Featuring works by: 

Afton Lin | An Ha | Bowie Ma | Chaneryna Thach

Diane Sung | Esther Lee | Kathy Nguyen

Lucky Moe | Lucy Hodges | Sarah Manuel 

Featured work by Diane Sung | Photography by Max Wagner

Asian-American is an identity that exists in multiplicities. We are simultaneously assimilated and yet always remain in the liminal space as ‘other’. So, who are we? How is it that we can be a part of the whole and also apart from the whole?

Asian-American Pacific Islander students of the Kansas City Art Institute across disciplines come together to share their stories, lived experiences, and express and celebrate these multiple identities in “[a]part”.

Join artist and jewelry designer Cheryl Eve Acosta, Friday, Feb 3rd at her KC Crossroads Studio from 5:30 — 8:00 pm! Her jewelry store will be open for those looking to shop for a unique piece of wearable art to gift to a special someone or to yourself! You may shop by appointment for her one-of-a-kind handmade as well by emailing us at adorn@cheryleve.com. Happy February!

Congratulations to the following Current Works 2022 artists:

Mark Appling Fisher | T.R. Barnard | Derrick Benitz | Derrick Burbul

Jackie Carioscia | Kirk Decker | Barrett Emke | Adam Finkelston

Morgan Ford Willingham | Shirley Harryman | Lisa Healey | Victoria Hernandez Velazquez

| Erin Hillery | Nate Hofer | Angie Jennings | Brandon Jessip Teresa Johnson |

Judith G. Levy | Mirka Leyva-Gaucin | Laura Lloyd Donald McKenna |

Lilly Marker | JoLynne Martinez  | Paul Middleton Lea Murphy | Rebecca Ofiesh

| Jon Onstot | Susan Pfannmuller Nick Reiswig | Angela Shaffer |

Sharon Takade | Gwen Walstrand | Don Wolfe

This is Kansas City Society for Contemporary Photography’s annual juried exhibit. It is to showcase what photographic artists are doing today in Kansas City and the Midwest. Works will have been produced from 2020 – 2022 encompassing a broad range of photography styles and processes that represent the diversity of our region. Our juror, April Watson, has selected 26 pieces out of the 240 pieces that were submitted. It shows a vast array of ideas, concepts, and processes.

This year’s juror, April M. Watson, Senior Curator, Photography at The Nelson-Atkins of Art in Kansas City, MO. During her fourteen year-tenure at the Nelson-Atkins, she has curated numerous exhibitions from the museum’s renowned Hallmark Photographic Collection and organized several major loan exhibitions.

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a resounding…let it be

This latest group of works from the Ross couple is their newest group of observations after one of their many trips to Nisamehe Island and the Resound Fields. The inhabitants on the island are dealing with new waves of temptations and stress in sharp contrast to the beautiful surroundings. On this trip, Scribe focuses on the hearts and minds of some unique characters. Alisa’s works are lush snapshots of the beautiful landscapes and what hides in the foliage. This recent trip shows complex emotions in contrast to the soft forgotten world around them.

Recognize the stress and trauma through all of the temptations. So be it.

Rediscover the wonders created around you. Laugh again. You would think this was a resounding choice.

Fields of Mercy.

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Bio

Donald “scribe” and Alisa Ross have been making art together for 30 years.

Alisa graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute and is a Fiber Artist. Her work ranges from character development for various companies to contemporary art drawing influences from nature and urban surroundings.

Scribe is most known for his iconic murals in Kansas City and internationally for the past 30 years. He has shown work around the world, designed toys and is an author of three books. He is also known for being the resident artist for Children’s Mercy Hospital for eighteen years where he focused on making art that uplifted both the visitors and employees.

The two of them often collaborate on works based on some of the writings of Scribe where the character and environmental influences are traded back and forth to create the island of Nisamehe mounted to the back of a sea turtle.

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We continually move through time and space, but never-the-less humans continue to try to stop this fluctuation. Our desire to construct a sense of home, through architecture, objects, habits, and rituals are acts of distraction where we can find relief in regularity. This new body of work, Midwestern Green/Western Blue, addresses the idea of home not as a static or singular habitable place but rather as a dynamic experience, found in multiple locations.

For me, the marrow between each place often leaves a great sense of missingness and ache. I recognize this feeling as a desire to keep a thing, a place or experience, in my grasp. While painting, in the studio, internalized and past experiences are called up. These memories have been embossed onto my psyche and are realized as color, as paintings. Great green caves of trees, turquoise waves of water, the first green shoots of life pressing out of frosty earth or the hot yellow / orange / sky with black-shaped silhouettes of palms carved into that brief sky, inform these paintings. The title and work in this exhibition explore the extravagance of being able to move between Spring / Summer in Kansas/Missouri and Fall / Winter in California, and the sense of longing for each while away from the other. I suppose, as the saying goes, the grass is greener, and the ocean is blue-er while on each respective side of the geographical fence. 

• Anne Austin Pearce, 2023

Anne Austin Pearce, a Midwesterner all her life, is now pulled by two opposite forces, her love of teaching and nature in California, and her family and sense of belonging in Kansas/Missouri. Pearce has always been adventurous and has traveled the world to experience nature and culture in remote, often endangered, and beautiful locations. In her paintings, mostly abstract, Pearce has always sought to express the transitory state of the natural world, its beauty and fragility. She leads with her heart and never more so than in her current exhibition, Midwestern Green/Western Blue.

Anne Austin Pearce’s paintings can be found in the permanent collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, OP, KS; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS; Museum of Art and Design at Miami Date College, FL; Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ and others. She has participated in numerous artist’s residencies and received a 2015 Lighton International Artists Exchange Program Grant and a 2012 Charlotte Foundation Visual Artist Award.