Art, Movement, and Disability: Transcending the Beauty Paradigm at Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture and UT Downtown Gallery

Art, Movement, and Disability: Transcending the Beauty Paradigm is a 2026 book authored by University of Tennessee Associate Professor Emeritus of Art History, Dr. Timothy Hiles. The exhibition brings Hiles’ book into the gallery space, showcasing a selection of the artists featured in his research. These artists’ practices challenge conventional narratives of disability, embodiment, and representation. The works in Art, Movement, and Disability address concepts of disability reclamation, invisible disability, movement, and conversation—where the work engages the viewer in a dialogue.

Exhibiting artists | Sue Austin, Matt Bodett, Laura Ferguson, Elizabeth Jameson, David Johnson, Rebecca Kamen, Christine Sun Kim, KYRIANNA, Riva Lehrer, Alessandro Schiattarella, and Alice Sheppard / Kinetic Light.

These exhibitions and related programming are supported in part by a grant from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and Tennessee Arts Commission’s Arts for All program. Co-sponsorship is provided by UT’s Denbo Center for Humanities and the Arts, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Accessibility, the School of Art Programming Committee, and through a College of Arts and Sciences Haines-Morris Grant. Additional funding is provided by The Creative Motif Fund.

Contracted by gallery to assist with exhibition and create Bloomberg Connects guide.

Watch the Living in East Tennessee feature here.