Review

"Shred Wrap Study 3," Oil and Shredded Paper.

Curtis Simmons

10 a.m.-9 p.m.
(Open Studios all day)

ARTichokes
10557 Mission Road
Leawood, KS
913.322.9481

Hours: 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.
Runs through: May 8.

Artist's site: http:/www.cimmons.com
Gallery site: http://www.artichokeskc.com

There are artists who support themselves entirely with art, and those (the majority) who have other jobs out of necessity or passion.

In the latter case, the work (for a living) often informs the work (artistic).

Curtis Simmons is an architect by education, training and profession. Were he not in that field, his art (which is featured in the current group show at ARTichokes in Leawood) would not look the same.

Simmons started oil painting while studying architecture at Kansas State University, and expanded his artistic range to lacquer on Masonite while earning a master's degree at UCLA. (Makes sense: Designing a building in geologically stable Kansas is far different from designing one in earthquake-prone California.)

Next came watercolor, followed by sculpture and installation — using all of those media and styles as tools for the happy accidents of architectural insight and inspiration.

(Those tend to prevent unhappy accidents later, during construction and/or occupancy).

That intuitive approach produces works which appear both cohesive and spontaneous, as with Shred Wrap Study 3, today's featured work.

Simmons (writing in the third person) describes the process:

When Curtis begins a painting, he does not have form or image in mind. Rather, he lets his place in the world—the relationships, situations, and environments—reveal itself through paint. This organic, yet architectural process works to record and characterize a moment in time through the use of color, texture, light, and form.

Curtis then looks for the essential systems and rhythms within the piece, risks manipulation of these systems, strives to create a sense of structure and order. He works within and with these systems—exposing, hiding and distorting them—until the painting or sculpture exists, true to integrity of its own.

In all of this, Curtis expects and allows chance and anomaly to play a meaningful part in his inquiry. Giving free run to his curiosity, taking risk, and struggling with the complications of process, Curtis works to realize the piece in all its complexity and intensity.

Shred Wrap Study 3 is both complex and intense, calling to mind not only the long processes of geology and architecture but also the suddenness of catastrophe, as though the lower left quadrant of the painting were sliding down into a massive sinkhole.

But neither it, nor any of the other paintings in Simmons' portion of the show, is entirely finished in his mind. Here's where you can help.

The painting, when hung on the wall is still in process, Simmons writes. The viewer, a new and essential addition to the inquiry, extends the painting's act of becoming.

So no matter what you do for a living, you can be an artist's assistant as well.

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