Project Space |21 East 12th Street Reception: October 17, 6-9pm October 17-November 13 Hours: Thursdays + Saturdays, 12-5pm
Parallax features the work of three emerging painters based in the Midwest: Amy Casey (Cleveland, OH), Amy Kligman (Kansas City, MO) and Minerva Ortiz (Lawrence, KS.) Sharing a sense of melancholic whimsy and quiet strangeness, their artworks weave together aspects of fantasy and reality, alluding to distance between private imagination and public realm.
For a number of years, Cleveland-based painter Amy Casey has been “experiencing a sporadically recurring dream about the end of the world.” Although not attempting to recreate this dream in her work, her paintings reflect a view of a nervous state of world affairs. Inspired by “natural and unnatural disasters, personal fiascos and the never-ending stream of bad news from the media,” the world depicted in her paintings has been (often literally) turned upside-down: the ground has crumbled and the sky is falling. Within these up-ended spheres, Casey explores ideas of anxiety and vulnerability, community and illusions of safety. Concerned with the urban landscape, her paintings suggest resilience in the wake of disaster; a cobbling together of something new out of what remains. Casey earned her BFA from Cleveland Institute of Art in 1999. Represented by Zg Gallery in Chicago, she has completed artist in residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Zygote Press. In 2007, Casey was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.
Amy Kligman’s paintings often appear as cautionary tales told to children, with archetypes and characters similar to those of the fairy tales and myths that inform early ideas of good and evil. Yet while often maintaining a storybook sense of sweetness and delight, her works reinvigorate this childhood vocabulary to posit a more conflicted and nuanced landscape of behaviors, interactions, and ideas. A recent transplant from Cleveland now based in Kansas City, Kligman has presented solo exhibitions at Genuine Imitation Gallery in Portland, OR; 1300 Gallery in Cleveland, OH; and Primary Space Gallery in Detroit, MI; and in group exhibitions at spaces including Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City; About Glamour Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Kelley Randall Gallery, Tremont, OH; and Limbo Fine Arts; San Diego, CA. She earned her BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2001.
Minerva Ortiz earned her BA in studio art from University of California, Santa Cruz in 2005 and is currently pursuing her MFA in Painting at University of Kansas. Whether depicting her family, animals, landscapes or architecture, Ortiz paints situations that combine abstraction and realism to emphasize the complex nature of the events and subjects represented. Recent works allude to connections between humans and animal behavior as they reference the expression of needs, territorial battles and social hierarchies, while also functioning as anthropological studies of politics. Aware of her own immigrant and “hybrid” status, Ortiz attempts to present “both sides of the situation at the same time” in these moody works where tenderness toward her subjects mingles with a dark sense of the foreboding. Ortiz has presented solo exhibitions at the University of Kansas and the University of California, Santa Cruz.
City Center Square, 12th and Main In collaboration with Urban Culture Project presents Commemorating The Everyday, Today – a window installation by Kati Toivanen
Debuting Friday, October 17 in conjunction with UCP’s Third Friday Art Downtown
City Center Square and Urban Culture Project are pleased to announce the upcoming debut of “Commemorating the Everyday, Today,” a window installation by Kansas City-based artist and 2001 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award recipient Kati Toivanen. To remain on view for approximately one year, the installation was commissioned by City Center Square for its north-facing window on 12th Street, just west of Main, through an open call to artists facilitated by Urban Culture Project. The installation relates to the United States Post Office located within City Center Square, specifically taking the idea of the postage stamp as inspiration.
“Postage stamps adorning letters and cards represent a communal celebration of people, places, and events,” said Toivanen. “Physically sending sentiments by mail is an increasingly rare choice, and therefore it becomes a cherished and special occasion. For the City Center Square Window Installation I drew inspiration from the commemorative and precious aspect of postage stamps but wanted instead to celebrate private, everyday life -- in a very public setting.”
Depicting toys, remnants of play, and domestic debris, the imagery specifically elevates the mundane iconography characteristic of the experience of parenting a young child. With trimmed decorative edges, Toivanen’s photographs emulate the appearance of postage stamps, and, like stamps, many of them feature a singular character or an object, similar to a famous person, flower, or animal. Other digital compositions reveal subjective environments while loosely referencing geographic landmarks and regions. Suggestive of a commercial storefront presentation, the project highlights the commonplace to promote the appreciation of the ordinary experience. In Toivanen¹s installation, the wonder, innocence, and excitement of childhood are brought back to life as the images commemorate the everyday, today.
Kati Toivanen is an Associate Professor in the Art & Art History Department at University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her works are available through the Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO.
Open Studios Bonfils | 125 East 12th Street Friday, October 17, 6-9pm
UCP Studio Residents Rachelle Gardner, Allan Winkler, Heather Brown, Robert Heishman, Jess Owens, and Brent Cox open their studios to the public. UCP grants KC based artists free studios for one year terms through its Studio Program.
Open Studios pARTnership Place 906 Grand, 13th floor Friday, October 17, 6-9pm
Featuring UCP Studio Residents Lee Piechocki, Graham Zuelke, Jasmine Zelaya, Audra Brandt, Justin Farkas, Julie Portratz, and Erica Leohner.
