WALK THROUGH VIRTUAL TOUR

Slowed Growth takes place during the pandemic. Everything is slowed down during this time, from a country’s economy to individual’s daily activity. Yet, the natural world keeps going, slow and steady. Slowed Growth references the evolving motion of the living organisms, and it also references my making process, bit by bit, layer by layer, and one firing after another to complete a single object. It is time consuming but therapeutic.
– Shiyuan Xu

Shiyuan Xu’s fantastic sculptures, hand-built with porcelain paperclay, are inspired by scientific research into microscopic phenomena. These phenomena range from single-celled organisms in the ocean to diverse plant seeds on land, to cells that are the building blocks of all life. She sees the structure of these micro life forms as having been determined by growth and response to internal and external forces, leaving a record of movement in time and space.

Shiyuan’s forms are built by hand and glazed in an unconventional way. The materials she uses allow her to push the boundaries of fragility and strength, simplicity and complexity, order and chaos. She meticulously weaves thin skeletal lines into a harmonious volume. Shiyuan says of this process, “The regular and irregular structures and layers also contain the memory of my sensations. They are in many ways like living organisms, reflections of my own life path, and an abstraction of the complexity and delicacy of life itself.”

Shiyuan Xu is currently an Artist in Residence at the Lilstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL. She holds an MFA from Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ and a BA from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, P.R. China. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT; Korea Ceramic Foundation, Incheon, South Korea; San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, TX and The National Museum of Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

“This is and always will be where my heart is. It is what I care about.” — William Christenberry

Over the course of many decades contemporary art icon William Christenberry made annual pilgrimages to Hale County, Alabama, documenting the landscape, its architecture and its transformation. Tracing Time offers an examination of Christenberry’s relationship to Hale County, where he spent his summers as a child, its influence on his conceptual approach and artistic vision, and the psychology of place and memory.

The exhibition includes photographs, drawings, paintings and sculptures from the Belger Collection, some never before seen in Kansas City. The evolution of Christenberry’s experimental, creative process is also presented in displays of source material pages from his sketchbooks, photographs that served as foundations for drawings and structures, and rare early constructions from the early 1960s. The artist’s father, a woodworker and a strong early influence on the artist, would create models of buildings that were important to him out of simple, sometimes unrefined materials. One of these buildings is included in the exhibition.

Christenberry’s deep affection for Hale County, his curiosity about the effects of mankind and nature on the landscape, reveal a poignant perspective on the passage of time and chronicle the life cycle of place. Although profoundly personal and geographically specific, the themes of William Christenberry’s work are universal and remain relevant.