Review

"Out of the Woodwork," C-Print on Aluminum.

Shannon White
Out of the Woodwork

10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Blue Djinn Gallery
1400 Union Ave.
Kansas City, MO

Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and by appointment.
Runs through: Feb. 26

Artist's site: http://www.shannonwhite.com
Gallery site: http://www.docsnyderprints.com/Blue_Djinn_Gallery.html

Triple dose of art today: Visual, literary and interactive.

The first two come courtesy of Shannon White, whose solo show Out of the Woodwork is on display this month at Blue Djinn Gallery in the West Bottoms.

White's digital paintings (C-prints on aluminum) are accompanied by her poetry; even her statement for the show is a poem.

I love sharing poetry, but I'm not going to do that here, for the usual reason. Yes, that would be the "Get out and see it for yourself" reason.

Visually, White's show is a continuation of her recent exhibition at the Kansas City Artists Coalition. Her work is inspired by graffiti, but not of the confrontational/territorial sort. It's definitely of the "I can't help but create, and I hope you'll stop and look" variety. If you saw work like this on the side of a building or passing by on a freight car, my bet is that you'd be intrigued, rather than thinking, "Those darn kids."

What neither words nor online reproductions (such as Out of the Woodwork, the show's titular work and today's featured image) can convey are (a) how well White's constructions of shapes and color work with their reflective backgrounds, and (b) how well her work plays off the knotty-pine walls of the Blue Djinn. The combination of cool metal and warm wood brings out the best of both.

Deepening the connection is the fact that White first conceived the show's title image as  ... well, I'll let her explain. "Out of the Woodwork" began as an exploration of life using conte & pastel pencil on wood panel, she writes, and then became a vibrant and colorful digital painting on reflective material.

That affinity for the organic  patterns and flow of wood manifests in the aforementioned third dose of art.

This one gives you a chance to interact with both White's vision and her venue: She has hung a sheet of transparent material over one of the walls and provided markers for gallerygoers to trace the grains ... literally bringing art out of the woodwork.

-re-

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