Figure – 8th Annual Smallidge Lecture

Alexandra Franz – In Situ

“In representational painting and drawing, everything arises from a primordial act: seeing. This action, so mundane and prosaic, is the paradoxical existence of two opposite mindsets. When gazing at something, we either experience it as a nonobjective knowledge, or we identify it as a mental image—something constructed in the mind. This fascination with phenomenology, metaphysics, and cognitive processing has become the philosophical and conceptual foundation for my paintings. Mainly through my figurative painting, but also through my portraits and floral paintings, the act of painting becomes a study of my time and existence with these subjects, and the paintings themselves capture the idea that the ‘seer’ and the ‘seen’ are made of the same mental matter. Capturing the essence of life itself, these figures and flowers embody the ephemerality and mortality of life, memory, and emotion, and each painting is not a picture to look at, but as a picture to see according to.”

Alexandra Franz is a recent graduate from the University of Cincinnati, where she majored in Art History, minored in Fine Arts, and received a certificate in Museum Studies. Her fine arts education has mostly taken place outside academia and has been complementary to her Art History major. She has taken classes and workshops at Manifest Drawing Center for many years, has served as an Open Figure Moderator at Manifest since 2023, has exhibited multiple works in nationally competitive professional-level exhibitions, was invited to attend an 18-day artist residency in southern Italy in 2023, and is an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation 2024 Grantee.

The Human Form, an Exhibition of Sculptures
National Juried Exhibition

Donovan Entrekin was born in Flint, Michigan, and trained as a painter and printmaker at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, studying under influential figurative artists such as Irving Petlin, Sidney Goodman, and Bruce Samuelson. He is a member of Buckham Fine Arts Project in Flint and has served as the Director of the FIA Art School since 2015.

Entrekin was the lead juror for Buckham’s The Human Form, an Exhibition of Sculptures, and has work currently on view, Our Human Frame: Leonard Baskin & Donovan Entrekin, at the Flint Institute of Arts through May 17, 2026.

The event will start at 2 PM with a panel discussion and moderated by Janice McCoy. Refreshments will be provided. Admission is FREE and open to the public.

About the Smallidge Fund for the Arts
The Smallidge Family Fund was established in 2015 to honor the memory of Bernice & Dave Smallidge and their passion for the arts and the arts community in the Flint area. This perpetual restricted fund is maintained by the continual donations of family members and friends. The endowment funds The Annual Smallidge Family Lecture, a yearly arts-related talk hosted by Buckham Gallery.

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday & Thursday: 11 AM – 5 PM
Friday: 11 AM – 6 PM
Saturday: 12 PM – 5 PM

Buckham Gallery’s 42nd Season is sponsored in part by the Stella & Frederick Loeb Charitable Trust administered by Huntington Bank.

Buckham Fine Arts Project is supported in part by individual donations and awards from: the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Michigan Arts and Culture Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, and the Greater Flint Arts Council Share Art Genesee Grant Program made possible by the Genesee County Arts Education and Cultural Enrichment Millage funds. Your tax dollars are at work!