Belger Arts Center presents La Gruta/The Grotto: Joann Quiñones, opening Friday, September 3, at 2100 Walnut Street, Kansas City, MO 64108. The exhibition will remain on view through February 5, 2022.

Joann Quiñones’ exhibition is based on the concept of the grotto, an artificial or natural cavern used for both sanctuary and devotion. Rich in iconography and symbolism, La Gruta/The Grotto holds figurative sculptures, including “relics,” that explore the intricacies of race, class, gender, sexuality and religion — concepts that are highly ritualized. The work in the exhibition is an invitation to contemplate narratives of the domestic, family, and womanhood and how they are complicated by a history of slavery, stolen labor, and racism, particularly in the U.S. and the Caribbean.

In addition to these concepts, the materials selected by the artist have historical and personal significance. According to Quiñones, “I work with all materials, but consider ceramics and fibers to be foundational to my process and thinking because of their long history and aesthetic traditions in places like West Africa, Spain and the Americas.”

Joann Quiñones (they/them) is a mixed media artist who creates figurative work in order to explore Afro-Latinx identity. They were selected as an Emerging Artist of 2020 by Ceramics Monthly, were a Manifest Gallery Annual Prize Finalist, and received an Honorable Mention for the James Renwick Alliance Chrysalis Award. Their work has been shown nationally, including in the 2020 NCECA Annual Exhibition, The Burdens of History. Quiñones has an MFA in Studio Art from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa. They are currently an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Alfred University, NY.

For high-resolution images, click here. Artist bio and additional images are available on our website. For a PDF of the press release, click here.

Rose Apple Dreams

Memories of rose apples, with their fragrant fruits. Sitting under their pink and red canopies. Petals made pink carpet that covers the earth.

Sitting enjoying the peace among a world of bustle

Rose-flavored fruit that works like a time machine with its flavor that brings back lost memories, for living every day

Trees in their flourishing season that become sanctuaries or time shuttles, carrying and creating thousands of memories of childhood and old age like an urban diary.

This exhibition titled: Linkage consists of two distinct but related bodies of work. The flat works were made pre-pandemic and are concerned with how digital spaces and platforms, such as social media, have affected society. The paintings are a personal reaction to what I felt were troubling signals simmering within our communities. It seemed that people were finding digital hives which suited their narrative politically and otherwise, constantly occupying and reinforcing their pack while shutting off other possibilities — leading to powerful divisions and fissures within the society that persist today. Although the paintings are abstract, the visual tension between disparate energies (hives) is evident throughout.

The sculptures are very recent works. I began building them in August of 2021, with one exception, “Blue Beacon,” which was completed just before the pandemic arrived in the United States. The sculptures in this show are a personal response to profound personal loss, the effects of a global pandemic, and a divided, unhealthy society. As an artist, the question was simple, is it even worth making art in these conditions? I struggled with the value of attempting to build work when everything seemed to be breaking down around me and inside of me. Finally, I decided I had to try. I wanted to make sculptures that evoked an inner balance and strength despite the difficult and uncertain times we live in. As they began to evolve, I felt buoyed by their presence. Day by day, I could see them develop. I began to feel hopeful that I could deal with my feelings about the world within my studio practice again. The sculptures are about finding inner strength and the paintings are about making sense of a world beyond my control. The basis of this exhibition is The Linkage between these energies.

Broader thoughts on the relationship between the sculptures and the flat works:
The sculptures are totemic, figurative, and architectural. I used various construction strategies to overcome forces of gravity while the clay was soft and avoided issues of pyro-plasticity that can cause failure. When building with clay, gravity is always a dominating force. On the other hand, painting is not constrained by gravity; it provides an opportunity to explore form, line, and color entirely differently. According to their own nature, visual relationships develop in the paintings, which stick in my consciousness. Although initially, I began painting as an extension of my sculpture, it provided a liberating vehicle to explore structures that could not be built but could be experienced through two-dimensional abstraction.

Although the flat work and the sculptures have a symbiotic relationship in my creative process, they are not trying to mimic one another so much as they attempt to reach a broader understanding of structural abstraction. They help each other but do not necessarily look like one another. When building with clay, you start from the ground up, allowing lower areas to dry some before adding to what’s above. Generally, the lower part of a large sculpture cannot be wholly reworked and become something else after hundreds of pounds of material have been added above it. But with painting, any part can be changed at any moment with no constraint. Some of the paintings in the exhibition have dozens of images below what the viewer sees. The physical limits of building with clay and the utter freedom to manipulate paint can each be maddening at times but can also be revelatory. Painting has helped me find new relationships in physical forms in my sculpture. Likewise, my sculpture has helped me find structural resolution in the paintings.

Raw energy is the thread tying this compelling collection of abstract works together. All three of our south galleries will be utilized to share this comprehensive exhibition with the public.

artist statement

My work alludes to an underlying current of knowing that is governed by feelings and emotions. The images that I produce are symbolic of an inner-personal and vulnerable human existence. They develop their identity through spontaneity, intuition, association, and chance.

In making art, I am only aware of the forces I use in order to move along the course of my pictures. The course of my art is a visual translation of internal feelings, thoughts, and emotions in relation to the inner condition of self.

process

The work involves a variety of materials and processes. The materials used include: paper, paint, inks, marker, pencil, glue and dried paint chips and paint skins. My work involves aspects of painting, drawing, collage and assemblage.

The idea of using dried paint chips came about as a byproduct of the process that I go through when painting on canvas. When working on canvas, I paint and scrape off the paint a number of times to achieve a surface appropriate for the painting. During this process, a lot of paint falls to the floor and dries.

Through this process, I realized the random beauty that lives within the surfaces of the dried paint and decided it was still very much useful. I started re-applying the dry paint chips to my canvases at first, but then discovered the possibilities of scaling down the size of the current work to 5×7 inches on paper. I use the paint chip in its natural form as well as manipulate it to a desired form. I also fabricate acrylic paint skins and then manipulate them into final abstract figures on paper and wood panels. Approaching my work the way that I do, I am able to fulfill a desire to collage, assemble and sculpt without straying from my original discipline of painting.