once she had grown one plant from seed, it was easy to propagate many more as she wanted with her pocket system. It was almost infinite possibility. That was the year her garden went from being tiny to taking over the whole yard, and she jokingly called it her pocket garden. She was awed by the exponential growth. Neighborhoods at this time were particularly devoid of insect life, and as her plants began to grow, she and her little daughter were thrilled to discover a host of new pollinator friends.

Janna is a multimedia artist whose work explores an alternate, matriarchal timeline in which women thrive. A recovering pastry chef, she focuses her work on the beauty of the natural world and the celebration of traditional women’s work. She lives and works in Louisville with her husband, their children, and a black cat named Lily

10/25/2025

Join us this evening for the public reception of our last exhibition in our sweet space on Main Street.

This is the final exhibition at our Main Street, downtown Louisville gallery. This selection of work is from a group of artists and friends, we have either worked with in the past or wanted to work with in the future. There are many artists we wished we could have included, but only hope this is not the end, but the beginning of a new adventure.

One More Round is a a group exhibition featuring the work of Louisville based artists, Janna Wardle, Theresa Carpenter Beames, Uhma Janus, Clare Hirn, Gary Carpenter, Jessica Beels, Catherine Rubin, Lizzie Gulick, Becky Hunger, Kris Thompson, Ada Asenjo, Jen Allen, Jada Lynn Dixon, Elizabeth Windisch.

artst

Gary Carpenter
rubin53

10/25/2025

This work was created by Louisville based artist, Becky Hunger and is in our current exhibition, One More Round.

From the artist

I’ve been retired for several years, but it was during my work life that I began to open myself to a broader range of visual expression.

In my late 30’s I went to graduate school and got a masters in Expressive Therapies. My work with clients who had developmental disabilities broadened my understanding of what art could do to enable expression in others.

This work also gave me a chance to help others explore materials based on their needs and interests and gave me the opportunity to experience art making through a different lens.

After I retired, I had time for my own art explorations. I’ve enjoyed working with a variety of media including paper making and felting. While I like the tactile properties of these materials, left to my own devices, I always seem to fall back on the fundamentals of my first love –mixed media and collage.

This piece, “Echoes of Our Ancient Past” which is part of a series, relies on the principles of collage …balance, pattern, movement, unity, and layering. Materials used were inks, stencils, and pencils. The image of a figure is from a stencil by Robyn McClendon who, among other Youtubers, kept me sane during the shutdown. Artwork produced during this period seemed to open me to a world of life that came before. I like to think that time provided a space for long ago ancestors to visit us in our dreams.

Becky Hunger
Echoes of Our Ancient Past
ink, stencils, watercolor pencil, and graphite
6”x8”x 1 1/2”
2022

One More Round is on view from October 20th-26th, 2025 and a public reception on Saturday, 10/25 from 5:30-7:30 pm

capacitycontemporary.com

10/24/2025

This work was created by Louisville based artist, Clare Hirn and is in our current exhibition, One More Round.

Clare Hirn, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, received her Master’s in Painting and Drawing from the New York Academy of Art - Graduate School of Figurative Art. With an emphasis on strong foundational skills of drawing and painting, Hirn has largely worked realistically, inspired by the natural world, with a focus on landscape and the human figure.

Hirn has participated in and received numerous awards in many regional shows. Her paintings and murals are in many private and public collections, homes and businesses and have appeared in numerous publications.

Her work has always ranged in scale, from 60’ long interior murals, to small, more intimately viewed pieces. Her large-scale works in public spaces, such as Norton Cancer Institute, UofL Health Care Outpatient Center and the University of Kentucky’s Chandler Hospital, work to bring the beauty of our natural world inside, acknowledging the healing effects nature provides.

Many of her studio paintings work to bring awareness and appreciation for the natural world in this Anthropocene era.

Through travel and life experiences in other cities, Hirn further developed her lifelong appreciation of the environment and the arts, recognizing the profound role each plays in a healthy society.

Besides assisting/teaching/developing many community art projects over her 30-year career, Hirn is now partnering with Louisville Visual Art to finance and bring to life the fellowship program, Curate Purchase Inspire. CPI is an original concept by Hirn, who collaborated with LVA to realize it in practice.

Hirn’s professional practice is based out of her studio on West Main St. in downtown Louisville.

One More Round is on view from October 20th-26th, 2025 and a public reception on Saturday, 10/25 from 5:30-7:30 pm

capacitycontemporary.com

Address

641 W Main Street
Louisville, KY
40202

Opening Hours

Tuesday	11am - 5pm
Wednesday	11am - 5pm
Thursday	11am - 5pm
Friday	11am - 5pm
Saturday	12pm - 4pm
Sunday	9am - 4pm

Website

https://www.capacitycontemporary.com/

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