Come over to the east side of the crossroads this Friday 4pm-8pm to meet Iryna Stroganova! Our First Friday events continue this month with a new guest. Iryna was born in Ukraine, but is now a local Kansas Citian! She has her very own comic book and is also a very accomplished artist in many mediums. There will be books to purchase that she will sign and she will have other art to purchase as well!
In addition, we will have store-wide sales all day!

About the Artist:

Sandra Bowden has been interpreting Scripture and her own spiritual walk through mixed media for more than forty years. She has been acclaimed as one of the most unique, impressive and inspiring Christian artists in America. Bowden’s work has been featured in books, magazines and gallery shows across the United States, Canada, Italy and Jerusalem. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Vatican Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. SandraBowden.com

Sandra will be traveling to share her perspective on her long career as an artist, collector, and advocate in an artist talk at our March First Friday.

About the Exhibit:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning…The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
—John 1:1 – 2, 14

Sandra Bowden’s work functions, both for the artist and audience, as a bridge between two worlds. Through tangible images and objects arrayed in layers of paper and paint, she has given us a veiled glimpse into the unseen world which is the ultimate hope and destination of our faith.

Her works are complex meditations on time, incorporating Biblical archaeological references and ancient text. She invites viewers into the mystery of the Word, breaking down each text she handles and making the words themselves into a visual meditation that is rich with many layers of meaning.

ARTIST TALK — 6:30PM

FEATURED ARTISTS 

Gabrielle Akins

Paige Bennett

Junior Brown 

Zhakia Foster

Carly Henley 

Bella Lusk

Janelle Manns

Veronica Parks

Cherline Philogene

Shawn Roundtree

Fern Scott

Aerie Tobias

Elan Warren

Camarie Whayne

Lavender Yang

Roots: A Reclamation is an exhibition featuring current members of the Kansas City Art Institute’s Black Student Union. As the title suggests, each artist addresses Roots as a metaphor for unpacking and reclaiming a collective and individual relationship with Black identity. Alienation within our community, storytelling /oral histories, confronting injustices, music, and black excellence are all themes that converge under the umbrella of this showcasing. Through a diverse body of works we ask the viewer to look deeper into all the universes that make up a community and how each story represents a voice within a chorus of voices that make up the black experience. 

My paintings have always been about landscape. Over the years the work has changed, both in content and imagery. One series of paintings leads to another. A gradual refinement from vast panoramas to the specific. For the past six years my paintings have been based on gardens. Gardens are the “tended to” aspects of landscape. The space, the color, shape, texture and space are key elements in landscape and in my work.

The primary influence of my work comes from a philosophy, which suggests the primacy of a personal response and the interpretation rather than the copy of nature. The paintings straddle the line between abstraction and realism, what is seen and what is imagined. This sensibility, both aesthetically and philosophically, expressed in this duality of approaches is an interpretive, personal response to the visual world.

-Fred Nelson

Fred Nelson’s paintings are human scale, intimate, contemplative, and poetic. He builds them through multiple layers of paint that resonate with the layers one finds in nature. Close examination reveals color subtly shining under or beside other unexpected color shapes, creating atmosphere, space and light. In addition, the visual movement of the paintings echoes the way one physically moves through the landscape. Nelson’s paintings occupy that territory between recognizable imagery and abstraction, hovering back and forth, each quality strengthening the other.

FEATURED ARTISTS

Colleen Bailey

Zen Echo

Lucy Hodges

Sophia Gaeun Lee

Angela Lim

Lu Lu

Lucas Nguyen

Yash Singh

Thanat Singhirunnusorn

There exists a genetic predisposition to perfect pitch caused by the prevalence of tonal language in many Asian cultures. However, the societal expectation for English fluency overwhelms that internal resonance. While the skill is exercised through music lessons and familial translation, the root of the sound is lost to an environment that sees little use for the ability day-to-day. With pressures to conform and, at times, performing to forget, how does one create harmony from opposing voices? Dissonance expresses the conflict Asians in America experience between the sounds they live and the ones they leave behind.