Reception: Friday, May 15, 2026, 5–7 PM
Gallery Hours: Friday & Saturday 11 – 4 pm
Eighty-Six Reasons for Asylum Admission: A Domestic Beginning, a solo exhibit by Ohio porcelain artist Kimberly Chapman, examines the reasons women were institutionalized in 19th-century American asylums and confronts the gendered violence of these institutions. Installed throughout the historic Baldwin Buss Merino House, built in 1825, the exhibit connects haunting, poetic sculpture with a pivotal period just before organized feminism began challenging cultural ideas of womanhood, morality, and mental illness.
Kimberly Chapman is a sculptor based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her porcelain-based practice focuses on themes of female endurance and institutional violence, frequently drawing from historical research to examine systems that have silenced and subjugated women. She received her BFA in Ceramics from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2017, following a career in corporate and collegiate marketing. She also holds a MA and BA in Communication from Cleveland State University. Since graduating, Chapman has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions across the US, including: the National Museum of Psychology, Akron, OH; Erie Museum of Art, Erie, PA; the Baber Room Gallery, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI; and the Anderson Gallery, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY. She is a trustee at the Ohio Arts Group, an affiliate of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.