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Kansas City’s kicking off its autumn in style. When you’ve finished sampling the apple cider at the metro’s many fall festivals and autumn events, consider heading to some great arts galleries and museums.
Kansas City’s art scene is filled with intriguing exhibitions this season, besides the annual Halloween-themed shows and markets.
Whether you are reminiscing about nature’s abundance or feeling a little nostalgic and sentimental, these six art exhibits will satisfy your creative craving in this poetic season.
“Middle Daughter” by Jo Archuleta
“Middle Daughter,” a solo exhibition by New Mexico-born, Kansas City-based Jo Archuleta at Gallery Bogart in the West Bottoms, opens the first Saturday of October.
Archuleta’s paintings and works on paper are full of spooky season elements at first glance: pink-skinned demon girls, a black cat, ominously burning sunset. But something deeply troublesome is tucked behind the bright colors.
In “Mutt,” a weeping girl in her underwear bends over and places her hands with pointy nails on a small, crusty dog. The animal is Archuleta’s self-identifying symbol, representing her awkward and uncomfortable experiences in girlhood.
One may see the character as either holding the dog down or cradling the animal with compassion, implying a complicated battle between self-awareness and self-sabotage.
In these atmospheric paintings, Archuleta illustrates her experience of finding self-worth and contentment in her own company in a society that constantly objectifies women.
- When: Oct. 5 through Nov. 30.
- Opening reception: Saturday, Oct. 5, 5-8 p.m.
- Where: Gallery Bogart, 1400 Union Ave, Kansas City, MO 64101
“Reverberation: Faith in Motion” by Emily Cramer
Those who find peace in the woods or along the creek should stop by Four Chapter Gallery in the Crossroads Arts District for a solo exhibition by Kansas City-based oil painter Emily Cramer, “Reverberation: Faith in Motion.”
Some pieces come in pairs, with one capturing a distorted reflection in ripples, and the other restoring the tranquil scene in calmer water. They sit side-by-side, with peaceful sceneries next to shattered shapes and colors. The paintings build a bridge between stability and chaos, reality and abstraction, motion and stillness.
Cramer uses these images to represent how faith and spirituality constantly radiate outward in the world, but the idea that humans are interconnected and vibrate with each other is applicable even beyond the painter’s Christian belief. No matter one’s faith, or lack thereof, it’s easy to appreciate the mesmerizing sanctuary created by Cramer’s paintings.
- When: Now through Oct. 27.
- Where: Four Chapter Gallery, 208 W 19 St, Kansas City, MO 64108
“Exhibit 36” at Holsum Gallery
Holsum Gallery, one of Kansas City’s essential artist-run spaces, presents another deeply emotional collection of work. “Exhibit 36” features three Kansas City-based artists specializing in various drawing methods: Jaasiel Duarte Terrazas, Christoper Lowrance, and Marilyn Mahoney.
Drawing can be gentle, such as Lowrance’s graphite and chalk portraits. In “Lowered Gaze I & II,” Lowrance sketches with graphite to capture soft light on his subjects, like a man and a woman looking down with their eyes half closed. These meditative images invite the audience to pause and be still with their thoughts.
Drawing is also used in the industrial sector, like in blueprints and structural renderings. Jaasiel Duarte Terrazas, a local architect, artist, and art educator, will showcase drawings created with his drafting skills and sculptures that turn his sketched concept into tangible structures.
- When: Sept. 23 through Nov. 11.
- Opening reception: Friday, Sept. 27, 6-9 p.m.
- Where: Holsum Gallery, 1200 W 12th St, Kansas City, MO 64101
“Communing with Poppies” by Hannah Banciella
“Communing with Poppies,” an immersive, site-specific installation created by Cuban American artist Hannah Banciella, is coming to the Kansas City Artists Coalition in Midtown.
The exhibit will turn the Main Gallery into a dream state with larger-than-life charcoal drawings telling the stories of two distinct personalities based on the artist herself, standing for powerfulness and powerlessness.
The independent and curious one is seen in casual but elegant attire, whereas the beat-down, depressed one is stuck in her black nightgown. Sometimes they live separately, but other times the two personalities interact in twisted ways.
In one piece, the powerless lays in the mud and is covered by weeds. She reaches out to the sky but appears trapped by vines and thorns. Another shows the powerless one staked to a chair with two daggers, her hands and feet chopped off.
Next to her stands the powerful one, holding a teapot and looking a little too gathered in the presence of a grotesque corpse. Is she lamenting the death of her other self, or… is she the murderer?
- When: Oct. 4 through Oct. 25
- Where: Kansas City Artists Coalition, 3200 Gillham Rd, Kansas City, MO 64109
“Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology” at Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
The harvest season naturally makes people think about the intricate relationship between humanity and ecology. In the interdisciplinary exhibition “Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology,” at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, the audience will journey with participating artists to investigate the climate crisis as a humanitarian catastrophe while fostering a deeper consciousness of the interconnection between our civilization and our planet.
Curated by Sharmila Wood and produced by Independent Curators International in New York, “Actions for the Earth” is a traveling exhibition featuring 18 intergenerational artists whose work emphasizes action, instruction, reciprocity, and exchange and are designed to serve as restorative strategies for our tattered earth. Wood is a Western Australia-based independent curator exploring the intersection of social change, history, and ecology in design and art.
The Nerman also added some personal touch to the exhibition: “Memory of Nature,” a nomadic restoration initiative created in 2013 by Indonesian performance artist Arahmaiani that features an empty plant bed, has been filled with native prairie plants hand-selected by the Nerman staff. It won’t live at the museum forever, though: The garden will be planted at Johnson County Community College next spring.
- When: Now through Dec. 4.
- Where: Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 12345 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS 66210
“Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond” at Kemper Museum
Curated by Kevin Moore, interim curator at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, “Infinite Regress” is a cross-era exploration into mankind’s endless search for a symbiotic state between nature and technology.
The exhibit displays artwork from The Kemper’s permanent collection, including paintings by mystical abstraction icons Joseph Stella, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Marsden Hartley.
The title, “Infinite Regress,” is borrowed from Eamon Ore-Giron’s serial painting developed upon slight variations, noting that art’s advancement is an ongoing process of recycling and upcycling ideas from predecessors throughout history. Following the same logic, the exhibition pairs contemporary artists exhibiting at the museum for the first time, such as Ore-Giron, Chelsea Culprit, Shannon Bool, Theodora Allen, and Panos Tsagaris.
Whether looking for classic paintings such as O’Keefe’s abstract flowers or Stella’s illustrative oil paintings or hoping to discover something innovative like Bool’s figurative sculpture combining human form and modern architecture, “Infinite Regress” guarantees a transcendental experience built upon the wildest imaginations.
- When: Sept. 20 thru Feb. 23rd
- Where: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64111
