SHARE:  

December First Friday

2015

2012 Baltimore Ave.   I  Kansas City, MO 64108  I  816.474.1919   Thurs-Sat. 11 am-5 pm
 
First Friday Opening
December 4, 2015
6pm - 9 pm

 



I Want More Air - Courtesy of Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

The God Particle Weeps Too

 
Dylan Mortimer
Cure 

December 4, 2015 - February 13, 2016
Main Gallery
 

I am searching for a cure. For my body. For my mind. For my soul. For my spirit.
  
We fight against death, sickness, sin, fear, worry, and hopelessness. Sometimes in the midst of the fight we find surprising things, beauty, joy, peace, hope and sometimes we find a cure. Sometimes we get a glimpse of what we can't see. We can get a glimpse of what is real and true.
  
We are all born into this world as we are. I was born with a disease called cystic fibrosis, a severe degenerative disease that attacks many systems of the body, leaving an average lifespan in the mid-thirties. This is the first body of artwork where I have directly wrestled with this fight in the imagery. I am and have been in this fight my whole life. It is not my only fight. But it is a big one.
  
I want to share some of the fight. My own pain, loss and despair. I also want to share how my sorrow and pain have been transformed- like glitter sprinkled over phlegm, blood and tears. Is it a covering? A masking? A way of hiding? Is it a crutch? Maybe?
  
If we are broken, and a crutch helps us to walk, was it real? In many ways we were blind, and in many ways we now see. Yet we still only see in part. I want to see it all. I want to see the 95% many scientists claim we can't see. I want to see as many "God Particles" as I can. I want to fix my eyes on the unseen. I want to see what is real. Cure works as a noun and a verb. It is a reality that can be offered to us. And also an active state to step into. I want healing. I want a cure. I want to help cure.


 

Water Balloon, Perry County, Kentucky, 2014
Children at Sunrise, Kajjansi, Uganda, 2015
Sarah and Queen, Lake Victoria, 2013  
 
 
 
Gloria Feinstein
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
 
December 4, 2015 - February 13, 2016
Front  Gallery


Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.
  
These photographs were made during the past couple of years in Missouri, Oregon, Louisiana, Kentucky, Minnesota and Uganda. I found myself in these various places because of home, family, vacation and work. 
  
Wherever I go, though, I am also there to photograph.
  
When I am dreaming at night I am photographing.  When I awake in the morning I am photographing. And so it goes all day long, day after day. I am simply compelled to study, frame and attempt to make sense of the world around me, whether I have a camera in hand or not. Photography is my constant companion and has been my life-long passion.
  
Like a hunter, my senses are fully engaged. I am looking, I am waiting, I am poised to press the shutter (real or imagined).
  
It is often a lonely task, but one that I willingly and happily take on. (Sometimes I wonder if I have a choice, though I have never once felt burdened.)
  
It is with a fierce sense of wonder and an open heart that I make my way through the world. These pictures are proof of my navigation - pieces of evidence scattered along the hillside from which I peer.

Gloria Baker Feinstein
December 2015

 
 



Detritivores (details), 2015
Detritivores, 2015
Microorganisms, 2015
 
KCAI: Undergrads Underground
 
Rochelle Brickner
The Silent Type
 
December 4 - December 19, 2015
Lower Level Gallery

For the past two years I've been creating abstract biomorphic forms that are inspired by the textures, colors, and life cycles characteristic of various species of fungi. Reinterpreting the environments they inhabit in natural and controlled compositions references their various stages in life.

The choice of materials I use and the processes of construction and transformation are intimately connected to the visual, conceptual and narrative aspects of the work. My preferred materials are wool and paper; shapeless, fibrous materials that can be endlessly manipulated through the process of felting. A transformation of color, shape, and form relative to the systematic cycles of growth, rebirth, decomposition, and symbiosis in nature. 

I refer to these fungi species as the silent type. Too often, fungi go unnoticed, as they quietly exist. Through my work I want to inspire people to notice and perhaps look at nature in a different way.
 
Chimney Rock, Woodward County, Oklahoma 1965/2005
 
Sense of Place
American Photographs by Jeff Burk

November 6 - December 19, 2015
Opie Gallery
 

When I was eight years old, my father and I went on a road trip together to explore an area of Oklahoma that we had never seen before. A high point of the trip was finding Chimney Rock, where I took one of my earliest photographs. That experience was the catalyst for a lifetime of continued photographic wanderlust.
  
Road trips are a way for me to decompress from the distractions of urban life. I seek out natural and rural areas to find quiet places where memories-both real and imagined-are triggered. There, I record those obscure and wonderful things that make America what it is and capture a sense of the character and history of a place.
  
In his book, Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon ruminates on the erroneous decisions that led him to an especially interesting place during a lengthy road trip around America. He discovers that "the word error comes from a Middle English word, erren, which means 'to wander about,' as in the knight errant." He continues:

If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring. 1
 
Often, my destination is less important than what is found along the way. Traveling disused highways and rural routes satisfies a desire for seeing different landscapes. I feel like an explorer discovering new territories and finding another, newer significance in the old and familiar. It is in this way that road trips are commonly thought of as a metaphor for life's journey. I believe they also parallel the creative process.
  
- Jeff Burk
November 2015

1 Blue Highways (New York: Fawcett Ballantine, 1982), William Least Heat Moon. p. 223
 
 

Studio Morning, 2015, oil on linen,  29" x 38"
Arika in Red Scarf, 2012, oil on canvas, 12" x 15"
 
Richard Mattsson
Recent Figure Paintings
 
October 2 - December 19, 2015
Back Gallery
 

Typically, my work is inspired by the subject/event that I encounter or discover in my immediate environment, studio, home, and neighborhood. While I paint and draw from a variety of source stimuli, landscape situations are preferable as a starting point. They are somewhat overwhelming in their elusiveness.
 
When one works on site from landscape, the subject of study is constantly in flux. I paint/draw what I see in so far as that includes the sum of looking outward and inward. The process inevitably requires that I take a decisive position with respect to my choice of formal direction and personal expression. I rarely execute work directly or quickly in spite of my intentions. If I am not satisfied, I continue editing and changing the form until I feel I can go no further.  
 
Each subject/event situation is different. The situation informs me. I try to be led by it. The process of painting is meditative and experiential in nature. It's more about discovery than demonstration. Ultimately, the works are fictional and their resolution is intuitive.