Studios Inc and Misha Kligman present “Seen/Unseen: Survey of Misha Kligman’s Work”, an exhibition open June 6th First Friday from 5 – 8 pm.

“Seen/Unseen: Survey of Misha Kligman’s Work” reaches into different periods and bodies of work spanning the last 18 years of the artist’s evolving creative practice. The show examines the origins and continued engagement with ideas such as landscape and figure contaminated by history, absence/presence of spirit in the world, model of artist as a mystic, as well as journeys both physical and emotional. The show includes several of most recent paintings where histories fracture and collapse, and private lives unfold amidst conflict both internal and external.

Launched to serve mid-career artists, Studios Inc is Kansas City’s only nonprofit arts organization offering pivotal three-year residencies to mid-career artists who are poised to significantly expand their careers. Studios Inc offers a unique immersion experience for resident artists, who use their studio and exhibition space to produce and exhibit work, network and learn from one another, and attract and cultivate relationships with art patrons, collectors, and arts professionals.

“Seen/Unseen: Survey of Misha Kligman’s Work” will be on view in studios.gallery through June 14th, 2025. Exhibition hours are Wednesday thru Friday 10am-4pm and Saturday 12 – 4pm.

Featured image: “The Stranger” Misha Kligman, Oil on linen, 2023

Come to Cakewalk Chapel & Event Space for our First Fridays pop up! We have 14 incredibly talented vendors joining us and selling their incredible products, art, and baked goods!

First Fridays at Border Brewing Company

Join us at Border Brewing Company in the heart of the Crossroads Arts District for First Fridays! Start your weekend off right with fresh, locally-crafted beer in our welcoming taproom, featuring a rotating selection of creative brews to please every palate.

This month, we’ll have live blues music on the patio to keep the vibe going all evening long, plus Brit Boy Street Food will be serving up their signature UK-inspired fare inside the taproom.

Explore the neighborhood’s vibrant art scene, then swing by for a pint or two as you unwind and soak in the energy of the Crossroads. Whether you’re a beer enthusiast or just looking to experience something new, our friendly staff and community vibe ensure a great evening out.

See you this First Friday — cheers!

For the past ten years, Four Chapter Gallery has enjoyed partnering with the Kansas City Art Institute Fiber Department to spotlight the work of just one of their exceptionally talented graduating senior class. This year, they will celebrate artist Erica Alexander.

In Prepare a Table, Alexander focuses on slow, repetitive processes including hand stitching and natural dyes that invite both the artist and viewer to pay attention and draw near. Her intricate fiber works and sculptures deal with themes of community, reciprocity with nature, and traditional craft passed down from mother to daughter through generations.

Alexander dyes her fiber with organic materials she has either found or grown during the summer months. Each items finds meaning as she recognizes the places she found each item as well as the history behind each piece of material. She notes there is a beauty in seeing the hand of an artist in textiles — tangible evidence of the people who made those items which, in her case, revolve around deliberate process, planting patience and love into the objects. Important to think about — she notes — in a world of fast fashion.

There will be an artist talk on Friday, May 2 at 6:30pm.

Jerry Kunkel’s paintings speak to our individual appetite for self-reflection, born of a collective and universal desire to comprehend, both physically and emotionally, the world around us. He often weaved narratives in a poetic or humorous fashion, sometimes constructing the work with no apparent end in sight, allowing the consequent juxtapositions of images to create a story. His work superimposes original and found imagery with the addition of text as an attitudinal descriptor, or an extra, content-specific image. In addition, the frequent incorporation of the illusion of plywood or other non-precious surfaces adds the element of the everyday and has pervaded his work for years.

Jerry was interested in our momentary reaction to everyday stimuli, that moment that summons a private response – a response that we may not feel compelled to share for a variety of reasons; perhaps because it doesn’t seem important, that our response is not fully formed, or we simply don’t care to think about why we really don’t care. In the end, whatever it is, he would say “trust what emerges and embrace uncertainty.”