Lowry Hill Gallery open in former Sota, Patina space

The artist Georgia O’Keeffe said, “To create one’s own world takes courage.”

Those words apply to Andrea Bubula, the owner of the new Lowry Hill Gallery on Franklin Avenue at Hennepin Avenue.

Bubula said she noticed a “For Lease” sign in the window of the building formerly occupied by Sota Clothing and Patina last summer and thought the 3,000-square-feet space with big windows on a north-facing wall had the potential for a great art gallery.

“I think sometimes that little idea just sits there for a while and then I realized that I really saw potential in the location being along Franklin and having my next-door neighbor be Sebastian Joe’s,” she said.

The gallery opened March 7, 2026, after several months of planning and her decision to leave the comfortable space of an established gallery.

For Bubula, the timing and the new space felt right.

“I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t think it would work,” she said.

Even though an artist herself, Bubula long-ago discovered that she “flourished in a gallery setting” and found her professional calling helping other artists succeed.

She and her husband moved to the Twin Cities in 1995 where the next year she took a job with the Groveland Gallery, one of the Twin Cities’ premiere art galleries. After eight years, she left following the birth of her second child, returning in 2022 and becoming its director in mid-2023 before striking out on her own.

She signed the lease in January, and so far, “it has been fantastic,” she said, encouraged by neighborhood support and support from artists like Andrew Grum Carr, whose show “Ideas in Things” ran through May 23.

“The new space is really wonderful, the big walls, high ceilings, and store front windows really give the artwork room to breathe,” said the St. Paul artist.

For Bubula, that artist-gallery collaboration is key to building trust between the artist and herself.

“I want to do a good job for them,” she said.

Carr believes this is true for him.

“My work feels very much at home among the community they’ve cultivated,” he said.
In addition to Carr, Bubula and gallery manager Muriel Lang collaborate with about 40 full-time, mostly Minnesotan artists who produce paintings, drawings or fine prints.

“We don’t do reproductions or posters,” Bubula said.

“The artists who I work with are really skilled and professional,” Bubula said.

The choice to focus on Minnesota artists is deliberate.

“Our locale reflected through the work of an artist is a very specific way to engage with our place, our sense of place is shared,” she said.

The space welcomes passersby to stop in, take a breath and enjoy the art as they walk through the neighborhood.

“You don’t need to be a collector to come into the gallery,” she said.

Being a commercial gallery, she does hope visitors may want to buy what they see.

“I hope that we can encourage people to consider being collectors. There’s something about engaging art that is really personal and quite important,” she said.

The gallery generally features six-week runs of two artists. The 2027 schedule is already full, indicating a need for more Twin Cities’ galleries, especially in Uptown, she noted.

“I do think that there are real opportunities in Uptown along Hennepin to take advantage of those spaces,” she said.

“The artists move in first. Good things happen around that. Yes. Communities need art.”
The Lowry Hill Gallery is located at 1009 W Franklin Ave. and is open noon-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Visit https://lowryhillgallery.com/ for more information.