Separated at Birth – Pat Alexander & Michael Converse Project Space 21 East 12th Street 816.221.5115 Third Friday Opening Reception: April 18, 6-9 pm April 18-June 7, 2008
Separated at Birth is a collaborative site-specific installation by Kansas City artists Pat Alexander and Michael Converse. After periodic studio visits over the years, the two artists began to recognize similar techniques, studio processes and trends occurring simultaneously in their works. The installation will incorporate and highlight fragments of paintings, collages, drawings and audio recordings each has created in their separate studios. The piece will further evolve with Converse and Alexander collaboratively drawing directly onto this gigantic organic installation that will cover all of the walls, and perhaps some of the floors in the Project Space.
Pat Alexander’s art reflects his examination of physical existence. Interested in interactions between natural and synthetic elements, rudiments and structures, his creative process replicates these studies of harmony and tension through methods of experimentation with various mediums and disciplines. The depicted results customarily incorporate drawings, collage, painting, sound and installation.
Alexander has presented solo exhibitions at Kansas City area venues including Fahrenheit gallery, Apex gallery, Next Space gallery, and Urban Culture Project’s Jenkins windows, and has been featured in group exhibitions at the H&R Block Artspace, Jack the Pelican Presents (Brooklyn, NY), Echo Curio Art Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Telephonebooth gallery, Urban Culture Project’s Boley and Project Space galleries, Dirt Gallery, and Locus Solus. Later this year, he will present a solo exhibition at Echo Curio in Los Angeles.
In the exhibition essay for the 2004 Charlotte Street Awards, curator Stacy Switzer described Michael Converse’s work as such: “Intimate, daring, and emotionally charged, Converse’s works map a landscape of abject trauma and transformation that speaks to both individual and collective experiences. Converse describes his approach as one of ‘cordial pathos’ mixed with ‘aesthetic malignancy.’ In spite or perhaps because of this approach, Converse’s works can also be read as potent affirmations of lived experience, and of the power of the creative impulse.”
Michael Converse earned his BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Kansas State University in 1991 and subsequently pursued graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Converse has presented solo exhibitions at Telephonebooth gallery and at his home, and has been featured in group exhibitions at venues including Getsumin Gallery (Osaka, Japan), Boots Contemporary (St. Louis), Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University, Grand Arts, Shaw Hofstra, H&R Block Artspace, Urban Culture Project Space, and UCP’s Bank gallery. He attended the Art Omi International Residency Program in 2005. His work is featured in the MoMA Artist Archives and in the Drawing Center’s Viewing Program.
