Archive for March, 2010
Rising Flat: Luke Firle
Whether in two dimensions or three, Firle’s signature touches come through: intense color, the interplay of hard and soft shapes and a constant juxtaposition of the constructed and the organic.
APRIL FIRST FRIDAY WEEK — UPDATED!
More images! More late-entries added! March 31 to First Friday, April 2, with exhibitions and events on April 3 and including St. Louis, Missouri, and Salina, Kansas. Crossroads Art District in Kansas City is crowded with visual culture this week, but there are openings on First Friday outside those neighborhood boundaries (as is usual every month).
CLANDESTINE CREEP SHOW
Just as Alfred Hitchcock deftly crafted psychological thrillers through the exploitation of the seedy and gritty elements of the human condition, Jennifer Boe, Leo Esquivel, and Meredith Host have created a similar eerie and haunting aura with cunning subtlety for “Domestic Discomforts.”
Tearing Down the Walls to Find a True Shape: Sandra Gail Teichmann-Hillesheim
In “destructuring” her art, Teichmann-Hillesheim finds its rhythms: ebb and flow, the change of seasons, the cycles of life from one generation to another.
Art is a Thing with Feathers: Anne Gagel
Art which engages the brain as well as the eyes and heart is always a good thing … and depending on your repertoire of allusions, Anne Gagel’s current show of paintings, drawings and mixed media works should keep the mind hopping. Or, perhaps, “flitting” is a better word, given Gagel’s penchant for depicting birds of all sorts of feathers — or, more accurately, depicting herself as all sorts of birds.
Abstracted Explorations: David Gross
Rather than panoramic views of the Flint Hills, the oils and mixed media works in “A Painter’s Journey” offer bright streaks, smears and splatters of color. The closest they get to nature is that the structure of several paintings — the one atop this post among them — is reminiscent of tall stalks of prairie grass.
Mind Matters: Logan Smith
The issue has come up in this space before: Whenever someone is dealing that well with serious medical issues, there’s a natural tendency for the inspirational nature of his or her story to overflow into too-effusive praise. Smith’s art needs no helping hand to stand on its own, however. Were he in perfect health, he would still be a promising young photographer with a bright future.
A LAST LOOK
A selection of images from exhibitions in the Kansas City area in and ending in March 2010.
GLEE, WICHITA FINAL FRIDAY & NEXT WEEK
Get your Glee on tonight in Kansas City, and if you’re in Wichita, your options include a Scion 6th edition art tour at Tangent Lab, a photography exhibition juried by the associate director of the Museum for Contemporary Photography, and intriguing work by Tatiana Scckova and Mike Miller at WSU’s Shift Space.
SIX FOR AN ART EMBROILED
The Ulrich Museum of Art presents works from its collection by Mequitta Ahuja, Mark Bradford, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Donald Odili Odita, and Kara Walker, works that together reflect a deep engagement with life.
Gritty Vulnerability: Drew Orrin-Brown
“Against the People.” Title notwithstanding, this exhibition seems more an argument for people … for the real people, presented as they are, in Orrin-Brown’s photographs. There’s a gritty vulnerability to her work, a feeling that her models are somehow simultaneously out of place and utterly at home in their falling-down surroundings.
The Greatness of Small Pleasures: Jill Claxton
Claxton intends her work to be a playful antidote to overseriousness. “When my art causes people to smile,” she writes, “I know that I have achieved the desired effect I want my creations to have.”
The Arcs of History: James Brinsfield
Brinsfield’s show could have been created for our time of rampant unemployment, massive debt and uncertainty about the future. Because, despite all of those things, there remains a persistent hope of … well, to paraphrase the artist, what life could be about to become.
LARGER SIGNS, COMMUNITY SIGNING
The 2009 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Fellows, Jaimie Warren, Dylan Mortimer, and Andrzej Zielinski, when evaluated as a whole, present work that encourages the general population to look at our everyday surroundings, make connections with neighbors, bring spirituality back into the conversation, and find ways to look at the machine and make it flesh.
EPIC SWIRLS, CONTROLLED ENERGY
The energy of Abstract Expressionism meets graphic precision in Clint Metcalf’s “Tensionism” paintings, which at first sight, belie the meticulousness that reveals itself when given longer meditation.
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