Violent By Design is an arc of Los Angeles-based painter Nehemiah Cisneros’ own “Ghetto Mythologies” created from 2019 to 2021 during the artist’s residency in Kansas City, Missouri. The work merges the graphic aesthetics of 90’s skateboard graphics with the theatrical scale of the Baroque painting of the 1600s. The two-part show challenges American history with humor and satire. While living in the midwest, Cisneros draws connections to Los Angeles gang culture and the midwest’s embrace of confederate flags. Through these examples of communities functioning as tribes that show pride through gang symbols painted on buildings or Flags that nod to a racially segregated time, Cisneros summons stereotypical characters of each opposing side, having them do battle amongst one another, questioning the theories of nature and nurture. Are we Violent By Design? Or is there hope for a possible redemption to our species?

Violent By Design opens publicly on March 12th and will be on display until May 29th in the heart of the Kansas City arts community in the Crossroads. In conjunction with Habitat Contemporary Gallery and Leedy Voulkos Art Center

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https://www.leedy-voulkos.com/

Fred Nelson’s paintings find their influence in Buddhist philosophy and the criticism of Baudelaire, both favoring a non-mimetic approach to art making. The sensibilities, both aesthetically and philosophically, expressed in these different cultural approaches is an interpretive, personal response to the visual world. The subject of Nelson’s work is based on non-specific landscape, and the element of improvisation.

Nelson has been a practicing artist since 1975 when he had his first professional exhibit. He has actively shown his work since that time participating in museum exhibitions, solo exhibits and group exhibits. He has had professional gallery representation for 42 years. Nelson received an M.F.A. degree in 1975 from Washington University School of Fine Arts, St. Louis, attended the Kansas City Art Institute in 1972, and received a B.A. degree in 1971 from Webster College.

Nelson’s museum exhibitions include The Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City; The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia; The City of Springfield Museum, Springfield MO.; The Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst, Mt. Vernon, Il, The Fort Smith Regional Art Museum and The Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, Ala. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Painting and Drawing and a residency at the Cite International des Arts in Paris. Nelson has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work is included in over 170 private collections and in the permanent collection of over 50 corporate and public institutions including the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Washington University School of Medicine, Bank of America, US Bank, Champion International, Cincinnati Bell, The Fort Smith Art Museum, the Four Seasons Hotel, Abu Dhabi and R.R. Donnelly International. He is represented by Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City and The Atrium Gallery in St. Louis.

I start each morning in the studio, sitting on a sofa looking out big glass doors to the southeast, overlooking a field of mixed grasses with a small spring fed pond in the center. The pond is a constant, but different every day. Sometimes the wind blows across, rippling the water. When it’s still, the water is reflective. It freezes, sparkles in the sun and thaws. Eagles fly over nearly every winter day. In March a cacophony of migrating blackbirds come in droves, migrating, looking for food, landing on the cattails that surround the pond. Ducks land in droves in the evenings. Many deer come across nearly always west to east, a hawk family hunts every day. The field greens up, frogs start singing, an occasional coyote passes by. In late summer the prairie grasses rise and begin to turn, sunflowers bloom, winds shift, migrations begin again.

In this way, all of my work emerges from the pond in the field.
 — Jane Booth, 2021

At the beginning of 2020, Jane Booth opened Instinct, a stunning exhibition of mostly large-scale paintings at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, MO. Independent curator and past Director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO, Barbara O’Brien wrote an insightful and thoughtful essay on the show, Falling-away Spaces. Then the pandemic shut everything down. Booth’s show remained up in the museum throughout the year in a stunning, silent, almost sacred, space and publication plans for the essay evaporated.

The Pond in the Field showcases stunning paintings that were debuted in the Daum exhibition supported by new work, done during this most strange of all years, inspired and sustained by Booth’s muse – the land, sky and water that surround her. In addition, in a cooperative collaboration made possible by the artist, Barbara O’Brien and designer, Claudia Marchand, the long awaited catalog has been published and will be available at the gallery.

Jane Booth’s paintings are in public collections throughout the country including: Kansas University Hospital, Kansas City, MO; Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cisco Systems, H& R Block World Headquarters and Hilton Hotels as well as the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO.

JANE BOOTH — PAINTING PROCESS + SOURCE

VIEW THE JANE BOOTH CATALOG

EXHIBITION LIST

TO BE DETERMINED is an exhibition curated by the Studios Inc interns who have direct access to the Studios Inc collection, as well as past and present residents of the program. The title of the exhibition allows the interns freedom to develop and execute their curatorial concept and vision; it is suggestive of the drive of the students who are committed to developing their professional practice and honing their skillset.

Interns are responsible for the curatorial concept and statement, curation of the studios.gallery space, installation, and promotion.

Studios Inc announces its TO BE DETERMINED 2021 exhibition. The group exhibition is curated by Studios Inc Interns Sydney Smith (KCAI) and Christian Bañez (MWSU). This exhibition allows interns to fully curate an exhibition from conceptualization to execution.

The show will be held in the studios.gallery space. Smith and Bañez have chosen to feature resident artists past and present: Barry Anderson, Jill Downen, Andrea Flamini, Caitlin Horsmon, Marie McInerney, Judith G. Levy, and Kathy Liao to name a few.

Studios Inc will host an opening reception on Friday, April 2nd from 5 – 8pm.

TO BE DETERMINED will be on view thru May 28. Exhibition hours are currently Wednesday thru Friday from 10am-4pm and Saturday from 12 – 4pm.