Review

"Gossip," Charcoal.

Melanie Lowrance

By appointment during business hours.

Kaw Valley Arts & Humanities
756 Armstrong
Kansas City, Kansas
913.371.0024

Hours after Second Friday: Wednesday-Friday, by appointment during business hours.
Runs Through: March 5

Artist's site: http://www.ucmo.edu/acg/index.cfm?facultyID=16
Gallery site: http://www.kvarts.org

Melanie Lowrance's show of paintings and drawings is not the place to be today, if you're looking for an emotional uplift. There is more than one sort of heaviness to Lowrance's figurative work, which shares the Kaw Valley Arts and Humanities space this month with Rachel Mindrup's still life paintings.

For starters, resignation seems to be about the happiest emotion any of Lowrance's subjects can muster. There's not an unfiltered smile in the room (or the hallway); this is a brooding bunch.

And even in group situations or conspiratorial pairings (as in Gossip, today's featured image), the people don't seem to be focused on each other. There's a sense of isolation and inwardness that's positively Edward Hopper-esque.

But where Hopper only broke the fourth wall once, in Western Motel, Lowrance does it several times. And often (but not always), the viewer is met with a challenging gaze ... one that says You are an intruder here.

Lowrance, an instructor at the University of Central Missouri, presents that emotional heaviness in a commensurately weighty visual style. She depicts her subjects heavy of face and thick of limb (without, however, delving into grotesque distortion). Even those in motion seem immobile, rooted.

And for all of that, perhaps because of it, Lowrance's works keep drawing the eye back ... and in. Perhaps it's something voyeuristic, akin to whatever it is that leads us to people-watch and make up stories about those we're observing. Maybe it's sympathy or its rarer cousin, empathy.

Whatever the case, Lowrance's show succeeds in touching emotional nerves and isn't shy about prodding raw ones. And while that doesn't make for a winter pick-me-up, it's more than reason enough to see the work in person.

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