Kate Conlon and Boyang Ho: Xylotheque’s Nocturne

Inspired by the European “cabinet of curiosities” and fifteenth-century Studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbio at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—a Renaissance-era trompe l’oeil marvel of inlaid wood—artists Kate Conlon and Boyang Hou present Xylotheque’s Nocturne for the 2026 Henricks Art Wall Commission.   

Conlon and Hou, both faculty at SMFA at Tufts, used laser-cut wood inlay to depict modern-day cabinets of curiosities with laboratory imagery from this building, the Tsungming Tu Complex (TTC). Each panel references objects pulled from the TTC’s biology and mechanical engineering labs—beakers, test tubes, hard hats, lab coats, and a profusion of sticky notes—alongside historical scientific instruments and natural forms. Together these panels create a portrait of the TTC’s spaces for learning and research through a merger of ancient and contemporary techniques, harkening to a time when the arts and sciences were a single, shared discipline of human achievement. The installation’s title, Xylotheque’s Nocturne, alludes to historical collections of book-shaped wood specimens housed in fashionable cabinets, known in their time as xylotheques—while also referencing the TTC’s focus on research and the artwork’s own materiality.  

In developing the work for the open atrium space, where students and faculty gather for long periods of study, Conlon and Hou have composed a still life with an emphasis on stillness, allowing the work to be a backdrop for productive mind wandering—a place one can rest their eyes while thinking of something else.   

The Henricks Art Wall features newly commissioned artworks by artists affiliated with Tufts-SMFA and is generously supported by Joan M. Henricks, J69, and Alan S. Henricks. Xylotheque’s Nocturne is organized by Tufts University Art Galleries. 

Kate Conlon (b. 1989) is a Professor of the Practice in Print at SMFA at Tufts University. Boyang Hou (b. 1988) is a Part-Time Lecturer in Painting at SMFA at Tufts. Conlon and Hou each received their MFAs from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and co-founded Fernwey Gallery, an artist-run space in Chicago (2014-2018). 

Conlon and Hou collaborate on joint projects under the moniker Limited Time Engagement (LTE). LTE creates situations and commemorates them with objects. LTE wears disguises. It has been a publisher, a design firm, a club, a manufacturer, an arcade, a party. LTE works inside and outside the limited edition to play with the idea of manufactured scarcity.  The objects they produce are souvenirs, memorials, prizes, furnishings, games, and artworks.