“I believe that art, like the moments captured in these images, is alchemy. Lightning in a bottle. In this collection, my goal was to take singular, idiosyncratic elements and create a unified whole through the transportive power of nostalgia. I hope you enjoy the journey.”

– Jeff Robinson, 2021

SLCA is pleased to present our inaugural exhibition of paintings by Jeff Robinson, Nostalgias. In this series, of black and white and gray large-scale paintings and intimate works on paper, Robinson breathes new life into snapshots¬¬¬ of the recent past. A couple celebrating New Year’s Eve, society women dressed in furs, and swing dancers are all caught in brief impressions. These paintings give transitory glimpses of life back then, of an age that already feels bygone. Viewers are transformed as visitors, tourists, invited to engage with fleeting moments that we recognize and, perhaps, even long for.

Equally important is how the painter convinces us of the truth of this experience. The subject matter seems familiar, as amateur photography from an extremely interesting family album, but upon close inspection each painted image is made of entirely abstract shapes of shades of light and dark. What seems to be a woman’s face from afar is revealed to be abstraction upon closer view. Realism dissolves into shape and value and the artist, as the blue-collar worker of culture and the translator of the painted experience, takes a well-deserved bow.

Jeff Robinson lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri. His work is in the corporate collections of The New York Times, Nike Corporation, Time Warner, American General Insurance, St. Regis Hotels, American Century Investments, and the Albrecht Kemper Museum.

“As a multidisciplinary artist who often collaborates with scientists, travels on expeditions at sea to create works that shed light on the natural world, works with data, and tries to connect the viewer with places and processes hidden from view, this body of work is an inward pivot – each painting, a personal meditation. I hope to capture these distortions of time, flurry of emotions, fluctuations as I drag the paintbrush to the beat of my own breath. Time is passing, a time less linear and more dimensional.” –Rebecca Rutstein

Philadelphia based artist, Rebecca Rutstein, explores abstraction inspired by her interest in geology, microbiology, marine science and the undercurrents that continually shape the physical world. Her paintings incorporate structural networks that articulate patterns found in nature, data, maps, micro and macro, handmade and mechanized, linear and solid. These visual experiences shed light on places and processes normally hidden from view and engage the viewer with a heightened connection to these enigmatic worlds. Through ongoing collaborations with scientists, much of her recent work has focused on mapping data of the deep sea seeking to illuminate a hidden world.

In her new series of work, Topographies of Time, Rutstein’s language of abstraction and exploration of hidden networks pivots inward, as she reflects on the impact of recent events on our experience of global interconnectedness. She suggests that our shared experience of time has shifted, stretched, bent and slowed, or alternately become frantic in fits and starts, as normalcy has been superseded by world events. Many of Rutstein’s paintings incorporate cellular networks of forms, lines or bands of colors that reveal an experience of time that is changing, elongating and warping as routines shift and days blur their boundaries. The series is a record of altering emotional states during the global pandemic: feelings of containment, anxiety, gratitude and new possibilities.

With over 25 solo exhibitions, Rebecca Rutstein has exhibited widely in museums, institutions and galleries throughout the United States and is the recipient of numerous awards. Her work is in the public collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Temple University, Johns Hopkins Hospital & Albert Einstein College of Medicine, among others. Public commissions include Convergence, AT&T/Mural Arts Program, Philadelphia, PA, 2019 and Sculptural Commission, Yale University, Yale Science Building, New Haven, CT, 2019 and numerous others.

Rebecca Rutstein holds a BFA from Cornell University (with study abroad in Rome) and an MFA from University of Pennsylvania. She has been a visiting artist at museums and universities across the US and enjoys speaking about the intersection of art and science.

The Belger Crane Yard Studios Gallery presents Bryan Czibesz + Shawn Spangler: Object Index, opening Friday, February 5, 6 pm – 9 pm at 2011 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64108. The exhibition will remain on view through April 3, 2021.

Object Index is a collaborative exhibition that investigates how culture and technology are implicitly tied through the production of ceramic objects. Using hand-forming processes and digital reproduction technologies, Bryan Czibesz and Shawn Spangler recreate historical forms in a contemporary context.

Drawing inspiration from historical objects, Czibesz and Spangler use clay extrusion 3D printers (designed specifically for this body of work) and the potter’s wheel. Czibesz has done most of the digital and 3D printing work, examining the disconnect between hand and material via computerized construction methods. Spangler has done most of the wheel throwing, bringing a focus to the maker’s direct touch. Both have a hand in the creation of each work.

The work in Object Index highlights the junction of digital and hand-thrown processes. It also emphasizes the alliance that exists between computers and humanity, in an increasingly familiar concept that highlights digital dependencies.

For a high-resolution image, click here. Artist bios and additional images are available on our website.

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SAFETY MEASURES:

Belger Arts is committed to maintaining a safe place for our visitors, studio members, and staff. To ensure this, we require that six feet social distancing be maintained and that visitors wear a mask. Disposable masks and hand sanitizer are available. For contact tracing purposes we also ask that you sign in when you arrive.

While advanced registration is not required for the February 5th exhibition opening, capacity is limited for everyone’s safety. We recommend registering in advance on the Object Index exhibition page of our website.

For more information on upcoming exhibitions, classes, and workshops, or to schedule a group tour, please visit BelgerArts.org or call 816 – 474-7316.

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About Belger Arts:

Since 2000, the Belger Arts Center has encouraged viewers to explore, question, and deepen their understanding of art and of the world around them. Drawing upon the extensive John and Maxine Belger Family Foundation collection, as well as a rich variety of local, national, and international artists, the Belger Arts Center, has staged over 70 large-scale exhibitions that represent some of the best in contemporary art.

In 2013, Belger Arts expanded the Foundation’s commitment to the creative process by opening Belger Crane Yard Studios, an arts complex dedicated to providing studio and exhibition space for artists. A range of programming in ceramics education, in addition to the Red Star Residency program and Crane Yard Clay ceramics supply store, has made Belger a center for contemporary art.

Nature is beautiful and it’s bountiful. You can find nature’s bounty everywhere you look! Whether it’s flowers, fields, plants, greenery, fruits, vegetables, insects, or anything create by Mother Nature, it’s beauty is undeniable and provides wonderful subject matter for artwork!

The “Nature’s Bounty” exhibit opens to the public online and by appointment from January 4, 2021 through March 25, 2021. There will not be a First Friday opening reception for this exhibition due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Buttonwood Art Space and Kansas City Community Gardens (KCCG). will host a series of “mini events” throughout the exhibition. Additionally, tours are available by appointment only at https://buttonwoodartspace.com/show/nature-s-bounty. This exhibit features 178 different works of art by 110 different artists. Artwork in this exhibit features a wide variety of mediums and subject matter. Each piece of original artwork featured depicts nature and things found in nature. Artwork includes paintings, photography, mixed media, fiber and 3D works.

KCCG’s mission is to empower and inspire low-income households, community groups, and schools in the Kansas City Metropolitan area to grow their own vegetables and fruit. KCCG provides free gardening workshops, technical assistance, garden supplies, and other resources to individuals, families, neighborhood organizations, nonprofit agencies, and other groups throughout the metropolitan Kansas City area through the Self-Help Gardening (Rent A Plot & Home Gardens) and Community Partner Gardens programs.

In addition, KCCG’s Schoolyard Gardens program staff help schools to create and grow gardens to improve students’ knowledge about nutrition and the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables to a healthy diet.

“This is and always will be where my heart is. It is what I care about.” – William Christenberry

Over the course of many decades contemporary art icon William Christenberry made annual pilgrimages to Hale County, Alabama, documenting the landscape, its architecture and its transformation. Tracing Time offers an examination of Christenberry’s relationship to Hale County, where he spent his summers as a child, its influence on his conceptual approach and artistic vision, and the psychology of place and memory.

The exhibition includes photographs, drawings, paintings and sculptures from the Belger Collection, some never before seen in Kansas City. The evolution of Christenberry’s experimental, creative process is also presented in displays of source material pages from his sketchbooks, photographs that served as foundations for drawings and structures, and rare early constructions from the early 1960s. The artist’s father, a woodworker and a strong early influence on the artist, would create models of buildings that were important to him out of simple, sometimes unrefined materials. One of these buildings is included in the exhibition.

Christenberry’s deep affection for Hale County, his curiosity about the effects of mankind and nature on the landscape, reveal a poignant perspective on the passage of time and chronicle the life cycle of place. Although profoundly personal and geographically specific, the themes of William Christenberry’s work are universal and remain relevant.