Review

Untitled, Mixed Media on Paper.

Anne Gagel

7 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m.
(Artist's reception, 5-7 p.m. today)

Room 39
1719 W. 39th St.
Kansas City, MO
816.753.3939

Hours: 7 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5:30-10 p.m. Monday-Wednesday and Saturday, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5:30-midnight Thursday-Friday.
Runs through: May 1.

Artist's site: http://www.annegagel.com
Gallery Site: http://www.rm39.com

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.

(Mood Music 1)

It is currently en vogue to create a series of self portraits, repeating an action with the self over and over in the same manner, knowing that time will change the space in how one is seen, writes Gagel, whose work is featured through May 1 at the original Room 39 location in the Volker neighborhood. Here I present myself as birds from multiple perspectives and different angles, seen sometimes through a poem that invokes personal memories.

Gagel's use of avian imagery goes back three years, originating in a series on owls.

Native Americans believed owls were the spirits of ancestors past, she explains. Through choosing the owl to emulate the self, I questioned what I have been, where I am from, and what I will be, even after I potentially become an owl as well.

After that, the bird motif ... well, took flight. More from Gagel:

I began to become attracted to the vibrant colors of other birds, how these colors reflect joy in life.  Imagery became more complex and whimsical — I was reminded of one of my favorite books from childhood, "Alice in Wonderland," my wonderland being filled with birds that have humanistic qualities.

The birds depicted in the Room 39 show are of the small singing and cheeping sort: finches, sparrows, bluebirds (such as the one in the untitled mixed media work atop this post) and the like. Gagel depicts them in precise detail, often superimposing them upon seed packets or working in sly cultural references: for example, blackbirds painted over a stylized pie.

(Mood Music 2)

For Gagel, who will be at Room 39 for a reception from 5-7 p.m. today, it's a visual depiction of an experience dancing along the line between evocation and synesthesia.

Bird sounds are color; I hear a cardinal’s call and think in a range of orange tones, she writes. I create lines on a board and they become intermixed, invoking landscape and the rhythms found within.  Lace from doilies bring a unique femininity and introduce the idea of classical British drama and the Romantic period, whether in film or literature. As I read poets such as Federico Garcia Lorca and Charles Simic, I reflect upon moments from my past and present that their words bring meaning to, later realized through a painting, mixed media drawing, or in clay.  Charles Simic wrote a book of poetry about artist Joseph Cornell; Cornell contained and produced in a small space sculptural relics for others.  I am creating a painted mixed-media metaphor in a similar way.

The metaphor: Gagel herself ... also fitting, although with a wink and a nudge, given that "bird" is English slang for a young woman.

And in that, there is a certain sweet sadness. Songbirds in temperate zones are not long-lived, with a life expectancy of about 10 months. They sing for a season, and then fall silent.

(Mood Music 3)

Gagel is at peace with that.

The work is an instant reflection of the present and past combined, coming to terms with what is and the potential of what will be; the echo of color resonating in space at a later moment becomes circles or ovals on a surface, she writes. I rejoice in the present, even with its subtle sadness, and it is through these works this idea becomes contained and apparent.

And in Gagel's art, the idea takes flight ... and who can say where it will land in each viewer's mind?

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