Headspaces is a show about two friends getting to know the ins and outs of each other’s art processes and interior landscapes that produce their most recent work.

John Raux and JT Daniels both grew up in KCK and connected some years ago while painting murals in the Midwest. Early morning coffee conversations about each other’s upbringing and spirituality in process is the heartbeat of their collaboration.

Piecing together symbols and caricatures of personality and community, Daniels graphically layers the complexities of tradition, culture, and societal nuance into playful and uplifting collages of intersectional representation. 

Carving polystyrene pieces into lightweight stonelike forms, Raux’s sculptural painting process layers collisions and contouring colors into poetic, social, and spiritual commentary.

Read KC Studio Article

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. -John 14:27

Our fast-paced cultural moment seems to demand our immediate response to each and every situation. The pressures of modern life can fill us with anxiety: social change, political tensions, the pervasive noise of technology and social media, and the rise of a dopamine-addicted culture of distraction. In this juried group exhibit, artists prompt viewers to consider what it means to have a non-anxious, Spirit-filled presence in an increasingly anxious and distracted world.

Our August First Friday reception will also feature a Q&A with several of the visual artists featured in the show, beginning at 6:30pm in the gallery.

The exhibition includes work by Joel Pisowicz, Gina Pisto, and Logan Reynolds and is the culmination of their artist residencies at the Belger Crane Yard Studios. The past year has been one of growth and change for the artists and the exhibition is a reflection of the “passing moments” experienced during this pivotal time in their careers. Passing Moments explores nostalgia, memorial, and how objects present a view into the past.

While styles and techniques are unique to each artist, all three delve into themes of memory and the passage of time in their practice. Joel Pisowicz refers to monoliths with his austere, vertical sculptures. His forms and aesthetics pay homage to the post-industrial environment of his blue-collar upbringing. Gina Pisto creates sculptures referencing still life, flora, and domestic space. Pisto meditates on how objects are imbued with memory and emotion, transforming them into metaphorical portals to the past. Logan Reynolds’ familiar yet distorted domestic objects use humor to explore intergenerational relationships and value systems. Collections of cartoonish items referencing popular culture and consumer products are treated equally with “nostalgic fondness” and ambivalence. The exhibition is on view through September 7, 2024.

Join us for our upcoming group show of represented artists, opening 

First Friday June 7th through August 23rd

Featured Artists include:

Ky Anderson

Jane Booth

Marcus Cain

Patty Carroll

Anne Currier

Laura De Angelis

Michael Eastman

Cary Esser

Vincent Falsetta

Billy Hassell

Richard Hogan

Michiko Itatani

Calder Kamin

Sung Soo Koo

Sherry Leedy

Mark Pack

Anne Pearce

Barbara Rogers

Michael Schultz

Hollis Sigler

Bobby Silverman

Harold Smith

Charles Timm-Ballard

Momoko Usami

Willem Volkersz

Theodore Waddell

Andrew Watel

Growing up in a rigid and pious Catholic home did not leave any room for feeling comfortable with much of anything, let alone one’s body. You couldn’t like it, you were forbidden to touch it, for fear of mortal sin, and you certainly shouldn’t look at it. All information was kept under lock and key, just waiting for some unfortunate accident to happen, due to lack of knowledge.

I am drawn to female artists that explore women’s bodies in relationship to the cultural mores of their times. One of my favorites is Louise Bourgeois’ Femme Maison (Women House) series. These exemplified the realities of a mother tethered to her home with inescapable responsibilities.

In Louise Bourgeois: Drawing and Observations Lawrence Rinder states, “…the existentialists placed absurdity in a top hat and pulled out liberation. Bourgeois’s art depended on such comic-tragic paradox, the surprising ability of negative and positive to reverse”.

Now I can unashamedly have my cake — and eat it too.

Artist Statement

My name is Linda Jurkiewicz. A woman’s challenge of self-determination dominates my mind and work. I grew up on the cusp of the Second Wave of Feminism and I believed that I was on the tipping point of women getting their rights. I was sure that my generation was going to be the recipient of this new open-mindedness and fairness for women. Today, I continue to be reminded that the scale not only did not complete its tip but has reversed its course in many areas of women’s lives.

My insights are transmitted through personal narratives, mine, and others. I want the viewer to be reminded of the daily conflicts experienced by women in our culture; unequal domestic expectations, unpaid roles as caretakers, sexualization and exploitation of women and girls, and generational struggles with body image.

I explore these serious issues thoughtfully, with my own sense of humor. By using repetition in my work I symbolize the importance of continued planned action to create change in one’s life. I utilize found objects and repurposed cloth to stress that anyone can work with what they have.

Cloth itself holds human history within its tactile experience. It is omnipresent in our past and present lives, our homes, and our cultural way of remembering. By using stitch as mark-making on cloth I can tell a story with gesture and imagery to a contemporary audience. My art form honors the collective work of women and seeks to call out an essential reminder of our importance in this world and the struggles that continue to be unheard.

Bio

Linda Jurkiewicz lives in Kansas City, Missouri and began working with fiber in 2005. She credits her upbringing as a first-generation Ukrainian-Croatian for her “make-do” attitude and her delight in upcycling repurposed materials, especially “woman’s work” such as dish towels, household items, and clothing. Her consequential fiber work incorporates soft sculpture, wordplay, idiom, embroidery, wall hangings, plush form, sequential dioramas, and installations which delve into the cultural roles of women in America over the last century. She pushes viewers to reexamine these roles that are changing, to trade nostalgia for empowerment.

Jurkiewicz’s work has been shown in four solo shows in Kansas City galleries since 2022, with her most recent show, The Top-Half Bakery: Ode to the Prudish Mother at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. Her work has been juried into numerous exhibitions locally. Nationally, her work has been included in The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Delta Triennial, Little Rock AR (2024), Woman Made Gallery 24th International Exhibit, Chicago, Illinois (2023), Intersect Art Center Blue Hour, St. Louis, MO (2023), Amarillo Museum of Art Biennial-600: Textile/Fiber, Amarillo, Texas (2019), Raw – The Exhibition at Indiana University (2018), Sacred Threads in Herndon, VA (2017 and 2019), The Blue Show at the Core New Art Space (2017) and The Engaged Object at the Foothills Art Center (2016), both in Denver, Colorado, and Welcome to My World: Mental Health Awareness through Art at the MIRI Gallery (2016), Salt Lake City, Utah. Jurkiewicz is a member of the Kansas City Artists Coalition.