welcome, laine!

BENSON - Ming Toy Gallery has hired Laine Knowles as its first official gallery assistant. She began her part-time duties Aug. 16. The gallery is located at 6066 Maple Street between Au Courant and Legend Comics & Coffee in the heart of the Benson Creative District.

Born in Vail, Colorado, Laine received her BFA magna cum laude from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2023. The only artist in her family, she decided to pursue art as a career when she was about 16.

“I focused on photolithography at school, but I’ve broadened out to painting, drawing, printmaking and things I can manage in a small room in my apartment,” Laine said. “Currently, I’m really interested in making things on paper and the possibilities of layering, cutting out and folding.”

She sites Rene Magritte, Frida Khalo, Cecily Brown, Christina Quarles and Leonora Carrington as artists who’ve influenced her practice and finds inspiration in writing (her own and other people’s), her emotions and “all the little details around me. For example, I find puddles fascinating. They make me think of portals.”

The most important things in Laine’s studio are her colored pencils, her exacto knife and her comfy swiveling chair. She suggests, with a wink, investing in her art now, because she plans on being famous someday.

Laine has exhibited work in the UNO Juried Art Alumni Exhibition in 2025 and the Benefit Art Auction at Omaha’s Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in 2023. For more information about her work, visit laineknowles.myportfolio.com and www.instagram.com/1tchyf1ngers/.

Ming Toy Gallery is open Wednesday and Friday from 1:00 to 6:00pm, Thursday from 5:00 to 8:00pm, Saturday from 10:00am to 1:00pm and by appointment (call or text 402.681.1901). The gallery is not open between exhibitions.