Alcoa Airport Motor Mile Miniatures by Carmen Alcocer

October 2 – 30
Alcoa Airport Motor Mile Miniatures by Carmen Alcocer in the Atrium 
Opening reception: Friday, October 2, 5:00-9:00 PM
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM & Saturday, 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
The Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902

Alcoa Airport Motor Mile Miniatures depicts a series of facades from Alcoa Highway, Knoxville, Tennessee, to eulogize the slow demise of the American Dream seen on interstate highways and reflected in society. The miniature scale is a dialectic of capitalism’s colossal scale, one replacing authenticity with an unchecked pursuit of profit. What results is a crafted memorial for the integrity of work. Each model positions a real-life regional storefront as a pawn in the game between local economies and mass-market machines with invincible bottom lines and suffocating stratagems. The models preserve Alcoa Highway in the present moment of a rapidly shifting landscape, one transforming into a kitschy pastiche of consumerism. This new modernity designates success with dumb luck or directed deception instead of drive. These works embalm the battlefield of a war between honest initiative and the Goliath of vapid consumerism. Their facades are vacant, a void that equivocates the loss of autonomy over one’s consumptive choices within the structure of modern America.

Carmen Alcocer is a mixed-media artist from Knoxville, Tennessee, living and working in New Orleans, Louisiana. She works with consumer symbolism, trash, found objects, and pop culture ephemera to reckon with the modern landscape and relational connections in an increasingly divided world. She graduated with a BFA in Studio Art, BAs in Art History and Latin American Studies, and a minor in Spanish from Tulane University in 2026, with her honors thesis exploring gas station convenience stores as the final frontier for battles between desire, consumption, and shame. She has attended residencies at Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and Middle Tennessee State University, and currently works as an associate with 812 Royal Gallery. She has held positions with the Carroll Gallery, the Middle America Research Institute, and the Knoxville Museum of Art. She enjoys long walks on the beach and attending Mass. 

Artist Website: www.carmenalcocer.com
Instagram: @carmen.alcocer.art