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Summer is always the peak art season in Kansas City, featuring everything from farmers markets and vendor fairs to art and music festivals.
If you’d rather stay in the comfort of an air-conditioned room, our city’s galleries have lots to offer, too. We’ve selected five exhibits on display this summer from artists based in and near the Kansas City metro.
Kansas City Flatfile + Digitalfile at KCAI Artspace
The Kansas City Flatfile + Digitalfile exhibition is one of the largest celebrations of emerging 2D artists in the area. The annual event features over 200 artists working on flat surfaces, whose practices encompass drawing, painting, collaging, printmaking, embroidery, weaving, design, and more.
Some participants in this year’s show include Erin Dodson, a painter, illustrator and owner of Kiosk Gallery; Adam Crowley, painter and preparator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; SK Reed, a ceramic artist, illustrator and co-owner of The Waiting Room gallery; and many more.
Visitors can find the full list of participating artists and their corresponding drawer numbers, which hold their portfolios, via the pamphlets available in the main gallery. Meanwhile, the walls in the lobby and around each cabinet section will feature selected pieces from different portfolios. If you find a piece that catches your eye, you can use the numbered sticker next to find the artist’s drawer and browse the rest of their submissions.
The exhibition also includes digital media works, which can be viewed in the screening room located at the end of the gallery.
- When: Now through Sept. 27, 2025
- Where: The Artspace at KCAI, 16 E 43rd St, Kansas City, MO 64111
“North by Southeast: A Kansas City Double Feature” at Holsum Gallery and Gallery Athanor
“NxSE: A Kansas City Double Feature” is a collaborative exhibition between Kansas City-based mixed media artist and gallerist Garry Noland and painter-curator Tanith K. The exhibition features Kansas City-based emerging artists Taylar Sanders, Sarah Taylor, Craig Auge, Alexander Otero-Ramirez, and Xiao daCunha (disclosure: that’s me!).
Each artist has six pieces split between the two spaces: Holsum Gallery in the West Bottoms and Gallery Athanor, a private art space located on the southeast side of Kansas City (address available upon request). This exhibition features sculptures, mixed-media collages, photography, textiles, and an 8-foot charcoal drawing on the wall.
- When: Now through Aug. 23, 2025
- Where: Holsum Gallery, 1200 W 12th St, Kansas City, MO 64101
“Iro to Katachi (Colors and Shapes)” at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center
Kansas City-based Japanese-American sculptor and designer Rie Egawa’s solo exhibition, “Iro to Katachi (Colors and Shapes)” is on view in the back gallery at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center.
The sculptures are inspired by a geometric pattern mural in the historic building that Egawa and her husband first moved in 31 years ago when they came to Kansas City. Later, Egawa discovered a shared admiration for Bauhaus modernism between herself and the mural’s creator, a local art cooperative called Art Research Center.
She ended up creating a series of small-scale sculptures combining this joint influence and her own passion for Japanese minimalism and organic shapes and forms.
While you’re visiting the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, be sure to also explore “Threshold III: Ancestral Memory,” a two-person exhibition featuring Kansas City-based multi-media artists Kevin Demery and Andrew Pequeño.
- When: Now through Sept. 26, 2025
- Where: Leedy-Voulkos Art Center (back gallery), 2012 Baltimore Ave. Kansas City, MO 64108
Summer Invitational 2025 at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art
There is no better way to discover new artists making waves in the Midwest and nationwide than attending an invitational. Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art presents its annual Summer Invitational, featuring 15 artists from Kansas City and beyond.
Pieces on display range from paintings and photography to earthenware, needlepoint, mixed-media sculptures, and more.
Arizona-based dark photographer Kate Breakey presents a series of orotone photographs of insects, birds, and botanicals, featuring mesmerizing gold hues on dark backgrounds, as if the objects were taken from an occult ceremony.
Kansas City-based painter/illustrator Celina Curry offers two oil paintings that capture beach visitors, featuring animation-like palettes and compositions. And Elise Gagliardi, a Kansas City-based photographer and owner of ION Gallery, presents a large-scale photograph from her ongoing body of work, “Opulent Decay,” which captures the withering beauty of decomposing organic matters such as fruits, vegetables, and wilting flowers.
- When: Now through Aug. 23, 2025
- Where: Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, 2004 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO 64108
“More Than Meets the Eye” at Belger Crane Yard Gallery
“More Than Meets the Eye” encourages viewers to let go of existing perceptions and regard daily objects as fresh adventures. The sculptures at the Belger Crane Yard Gallery recreate inspiration from everyday items like a plate of pasta and orange Jell-O, with unique twists.
For example, NYC-based artist Stephen Morrison’s epoxy clay sculptures turn an onion and a red velvet cupcake into silly-looking dogs, quite literally playing with his food. Seattle-based Japanese American artist Eriko Kobayashi subtly puts unhealthy American food under the spotlight with her glass replicas of Pop-Tarts and Twinkies, as well as a plate of spaghetti topped with dino nuggets, titled “American Meal.”
In a sense, this exhibition feels like a tribute to Andy Warhol’s soup cans, or the act of removing mundane, insignificant daily objects from their context and giving them new lives. Is this a legitimate art exhibition, or a practical joke? It’s up to viewers to decide.
Different food vendors will pop up at the gallery on August 1 and September 5 for First Fridays.
- When: Now through Sept. 6, 2025
- Where: Belger Arts Center, 2011 Tracy Ave, Kansas City, MO 64108
