Review

Untitled, Photographic Print on Canvas.

Kristopher Saim
Kansas City: My Life and Love

By appointment.

{:m Momentum Gallery
2014 Main Street
Kansas City, MO
816.560.1450

Hours: First Fridays, 6-10 p.m. and by appointment
Runs through: Feb. 28.

Artist's site: http://www.kristophersaim.com
Gallery site: http://khesse.chartwellkc.net/getagent/Pages.php?Page=565593

If the :{m Momentum Gallery were open Sunday, that's when this post would have appeared.

Sunday is, of course, St. Valentine's Day (which has about as much to do with the real Valentine — or Valentines, there being several saints by that name — as the McRib Sandwich has to do with real barbecue). And while there might not be any hearts and flowers in Kristopher Saim's new photo show, the exhibition's title alone should make his intentions clear.

Kansas City: My Life and Love isn't just a collection of images, hung on a wall in a real estate office-turned-artspace. It's a roomful of ardent postcards to Saim's adopted home, featuring such iconic images as the Western Auto Building, the Downtown skyline and the Country Club Plaza.

Since a very young age, I have always been inspired by the hustle and bustle of Kansas City, he writes. Coming from a small town, I always aspired to live in the city and as an adult I have been fortunate enough to spend some of my best years as an urbanite.

My inspiration for the images in this show comes from my passion for discovering the hidden treasures of Kansas City, Saim continues. While each image is of a Kansas City landmark, my goal is and has been to take photos from interesting perspectives or to post-process my photos in unique and eye-catching ways.

Saim took both approaches to produce today's featured image, which is printed on gallery-wrapped canvas to give it the feeling of a painted cityscape.

At the same time, it's reminiscent of one of those big jigsaw puzzles, a thousand pieces at the very least, depicting a rooftop view of some exotic foreign locale. In this case, though, the colorfully jumbled panorama Saim presents is far closer to home: It's a shot over the Crossroads, looking northwest.

"People ask me all the time if that's a photomosaic," Saim said at last Friday's opening reception. "But it's all one shot."

The photograph is Saim's show in microcosm, a new view of the familiar. And that's something all of us — the lifers, the visitors and everyone in between — can appreciate ... and, perhaps, even love.