Over the last couple of years I have been driving my paintings in an innovative new direction. After exhaustive research and experimentation, I have found myself drawn to the age-old idea of portraiture, but with a twist. I am intrigued by the idea of obscuring the eyes of the subjects in my paintings, something I started in my early work and have continued to carry with me as I evolve. — Anna Kincaide

The works of artist Anna Kincaide are a gateway to a world that is at once fantastical and familiar, inspired by fashion, photography, as well as elements of the decorative arts. Juxtaposing control and spontaneous disruption, Kincaide emphasizes the hidden, internal landscape of the figures she portrays.

Kincaide’s references to history and fashion are clear. In her works we are reminded of the extravagant heights of Marie Antoinette’s famous coiffure, which reached greater and greater heights in 18th century France, the iconic headdress of Egyptian queen Nefertiti, the famous French Hood of Anne Boleyn, and the modest Spanish style one of Catherine of Aragon. These powerful women used fashion as a political tool as much as to make a statement.

While Kincaide incorporates this, and numerous other art historical and fashion references in her work such as fashion photography, illustration, as well as the idea of the portrait bust or silhouette, it is the defining separation between the body and mind that creates the central theme in her work. In short, the idea of the ambiguity between our physical bodies, personal identity and that private, internal space of our minds, which expands and unfurls like a flower in bloom. Kincaide presents a world where dreams can become reality, and even surpass it.

Art exist within a diverse range of human activities that expresses and produces a visual, auditory, or performed artifacts— artworks. These works depict the artists imaginative and technical skill, and are intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. Art has been traditionally defined as the expression or application of human creative skills and imagination, typically in a visual form, producing works that express the artists inner emotions, desires, and message. A completed work of contemporary art can be used to describe any work regarded as art in the widest sense in respect to the physical form of visual art. When it comes to arts identification, there are no distinct set of values or aesthetic traits. Art is not perfection; art realistically is something that continues to progressively develop as it is seen, meaning to eagerly open all human capacities, thoughts and emotions. Art represents a unique creation that lets the observer interpret the art and the artists to portray it in whatever way they want whether the work is viewed with same perspective as the observer or not. A creation that allows for interpretation of any kind is art and can take on many various forms, but no matter the form it is a form of communication of the artist’s ideas or emotions.

Participating Artist
Marisa Bernotti
Ann Huang
Cindy Chinn
Lisa Gordillo
Meriel Stern
Ed Whitmore
Julie Corcoran
Jose D. Trejo-Maya
Nell Breyer
Alyssa Grey
Guinotte Wise
Maudegrasse
Kylen Guilbeaux
Philip Julo
Shelly Pinto
Denise Presnell
Derrick Hickman
Karen Poulsen
Joshua Heimsoth
Kailan Counahan
Karen Smith
Tanis Meyers
Patrick Luber
Sigrid Zahner
Trey Morgan
Alessio Mazzarulli
Sara Slee Brown
Jim Pearson
Claire Renaut
Morgan Johnson
Sam Dorgan
Maria Regina
Rodney Durso
Charles Emlen
Kassius Wilson
Mathew Patterson
Gary Freeman
Steven Kratka
Linda Jurkiewicz
Kara Greenwell
Chandra Beadleston
Claire Timmerman
Brian Mitchell
Jim Norris
Robert Sunderman
Jeffery Brooks
Cesar Ceballos
Chalda Maloff
Marietta Leis
Conner Dyer
J. Martin
Kate Padberg

Violent By Design is an arc of Los Angeles-based painter Nehemiah Cisneros’ own “Ghetto Mythologies” created from 2019 to 2021 during the artist’s residency in Kansas City, Missouri. The work merges the graphic aesthetics of 90’s skateboard graphics with the theatrical scale of the Baroque painting of the 1600s. The two-part show challenges American history with humor and satire. While living in the midwest, Cisneros draws connections to Los Angeles gang culture and the midwest’s embrace of confederate flags. Through these examples of communities functioning as tribes that show pride through gang symbols painted on buildings or Flags that nod to a racially segregated time, Cisneros summons stereotypical characters of each opposing side, having them do battle amongst one another, questioning the theories of nature and nurture. Are we Violent By Design? Or is there hope for a possible redemption to our species?

Violent By Design opens publicly on March 12th and will be on display until May 29th in the heart of the Kansas City arts community in the Crossroads. In conjunction with Habitat Contemporary Gallery and Leedy Voulkos Art Center

***COVID GUIDELINES***
Please go to our website to read our COVID Guidelines before arriving.
https://www.leedy-voulkos.com/

Fred Nelson’s paintings find their influence in Buddhist philosophy and the criticism of Baudelaire, both favoring a non-mimetic approach to art making. The sensibilities, both aesthetically and philosophically, expressed in these different cultural approaches is an interpretive, personal response to the visual world. The subject of Nelson’s work is based on non-specific landscape, and the element of improvisation.

Nelson has been a practicing artist since 1975 when he had his first professional exhibit. He has actively shown his work since that time participating in museum exhibitions, solo exhibits and group exhibits. He has had professional gallery representation for 42 years. Nelson received an M.F.A. degree in 1975 from Washington University School of Fine Arts, St. Louis, attended the Kansas City Art Institute in 1972, and received a B.A. degree in 1971 from Webster College.

Nelson’s museum exhibitions include The Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City; The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia; The City of Springfield Museum, Springfield MO.; The Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst, Mt. Vernon, Il, The Fort Smith Regional Art Museum and The Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, Ala. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Painting and Drawing and a residency at the Cite International des Arts in Paris. Nelson has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work is included in over 170 private collections and in the permanent collection of over 50 corporate and public institutions including the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Washington University School of Medicine, Bank of America, US Bank, Champion International, Cincinnati Bell, The Fort Smith Art Museum, the Four Seasons Hotel, Abu Dhabi and R.R. Donnelly International. He is represented by Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City and The Atrium Gallery in St. Louis.

I start each morning in the studio, sitting on a sofa looking out big glass doors to the southeast, overlooking a field of mixed grasses with a small spring fed pond in the center. The pond is a constant, but different every day. Sometimes the wind blows across, rippling the water. When it’s still, the water is reflective. It freezes, sparkles in the sun and thaws. Eagles fly over nearly every winter day. In March a cacophony of migrating blackbirds come in droves, migrating, looking for food, landing on the cattails that surround the pond. Ducks land in droves in the evenings. Many deer come across nearly always west to east, a hawk family hunts every day. The field greens up, frogs start singing, an occasional coyote passes by. In late summer the prairie grasses rise and begin to turn, sunflowers bloom, winds shift, migrations begin again.

In this way, all of my work emerges from the pond in the field.
 — Jane Booth, 2021

At the beginning of 2020, Jane Booth opened Instinct, a stunning exhibition of mostly large-scale paintings at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, MO. Independent curator and past Director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO, Barbara O’Brien wrote an insightful and thoughtful essay on the show, Falling-away Spaces. Then the pandemic shut everything down. Booth’s show remained up in the museum throughout the year in a stunning, silent, almost sacred, space and publication plans for the essay evaporated.

The Pond in the Field showcases stunning paintings that were debuted in the Daum exhibition supported by new work, done during this most strange of all years, inspired and sustained by Booth’s muse – the land, sky and water that surround her. In addition, in a cooperative collaboration made possible by the artist, Barbara O’Brien and designer, Claudia Marchand, the long awaited catalog has been published and will be available at the gallery.

Jane Booth’s paintings are in public collections throughout the country including: Kansas University Hospital, Kansas City, MO; Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cisco Systems, H& R Block World Headquarters and Hilton Hotels as well as the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO.

JANE BOOTH — PAINTING PROCESS + SOURCE