Review

"Suspended Monotypes," Watercolor Monotypes and Hand Stitching.

Krista Gagelman
Time and Passion

9 a.m.-9 p.m.

Unity Temple on the Plaza
707 W. 47th St.
Kansas City, MO
816.561.4466

Hours: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Sunday
Runs through: Feb. 28.

Artist's site: http://kristagagelman.weebly.com
Gallery site: http://www.unitytemple.com/culture/cgallery.asp

Some artists' retrospective shows look more like group exhibitions, with repeated sweeping changes in style, medium and underlying motif. With others, there's little distinction between works produced within the past year and those created three presidential administrations ago.

Krista Gagelman's retrospective, showing this month at Unity Temple on the Plaza, charts a different course: a swirling spiral of inspiration that, while it might pass familiar landmarks on a regular basis, also shows continued growth and covers broader territory with each swoop.

The works in Time and Passion cover a 17-year span that began in 1993, Gagelman's freshman year at Fort Hays State University. Two basic themes were there at the outset, and both have continued through to 2009's Suspended Monoprints (pictured above).

Gagelman sums up both themes in two sentences: I’ve been blessed with a voracious addiction to color. The experience of painting is the euphoric state of non-thinking….my favorite meditation.

Color first: Gagelman has worked with a crayon-bright palette, long on primaries and secondaries, since the beginning of her career. (She made a major stylistic shift in 1995, when a color theory class changed the way she showed off that palette. What was the shift? See the show and read the explanation. Hint: It's not connected with a painting.)

The other common theme began as a series of curved lines that, in the mid-90s, morphed into the swirl which, in one form or another, has come to characterize Gagelman's work. And therein lies much of the meditative quality of her work.

The spiral, besides popping up all over the natural world, is a sacred symbol in a number of religious traditions. Most commonly, it symbolizes change in two directions: outward from the center and inward to it.

It's a fitting symbol, then, for Time and Passion ... and that's true in more than one sense.

The paintings are souvenirs of  Gagelman's journey from her childhood in Western Kansas to studies on both coasts ... and back to the Midwest. They also show the refining (or, perhaps, distillation to its basics) of her art, which is much an interior exploration as an assimilation of outside influences.

The best thing is that the spiral continues to turn. Rather than settling on one style and stagnating, Gagelman continues to use the core image as a starting point for further growth. The road she takes might curve back on itself ... but it also moves forward.

And it definitely takes the scenic route through an inner landscape rich with imagination and inspiration.

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