Review

"Grandma Pullins", Mixed Media and Electric Light.

Karly Schleicher
Cracks in the Glass: Women Who Have Broken Through

Patrons Gallery
Shawnee Mission North High School, Rm. 157
7401 Johnson Dr.
Overland Park, KS
913.993.6900

Hours: 7:40 a.m.-2:40 p.m. Monday-Friday
Runs through: May 1

Gallery site: http://www.patronsgallery.com

A lot of people get pro- and anti- mixed up, confusing celebration of a group or cause with bashing of The Other Side.

Karly Schleicher is not a lot of people. Her show, Cracking the Glass: Women Who Have Broken Through, is full of heartfelt, thoughtful and thought-provoking affirmation of women who have shaped histories -- their own, the world's and Schleicher's.

She presents tributes to Queen Elizabeth I and the late Benazir Bhutto, Rosie the Riveter and a beloved family member -- and does so, without a hint of the polemic, in an arresting variety of styles and media. This show looks as good as it feels.

Even Death of the Corset, which could have been done confrontationally, isn't. With its bright pink color scheme and painted lilies, it's both a celebration of freedom(s) and a good-natured "Good riddance," to constraint.

Most of Schleicher's work, two oil paintings aside, is made up of carefully chosen and assembled layers -- some personal, some purely visual, all of them essential.

In the show's most affecting piece, Grandma Pullins, the wall of the Patrons Gallery itself becomes a layer -- a surface for the silhouette of Schleicher's grandmother. To create that shadow, the artist drew on her own story as well as her relative's.

The image includes the grandmother's high school senior picture (Schleicher is a senior at Shawnee Mission North) and third grade class photograph. Strategically placed strips of text -- "OPINION", "BOOKS" and "OPEN HEART" -- give a sense of the woman's inner likeness as well as her outer appearance. The flowered fabric is from a remnant, left over when Schleicher's grandmother made curtains for the young artist's room.

"I can't bring myself to take those curtains down," Schleicher says.

If that piece shows Schleicher's past, the piece on the opposite wall -- Self-Portrait -- depicts her on the threshold of adulthood. Here, though, there is not even a hint of physical depiction. Instead, the mixed-media work is a purposeful hodgepodge of materials (sewing paper, beads), images (playing cards, swing dancers) and words ("SEEK THE TRUTH"). The result shows more about Schleicher, in matters light and heavy, than any conventional portrait ever could.

She is revealed as creative, intelligent, fun-loving, confident and positive ... breaking through into adult life, becoming one of the women she celebrates.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Updating...