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November First Friday 2017 |
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2012 Baltimore Ave. Kansas City, MO 64108
I 816.474.1919
I Thurs-Fri-Sat 11
am-5
pm
November 3, 2017
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New Work from a Strange Year
John and Connie Ernatt
John McCluggage
November 3 - December 30, 2017
Main Gallery
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Connie Ernatt, Rope Trick |
John Ernatt, Some Small Crime
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Connie Ernatt,
Attraction
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John Ernatt has been a painter and sculptor that has been active in the Wichita and Kansas art community for the past 25 years.He is one of the four founding members of Fisch Haus, a place that has found itself at the epicenter of Wichita's visual arts renaissance over the last two decades and has become a cornerstone of the arts community.
The body of work represented in this show is all new, most of it created in the last 15 months. The process of discovery and the development of some new visual language has been both challenging and rewarding. Hand-made frames, unique to each painting, represent his fondness for being in the wood shop, and is a tip of the hat to the utilitarian sensibilities of many of the midwestern regionalist artists that took pride in taking part in every aspect of their work's presentation.
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Connie Ernatt
creates bronze
assemblages, that are often inspired from a single found object. Using chimpanzees as a sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant metaphor, she exposes the underbelly of the human condition - love, violence, humor, sexuality, and sadness. There is a hope that we might see ourselves in these works, prone to folly and bumbling in our escapades on the human stage.
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John McCluggage is known for creating large, unique vessels that push the medium to its limits, experimenting with textures and glazes always trying to make it bigger and better. "For me, so much is about the process and making a strong honest statement. I enjoy seeing how far this medium can go."
John studied ceramics at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, an internationally respected mecca for artists interested in the medium.
After his time at Archie Bray, he spent two years working with monumental bronze sculptures at a Buddhist retreat in California before settling back in Wichita to teach ceramics and is currently working on building a kiln adjacent to his studio. The three pots included in this show have been co-created by McCluggage and his friend John Ernatt. They are a study in Balance, Harmony and Composition, and have proven to be a rewarding experience for both artists.
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A Number Fifty Eight
Curt Clonts
November 3 - December 30, 2017
Front Gallery
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Number Fifty-Eight (Old Fish), m
ixed media on panel,
80-1/2" x 32-1/2"
Photo by Dimitris Skliris
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We Dare, m
ixed media on panel,
80-1/2" x 36-1/2"
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The Promise Is True
Ink and found objects on wood with rope
19" x 25"
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Vessels
Mixed media on panel
48" x 49-1/2"
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Artist Statement
I started seriously producing work in 1978 during the punk rock movement, while living in Southern California. Later, in the early '80's while living in New Orleans, my works were used in a monthly music magazine I produced called "Public Threat". Those early works matched the times - edgy, camp, saturated, and full of a young man's angst.
While some of those elements stuck with me, these days my work explains where I am at at age 58.
While still never satisfied, I am most happy and content. A happy life comes with a constant need to learn. To search. And I am finding happiness in simplicity and economy. I have been married to the same spectacular woman since I was 19. We have 3 adult children together. We also have four granddaughters and one grandson, each quite amazing. I learn from their brilliance every day. My experiences with them end up in my work.
When you look at my work you will see I tend to compartmentalize each piece. In each compartment you will find a range of colors, textures, and meanings. While it may seem silly or even confusing to the eye, the kid in me always feels like the viewer "gets more" with these series of compartments. It's something I've always done and I've never been able to break from it. I also use a fairly wide range of materials to create each piece, because, like life, our very being is a heap of emotions, textures, mess, and very few straight lines.
My work is about happiness, family, friends, and daily experiences.
Peace is good.
Artist Bio
Curt Clonts - born 1959
Curt Clonts is a painter, born in Wichita, Kansas in 1959. He is a veteran of over 30 solo exhibitions and many 2 and 3 person exhibitions. Clonts was a student of Kansas Regionalist Painter Maleta Forsberg, and nationally-known painter James Gross.
Clonts was an arts writer for a Wichita alternative newspapers F-5 and SEEN. He is currently an on-air Arts Commentator ("An Artist's Perspective") for KMUW 89.1FM, the National Public Radio affiliate for Wichita, Kansas.
Paintings by Curt Clonts are featured in prominent collections including The Wichita Art Museum permanent collection, The Emprise Bank permanent collection, The Wichita Center For The Arts permanent collection, The Paula and Barry Downing collection, and The Vantage Point Properties collection.
Curt Clonts was the Artist In Residence at Friends University, Wichita, Kansas from 2006 to 2013.
Articles in Clonts have been featured in The New Orleans Times Picayune, The Wichita Eagle, ART F City (New York, NY), Punk Globe (San Francisco, CA.), WICHITA Magazine, and Liberty Press.
Clonts is featured in the book "Wichita Artists In Their Studios", by Sondra Langel (published in 2016).
Curt Clonts has a solo exhibition: "Curt Clonts - Paintings and Objects" scheduled at the Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery, Lindsborg, Kansas in 2018.
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F I S S U R E
Elizabeth Stevenson
Restoration is a lie from beginning to end.
- John Ruskin
November 3 - December 30, 2017
Back Gallery
Exhibition Statement
Twenty years ago, a girl moved to a new city. She spent the first few weeks walking and investigating, then built a hidden residence inside a billboard sign from which she could watch the city move and react beneath her, unaware of her presence. As time passed, she tricked the city into revealing all its secrets; however, it soon became clear that she must insert her own into the voids left by her intrusion, in order to maintain the delicate urban equilibrium. As an architect, the girl is predisposed to notice conditions that are unstable or unresolved, so she decides to reciprocate the city's unintentional generosity by stabilizing these issues. The fix is only temporary: these devices are not designed as permanent solutions, rather to act as a palimsestic functional layer that may be efficiently absorbed back into the communal organism.
Artist Bio
Elizabeth Stevenson is a Canadian artist and architectural designer who relocated to Wichita, Kansas in 1998. She lives and works out of the Fisch Haus, an art organization in the Commerce St. Art District, and is active within the community as an advocate of cultural and urban development.
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October 6 - November 25, 2017
Opie Gallery
Artist Statement
I use a combination of acrylic and latex paint, drawing, and collaged elements on paper or wooden boards. These collage materials are selected carefully for their cultural context or use, which helps further the visual story. I work in a narrative format, focusing on small personal moments. I always begin with an autobiographical event or from circumstances around me. From this point, I build a story. Location is very important to me and no matter where I find myself; I rely heavily on what's around me for content and inspiration. Having lived in several cultures around the world has helped build my visual vocabulary.
Artist Bio
Caitlin Cartwright is a painter and social change artist. She has spent several years living and working abroad in Madagascar, Namibia, and India. Caitlin has her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and recently earned her masters degree in Sustainable International Development. She uses art as a tool for economic empowerment, peace-building, and healing and wellness. Her combination painting-drawing- collages are vibrant and visual narratives. Her works have been shown both nationally and internationally. Caitlin is currently based in Ohio but loves going to the beach.
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KCAI Undergrads Underground
UN/EARTH
K.T. Krug and Abby Swaringam
November 3 - November 25, 2017
Lower Level Gallery
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K.T. Krug |
Abby Swaringam
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UN/EARTH is a two person exhibition of unsettling and familiar landscapes that create a unique presentation of the real. Using filtering and abstraction, natural and cosmic motifs work to represent the bizarre qualities of our own existence and surroundings. The exhibited cyanotypes, paintings, and prints present a conversation between two artists. UN/EARTH falls in between what is known and what isn't by documenting the uprooted present found in both earthly and cosmic settings. The viewer's body is dislocated from its usual vantage point as it confronts unorthodox perspectives and images projected into physical space. Works by K.T. Krug and Abby Swaringam present the strange and peculiar qualities of the landscape found in the ground and an infinite above.
K.T. Krug
Historically, trees have marked areas of growth. They grow as we grow and die as we die. Lasting generations, they typify the most ancient of utopias for humans, a place of safety, abundance and life. The exhibited cyanotypes acknowledge a moment of rest after the tree has fallen and before its removal. This allows us to understand what was the "utopia." The cyanotype challenges photography's ubiquity in our society by presenting an organic process that rests in human error instead of agency (as in digital processes). These works were created as a mourning period. Upright the tree is present and restlessly alive, yet in a fallen state it acts as a peaceful memento mori. Documenting this stillness which feels appropriate and even surreal preserves a kind of monumentality that is overlooked. Why is it that we rush past so many impressive and poignant things in our life? How can we remember the ephemeral quality of our own existence while avoiding dread? These are some of the questions K.T. Krug asks in her studio practice.
Abby Swaringam
Abby Swaringam is an artist currently studying Painting and Art History at the Kansas City Art Institute. Her work uses the cosmic landscape as a vehicle to explore the unknown. Relying on romantic traditions, material, and gesture, the work engages with modes of interiority and contemplation. Through the mixing of multiple known orientations in the landscape, the work creates a synthetic world. Scientific imagery of the cosmos is a mix of concrete data and human imagination. Through similar modes of thinking, the artist creates paintings, drawings, and prints exploring the flimsy, yet magical and sublime relationship that humans have to the space out of their physical capability.
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We are excited to announce that we will now be
OPEN Wednesdays from 11am-5pm
thanks to our wonderful new
gallery and shop attendant,
Debbie Barrett-Jones!
Read more about Debbie and her artwork in
KC STUDIO
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