Hope Debuts Solo Exhibition at Lightner Museum

Visiting studio art professor Audrey Hope has debuted a new body of bronze and mixed-media sculptures at the historic Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, Florida.

For her first solo museum exhibition, Hope presents a selection of collages, photographs, and mixed-media sculptures. Titled Disappointed Tourist, the series is a deeply personal meditation on nature, religion, personal trauma, and creativity. In Disappointed Tourist, Hope addresses several expansive themes—the complicated relationship between nature and travel, desperation in creativity, and the magical capacity objects have for representation.

“At the heart of my work is my family’s idiosyncratic relationship to nature and travel," says Hope. “I grew up in precarious housing situations. My family took long camping and wilderness backpacking trips that disguised periods of homelessness. We were odd pilgrims. People often conceive of the natural world as a site for healing and spiritual reconnection. In my work, I present these assumptions as fraught, bringing a sense of strangeness and an unsettling comfort to viewers.”

The exhibition runs through January 20, 2023.