Painting 
FROM MIAMI, WITH LOVE(0)
November 30, 2011 —
December 1st through 4th: It’s time for the nation’s hottest art fair, Art Basel Miami, Beach, which draws artists, gallerists, collectors, and others from around the world to a balmy, frenetic art-overdose. Darin White provides an entertaining and detailed look at last year’s fair. Along with a number of other KC/Lawrence artists, he’s there again for 2011.
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OF PATTERNED COLOR AND LIGHT
The work of Leo Villareal is transformational. The artist alters harsh electronic lights into soft, spellbinding luminosities, computer code into organic forms, and pulses of electricity into exhilarating environments. The first major museum survey of his work from the past decade (an exhibition originating at the San Jose Museum of Art) is on view at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art through September 18.
Creative Consciousness: Stephanie Gray
Stephanie Gray’s “Casting Circles” is art with a heart … a soul … a mind … and a gentle, supportive spirit.
HIDDEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
The Wichita Art Museum has brought out from its collection works that have been in storage for years; though there is no stated theme beyond “unseen for a while,” careful curation has grouped the 40-plus pantings, prints, and sculptures into vignettes that provoke thoughful connections. Many even have the timely feel of summer; it is well worth your time to come and see Calder, Cottingham, Christopher, Leon Kelly, Grilley, and more. Opportunity knocks through October 23.
FIRST FRIDAY FOLLOW-UP: AUGUST 2011
August’s installment of the First Friday Follow-Up takes a look at M.A. Alford’s work at Beggar’s Table; paintings by husband-and-wife team Chuck Hoffman and Peg Carlson-Hoffman at 19 Below; Waseem Touma’s “Internal Formations” installation at Plenum Space; the collaboration of Mara Baker and Rafael E. Vera at Cara and Cabezas Contemporary; and Jessica McGan’s “I …” series at the Base Gallery.
She Wonders as She Wanders: Teresa Magel
Teresa Magel reveals just enough with each viewing to keep one coming back for more … and before you know it, you too might be down a rabbit hole.
First Person, Singular: Jessica McGan
Jessica McGan’s “I …” is loaded with visual expressions of all sorts of “I” words … identity, individuality, inspiration and more.
Loops and Swirls: Nate Fors
Where the diurnal aspect of Nate Fors’ “Lllooppi” is whimsical, almost like a Dr. Seuss creation brought to three-dimensional life, the sculpture by night is far more energetic … but no less playful.
Comfortable in His Skin: Kent Van Dusseldorp
For all the appreciation of the female nude, male full frontalism does tend to draw more askance glances, and Kent Van Dusseldorp’s show is a straightforward, if good-natured, confrontation of that outlook.
Fruitful Explorations: Mark Hennick
Mark Hennick’s new artistic directions have borne interesting visual fruit, in several senses.
Humanity Revealed: J.T. Daniels
J.T. Daniels mixes more conventional media with everything from spray paint to house paint to colored pencil in his portraits, giving them a fresh, contemporary street-art feeling — while also hearkening back to the Regionalist school of the 20th century in Daniels’ straightforward depictions of his subjects’ humanity.
Summer Sun, Something’s Begun: Susan Wilson
Susan Wilson’s work, part of the group show opening tonight at Images Art Gallery, is infused with warmth both visual and emotional.
Artistic Express(ion): Jan Gaumnitz
Jan Gaumnitz’s “Pony Express” has charm to burn, and a clear regional connection, but there’s more to the sculpture than that.
A Cool Drink of Watercolor: Ellie Behrmann
Ellie Behrman creates works which are both substantial and delicate — in some instances, almost ethereal.
SOOTHSAYERS!
The latest exhibition at the Spray Booth Gallery continues a welcome risk-taking trend; titled literally, “Paintings and Drawings: New Works by Max Crutcher and Brook Hsu” show us the talents of two recent Kansas City Art Institute painting department graduates (2010) who both express their personal explorations into the processes of painting and drawing. In this way, they present their aesthetic and conceptual inheritance of the original modernist tradition.