Art Gallery Experience

Thomas Kinkade Gallery of Tri Cities

19 N Cascade St. Kennewick, Wa 99336

The artwork that was displayed were paintings, Paintings before 2003 used lithographic transfer, paintings after 2004 used gilcee printing. They were displayed in a gallery that is about 1200 square feet.

To display the art work they used movable walls to mount the paintings, most paintings were mounted on the walls or movable walls but there were also some that were leaning up against the wall. They also had some small tables holding up trinkets that were either for sale or for added decorations. They had a separate room which had a stand that was connected to a dark red wall, this space was meant to allow buyers to place the paintings they were interested in on, and it let the buyers seclude their painting from all the others to view it alone.

Thomas Kinkade was known as the painter of light, his artwork showed this by using many different values of color to bring out the look of light in his paintings.  For this gallery lighting played a huge role in the experience received from the artwork. There were three main types of lighting used in this gallery natural lighting, dimmers, and spotlights. In the three sectioned out rooms dimmer lights and spot lights were mainly used. In the main/middle area part of the gallery natural lighting and spot lights are used. Each sectioned out rooms have a theme, one room is Disney themed and each paintings look changes as the spotlights are brightened and dimmed, this room mostly stays bright to add on to the happy vibrant feel of Disney. The main/middle area has a lot of nature paintings which works well with the natural lighting that is coming in from the large windows in the front of the gallery.

When entering the gallery you are able to see the reception desk on your right and the exhibit starts on the left. By placing movable walls in the middle and cutting off the second half of the exhibit it helps direct visitors through a u shaped path. While going through the u shaped path on the left side are four separate rooms that to go through too, in these room it’s a simple rotation to lead you through the artwork.

The environment of this gallery is very calm colors that are used are deep red, tan, off white, purple, and light green. These colors are used to bring out main points of the paintings. The flooring is a simple wood laminate which is textured; the flooring doesn't take away from the artwork. Before this building was a gallery it was the old Tri City Herald Printing building in 1956, the new owners wanted to keep some aspects of the old printing building. They were able to keep the layout of the building and details like the crown modeling and curved edges. Although some details from the reuse of the building are left it does not take away from the gallery and the artwork it seems to add more character.