In 2016, McKay Lenker Bayer was still an art student trying to decide how to show her work. Rather than claim a wall, she went small—miniature canvases, labels written with a technical pen, each one barely legible without leaning close. That quiet decision grew into an idea for an entire gallery built to human scale—just very, very small.
Two years later, she brought the concept to life. Tiny Art Show began as a traveling project around Provo, Utah, finding temporary homes in corners, shelves, and window ledges. Each stop invited local artists to create work sized for a dollhouse yet meant to be taken seriously. It was art for anyone willing to crouch, stoop, or pause on the street to look.
Today, the gallery has a place of its own. It’s built at one-sixth scale inside a former stairwell that opens directly onto the street. From outside, the cobalt-blue front catches the eye like a tiny shopfront tucked between brick walls. Look through the window and you’ll see a softly lit room, a desk no bigger than a book, and rows of miniature paintings hanging neatly along the walls.
The space functions like a real gallery, only smaller. Openings draw curious crowds who bend low to peek through the window. There are tiny hors d’oeuvres on toothpick trays and, next to the door, a vending machine that dispenses a folded newspaper scaled to match the rest. Everything feels deliberate, finished, and slightly surreal.
Tiny Art Show has also expanded beyond its walls. Through the Monthly Mini Mail Club, subscribers receive The Tiny Times, a palm-sized paper filled with exhibition notes, artist interviews, and reproductions from the latest show. The shop stocks small art kits and limited prints—objects that fit easily in a pocket but still feel substantial.
Lenker Bayer describes the gallery as “a commercial space that just happens to be tiny.” Yet the project is less about novelty than about scale—how art changes when the viewer has to lean in, look closely, and slow down.
Find current exhibitions and events on the Tiny Art Show website and Instagram.
