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.

One of the underlying premises in assembling the Belger Collection is the importance of collecting multiple works over time by the same artist. Collecting in depth provides a glimpse through the artwork into how the artist approaches life, love, loss, and the other inevitable changes over the course of time. The viewer brings a perspective through unique memories and personal experiences that leave a mark and inform identity.

The artists in Whispers and Screams explore their memories and perceptions of people, places, and moments in time. Some of those memories are loud and jarring. Others are more reflective and have softened with the passage of time. There are examples of stereotypes, idealized love, lust, romance, excitement, loss, and regret. There are glimpses into the complexity of communities at all levels, the commonalities, and the differences.

The works selected for this exhibition focus on people, histories, and relationships. Human beings are pack animals. People look for their communities and how to understand their place in them. In the course of that exploration, an understanding develops of the past, present, and future.

Artists included in the exhibition: Terry Allen, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Nick Bubash, Clayton Bailey, William Christenberry, Robert Cottingham, John De Andrea, Viola Frey, Michael Hannon, Jasper Johns, Guy Johnson, Kate Kretz, Wes Lyle, Ed Massey, Jack Mendenhall, Jerry Ott, Joey Quiñones, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, Don Reitz, Larry Rivers, Alex Siburney, Herb Snitzer, Robert Stackhouse, Renée Stout, Akio Takamori, William T. Wiley, and Winter & Williams.

Join Us as Lexitas KC presents J.R. Hamil’s Colorado Treasures for the August First Friday in the Crossroads on August 2nd, 5pm to 8pm, 1608 Locust Street, KCMO. J.R. Hamil’s original works created between 1973 to 1998. This is a show you don’t want to miss. To learn more about this American Watercolor Artist, use the QRCode.

Please join us at the historic Firehouse Gallery No. 8 for a gallery viewing of four local Kansas City artists. Personal collections will include original paintings, sketches, mixed media, and digital prints. A group show featuring a large range of mediums and visions. Enjoy food, drinks and music while walking the gallery.