Review

Jan S. Gephardt
Paper Dragons

10 a.m.-9 p.m.

Cedar Roe Library
5120 Cedar
Roeland Park, KS
913.384.8590

Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday
Runs through: March 3

Artist's site: http://artdog53.deviantart.com.com
Art in the Stacks site: http://www.jocolibrary.org/templates

Magical realms don't have to be big on the outside. It's the inner expansion that counts.

Case in point: the small art space in the Cedar Roe Branch of the Johnson County Library. It's barely large enough to accommodate more than a handful of people at a time ... and at the same time, the space is as wide as all imagination.

In short, it's just the right size for Jan S. Gephardt's Paper Dragons, a show of — what else? — three-dimensional paper sculptures of fantastic creatures.

I have spent most of my adult life making and promoting science fiction- and fantasy-themed artwork, Gephardt writes. In the 1980s and 1990s, I was known for my detailed pen-and-ink science fiction and fantasy drawings, and acrylic "astronomical" paintings. When I began working in paper sculpture, I first turned to a familiar subject: the dragon. I have enjoyed exploring a range of expressive textures and color combinations, working with dragon forms and fantasy foliage, as I created this collection. In my most recent work I have picked up a new theme in concert with the fantasy elements, using much more true-to-life leaf shapes and other plant forms.

The results of that emphasis on background realism make up the core of Paper Dragons. And rather than diminishing the impact of the fantasy elements, Gephart's new approach serves to heighten it.

Treetop Primaries, pictured above, is a prime example. The tiny dragonets in red, blue and yellow perch in branches that could stand in almost any back yard or park. The implication is that magical creatures are all around us, revealed only in flashes of color.

Or, perhaps, Gephardt's work suggests, the possibility of magic — not the incantational sort, but the natural magic of imagination and creativity — is everywhere, both without and within.

Not only in the tiny Cedar Roe space, but in the mind of the artist ... and of everyone who sees her Paper Dragons with open eyes.

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