This show is a group exhibition featuring the talented artists and creators who work downstairs from us at King G! Their works range in medium from textiles and design, to jewelry, ceramics and painting — even music! Alongside these pieces will be works by our usual suspects here at Upper Level, interpreting King G (Gambrinus, the king of beer!) in their own recognizable styles.

King G Bar & Deli will be celebrating their two year anniversary this month (Sept 10th to be exact!) and we wanted to show our gratitude to our amazing neighbors. We’ve weathered a lot together, including the partial collapse of the building back in 2018! Ever since its inception, owner Eric Flanagan knew that he wanted to support the artists who helped transform the East Crossroads into a mural-rich landscape. The building proudly boasts an exterior mural by Rif Raf Giraffe and the now iconic two-story indoor mural by Sebastian Coolidge; even the deli sports a four part painting by Xmas Viper! This embrace of the arts has in turn drawn many other artists and makers to this establishment so as we’ve gotten to know the exceptional people who make up the team at King G over the years, we wanted to take this time to highlight and celebrate their diverse talents also!

Featured Artists Include:

Alex Eickhoff, Bed Fundy, Compost Pile, Jeni Lynn, Madison Jones (Go Figure Studio), Nia Marie, Old Boy, Phybr, Rif Raf Giraffe, Ryleigh Hightree (R Designs), & Xmas Viper

Music (Sept. First Friday):

Tica Felise — Ukulele Set

Wrker — Electronic Set

In Nest: A Collection, we invite you to witness selections of artist Jenna Bauer’s work from 1999 — present. The exhibition includes several distinct styles that have emerged in her work over the years, such as meditative landscapes, abstract process paintings, color grid explorations, and conceptual works. The exhibit also includes reflections of the artist’s daily life, such as a poignant checkerboard installation of to-do lists from the period of time when she was a caregiver for her father. Nest offers an intimate glimpse of the evolution of an artist’s life and work as she has moved through time, and the results range from restrained and thoughtful to joyful and energetic, creating spaces of respite for all who engage them.

Beco Gallery is pleased to present, Disconcerting Present… or was that a dream?, an off-site group exhibition hosted by Bunker Center For The Arts featuring Kristina Gabuardy, Adams Puryear, Sam Dybeck, Chelsea Smith, Lily Erb, Will Preman, and Sophie Stebbins, six artists living in the Kansas City region and one from the Chicago area. The exhibition features a wide variety of mediums, ranging from sculpture, painting, lit ceramics, and a site-specific installation by Lily Erb. The exhibition spans between two rooms, one with more reality and representational works, alluding to real life, heavy with a sense of anxiety and over- consumption. The other room departs from reality, with blue lights and works that seem out of a strange dream.

Summer Brooks solo exhibition, Sugar Spice features ceramic and spray foam sculptures many of which are embedded with mica and others embellished with gold leaf, hairclips, earrings, glitter, and even fired cubic zirconia. The works speak to the harmful beauty standards in the West, Brooks resistance to those standards, and her insistence to celebrate Black beauty. Brooks received the NCECA’s Multicultural Fellowship award, had her work exhibited in the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, The New Garden Variety, and has shown at Art Saint Louis and the Albrecht Kemper Museum.

Media plays into colorism by primarily grandstanding lighter skinned women as more feminine and desirable while darker complexions are viewed as aggressive and unattractive. I want to create art celebrating the beauty of Black. I have not always appreciated myself and my history due to colorism and racism. Colorism and racism have not only been erasing my history, but it showcases what Black features are deemed “desirable.” Black is beautiful and should be presented as a spectrum, not a constraint.

Ceramics act as a vessel to not only touch my roots but to inject my work into the canon of ceramics. Pots are decorated with Black woman loving themselves. Sculptures are rejoicing their beauty through being comfortable with their afros, locks, braids and dark skin. Figures also represent the struggle I had to face from people touching my hair without consent, to being told my skin is too dark. Although struggles are shown, figures heal from the hardships and grow into their beautiful selves. — Brooks

I don’t think of my paintings as documentation, but rather an inspirational starting point for a painting. Edward Hopper said, “What I wanted to do was to paint the sunlight on the side of the house.” That quote captures my intent perfectly. I’m looking for a composition that makes me want to paint. I feel I have done that with this series of paintings. I feel that this is my strongest body of work I have completed over my many exhibition. –John Ferry, 2023

John Ferry’s recent paintings continue his lifelong inspiration and love of architecture and the built environment. The cities, that he has explored, from Detroit to Rome, are the catalyst for Ferry’s painted investigations of color, light, texture and space. Forgotten or overlooked urban spaces, such as alleyways or fire escapes, are shown in exaggerated vertical formats that express the very character of what is being depicted. This extreme format emphasizes the gesture of light and the narrow slice of sky between buildings emphasizes the tension of space in the city. Ferry’s use of format, as an essential design element, is equally successful in the long horizontal paintings of the mid-century modern Farnsworth house. Format and composition are paired in a variety of ways in the paintings of Rome. The Colosseum in Rome was the perfect subject to illustrate the grandeur and permanence of architecture shaped by the passage of time. In the Colosseum paintings, color and texture define light and shadow and the beauty of decay.

John Ferry is a Professor serving in the Illustration Department at the Kansas City Art Institute. Straight and Narrow is his 20^th one-person show. John Ferry’s paintings are in the permanent collections of The Wichita Center for the Arts, KS; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; H&R Block, KC, MO; Negro League Baseball Museum, KC, MO; Federal Reserve Bank; KC, MO; and others. John Ferry lives and paints in Prairie Village, KS with his wife Amy and two daughters Katherine and Paige.