SHARE:  

January First Friday

2016

2012 Baltimore Ave.   I  Kansas City, MO 64108  I  816.474.1919   Thurs-Sat. 11 am-5 pm
 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
 
First Friday Opening
January 1, 2016
6pm - 9 pm
Target - Play Time
 
Ada Koch
 
love, loss and violence
 
January 1 - February 13, 2016
Back Gallery
 

Artist Statement
  
Since the tragic bombing of the Boston Marathon race, I began a series of paintings that express my fear about my children going to war. I started this work with the challenge of depicting love, violence and loss in a credible, affecting, and even beautiful way knowing that loss from violence affects so many of us personally, as mothers, fathers, siblings, lovers, relations, and friends. The work contains many layers, both in the process and in the depicted layers of time passing.  Several pieces incorporate famous art about war as a backdrop to contemporary life scenes with an often startling mix of violence, blood and playfulness. Blood is a source of life, but its visible release depicts death, often violent and disturbing. War and violence are shown as targeting our young and vulnerable, the circles yet another symbol of how fighting and upheaval return again and again throughout history to take those we love. As I work in my studio isolated with my thoughts and materials, I am obsessed with those who have died in wars throughout history and I question "What is the Nature of mankind? And what responsibility do I have to that Nature?" I choose to incorporate and refer to art history, common symbols, and famous images dedicated to glorify, to chastise, to vilify, to explore our inextricable relationship with war and violence. Through these works, I share fears, questions and very personal emotions.
  
  
Artist Bio
  
Raised in Delaware, Ada Koch won scholarships to the Delaware Art Museum before studying in Washington DC and Chicago.  Studies with David de Rousseau of the KC Art Institute preceded her exhibitions and awards in US and Italian galleries.  She has been invited regularly to the Biennale show in Florence, Italy and was just invited to the premiere of the Effetto in Merido, Mexico as part of the United Nations Dialogue Among Civilizations.  She teaches at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Holy Name School in Kansas City, KS and as a guest teacher throughout the US, including fun spots such as the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ.  As a board member of the KC Artists Coalition, she was founder of Open Studios, and is active in promoting the local art scene in the KC community. She has painted on Channel 41's Art Attack show in August of 2013, been reviewed favorably in local papers and magazines, and published her first book of her work "La Piazza: Praising Architecture and A Balanced Life."   Her art is in corporate collections such as the Stowers Institute, JD Reece Company, Rockhurst High School in KC and the Rock School of Dance Education in Philadelphia, PA.  Her work can be found in private collections around the world including New Mexico, Paris, Germany, and Switzerland. 
  
As for her work, Ada says "While in art museums, I have always preferred the artist's sketch rather than the 'finished work'.  A sketch provides the freedom and movement that shows the artist's true style." Her work provides numerous layers and media but maintains the freedom, fluidity, and fresh playfulness of the sketch.
 
 

JOIN US
Thursday, January 14, 2016
5:30pm-7:30pm
Leedy-Voulkos Art Center

Mothers in Charge Art Event

The Patron's Party will be from 5-6 pm and a $150 donation is requested for 4 guests.
Then from 6-7:30 pm the donation requested is $25 per person.
All monies go directly to the Mothers In Charge  non-profit organization.  

Click HERE to become a sponsor, purchase a tickets or donate


 
 
Charlie Paynter
A to Z and More
 
January 1 - February 13, 2016
Opie Gallery
 

I retired in 2008 after working over 50 years at the Kansas City Star and I began making sculptures from my vast (over 6000) collection of bottle openers.   In the past I had a shows of these three-dimensional sculptures made of bottle openers and two-dimensional wall pieces from bottle openers, wire, and found and recycled objects that I got from friends and found at thrift stores. These wall pieces had evolved a long way from the little bottle opener characters I started with.
  
I like to challenge myself to see if I can do something new and different. My challenge was to create something smaller than I had ever made. I still use found and recycled objects in my work. And I use lots of wire. An art critic said that I use the wire to draw with. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think it is true.
  
I created these new works of "A to Z and More" using the letters of the alphabet as my starting point.. The scale of this series is smaller than I have done before.
  
My hope is that people like it.
  
I am totally enjoying my life as an artist
 
 
 



Ascension
Air Max

Photo Credit: EG Schempf 
Help My Unbelief!

 
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.
 
Laura Spencer Interviews Dylan Mortimer
KCUR 89.3    December 22, 2016



 

Water Balloon, Perry County, Kentucky, 2014
Children at Sunrise, Kajjansi, Uganda, 2015
Sarah and Queen, Lake Victoria, 2013  
 
 
 
Gloria Baker 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