Doors of Deception is an exhibition of the transportive potentials of abstraction in the work of Harper Newell and Max Crutcher.
The opening reception is on First Friday, March 6, (6 – 9 PM) at Vulpes Bastille.
This exhibition presents the distinct methods that each artist uses to create hypnotic and illusive visual spaces. Through weaving and drawing, the artists employ formal elements to create an optical push and pull between surface and image, inviting the viewer into their work.
Newell’s weavings form highly saturated, gradient color fields, which offer the viewer an escape from the hyper stimulation of modern everyday life. Inspired by the idea of portals, her works provide glimpses of another world, a serene plane of existence made of only color and space.
Crutcher’s oil pastel drawings use overlapping organic forms to create shifting spaces that entrance the viewer. Shapes collide and align to suggest new forms, while negative spaces emerge and recede to create a precarious visual space for the viewer.
These interactions create a persistent disorientation as the artist playfully conspires to subvert the viewer’s perception. There is a sublime rhythm in the sweeping gradients of color and shape-shifting spaces the artists create, and they act together to form vibrant worlds of beauty and illusion.
Doors of Deception asks you to explore the pathways these artists have forged, to escape your surroundings, if only momentarily, and to move through the gallery filled with texture, shape and color.
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Vulpes Bastille is an artist-run space in Kansas City’s East Crossroads that houses twelve studios and hosts monthly exhibitions selected through an open call. Located in a 100-year-old renovated dancehall, Vulpes Bastille offers an expansive platform for the community to create and display work, with an emphasis on experimental projects, emerging voices, and students. Vulpes Bastille has remained a fortress for Kansas City’s creative community since 2012.
