Through the Lens studios.gallery exhibition 02.01.19 / 03.22.19
studios.gallery Our mission is to engage the Kansas City community through exhibitions curated from our collection of diverse artwork created by Kansas City’s most prominent artists.
Each year, artists involved in our Residency Program contribute one piece of artwork to the Studios Inc collection. From this body of work, studios.gallery is able to curate and host multiple exhibitions throughout the year that are open to the public. Additionally, it is our goal to prompt important, locally based discussions about the mid-career artist and their work.
Artwork from the collection is available for purchase, allowing Studios Inc to earn revenue to aid in the sustainability of our overall organization.
studios.gallery is pleased to present Through the Lens on view from 02.01.19 to 03.22.19. Featured artists include Patty Carroll, Jill Downen, Caitlin Horsmon, Kathy Liao, Hye Young Shin and Debra Smith.
This exhibition focuses on women in the arts, particularly through the lens of each artist’s aesthetic, exploring themes of identity, conceptualization and reclamation of self.
Curated by Robb Gann,
Associate Director of studios.gallery
studios.gallery@thestudiosinc.org
Patty Carroll Patty Carroll is known for her use of highly intense, saturated color photographs since the 1970’s. Her most recent project, “Anonymous Women”, is a 3-part series of studio installations made for the camera, addressing women and domestic status, and camouflages the figure in drapery and/or domestic objects.
The photographs are exhibited in large scale and the work was published as a monograph released in January of 2017 by Daylight Books. This work has been exhibited in China several times, as well as won various awards. Carroll was one of the “Top 50” awarded by Photolucida in 2014.
Carroll taught photography for many years and has enthusiastically returned to the studio to delight viewers with her sense of humor and critique of home life.
Carroll was awarded a 3 year studio space through the Studios Inc Residency Program starting in 2015, and through a 2019 juried selection was accepted into the Extended Residency Program.
Carroll’s work is represented by Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Martha Schneider Gallery in Chicago, and Martine Chaisson Gallery in New Orleans, and has been collected nationally and internationally.
Chandelier, 2010
by Patty Carroll
39.5 x 37 inches
digital archival photograph
$3,000
Tea Party, 2015
by Patty Carroll
38 x 38 inches
digital archival photograph
$3,000
Jill Downen Downen’s art is a focused investigation of the symbiotic relationship between the human body and architecture expressed in temporal installations, drawings, and models. Her art envisions a place of interdependent relation between the human body and architecture, where the exchanging forces and tensions of construction, deterioration, and restoration emerge as thematic possibilities. Jill Downen is an assistant professor of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she teaches in the sculpture department. Significant awards include: 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship, MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts residency, and CitÈ International des Arts Residency in Paris. Downen was selected for the 2004 Great Rivers Biennial, a grant and exhibition sponsored by Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Gateway Foundation. Downen has been invited to lecture about her work extensively, including the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Luce Irigaray Circle Philosophy Conference in New York. Her art has been reviewed in publications including Art in America, Sculpture, Art Papers, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York Times.
Downen lives and maintains her studio in Kansas City, and is represented by the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis. She holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA as a Danforth Scholar from Washington University in St. Louis.
Breast Blocks, 2010
by Jill Downen
8.25 x 18 x 8.25 inches
polystrene, drywall joint compound, latex
$4,000 set of four
Caitlin Horsmon Caitlin Horsmon is an artist, curator and teacher based in Kansas City, Missouri. She is one of six artists who direct the artist-run space Plug Projects and is a founder of Stray Cat Microcinema.
Grounded in the moving image but integrating installation, sound, sculpture, collaborations, curatorial work and community programming, her work investigates the obscure and overlooked landscapes of the everyday. It has been exhibited around the world receiving numerous awards and grants including a Rocket Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Charlotte Street Foundation and Spencer Museum of Art.
Horsmon is Associate Professor of Film & Media Arts at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where she serves as a member of the Women’s and Gender Studies and Graduate faculties. Her work is distributed by The Collectif Jeune Cinéma.
Stills from Ground Frequency, 2019
by Caitlin Horsmon
2 minutes (loop)
16mm film on video, stereo sound
price upon request
Kathy Liao Kathy Liao currently resides in Kansas City, MO, and teaches painting and printmaking as an Assistant Professor of Art at Missouri Western State University. Drawing inspirations from her diverse cultural background and personal history, Kathy Liao mixed media work is about the intimate yet universal concept of relationships.
Liao received her MFA in Painting from Boston University and BFA in Painting and Drawing from University of Washington, Seattle. She was a recipient of various awards including the Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant, Artist Grants from Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Vermont Studio Center, and Jentel Artist Residency. Â Her works were exhibited nationally in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Kansas City.
Yellow Circumstances, 2013
by Kathy Liao
72 x 58 inches
mixed media on canvas
$7,500
Hye Young Shin Shin’s artistic practice is an embodiment of a lifetime of accumulated experiences. Her artwork centers on visualizing connections that make human relationships and kindle new meaning and the value of art. She believes that communication is the key to establishing a strong sense of belonging between artists, viewers, and community. The issues she confronts through her work stem from early experience and observation.
At a young age, she became aware of death and human vulnerability through illnesses in her family. She sought to explore a theatrical and situational empathy to deliver an intimate communication among us and strives to create some sort of ambiguous space where we are not able to define ourselves through the notion of race, language, and culture. We can only realize ourselves as human beings without prejudice. Influenced by childhood experiences and the present time of her practice, Shin’s work speaks of humanity, happiness and freedom of the individual and utopian society.
Hye Young Shin is the Assistant Professor of Print Media in the Department of Art & Art History in the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Shin received Master of Fine Art from University at Buffalo, and two BFAs in Printmaking and Painting from Hong-Ik University and Kyoung-Sung University in Korea. Shin exhibited across the US, including solo shows at the Fine Art Gallery in the San Francisco State University, CA; UB Anderson Gallery in the University at Buffalo, NY; 20|20 Gallery of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in the Elizabeth Arts Foundation, New York City, NY; Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Western New York Book Arts Center, Buffalo, NY, and has been featured in many group shows nationally and internationally.
Lingers, 2017
by Hye Young Shin
30 x 30 x 4 inches
wood, wire, printbase paper
$3,000
Still, 2017
by Hye Young Shin
120 x 42 inches
graphite drawing on mylar
$5,000
Debra Smith Debra Smith was born in Kansas City in 1971 and raised in Hannibal, Missouri.
Pursuing her interest in fashion and textiles, Debra Smith studied at the Italian Academy of Fashion & Design; Lorenzo de Medici in Florence Italy before receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute with a major in Fiber in 1993 and an Associate Degree in Applied Science from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2002.
Breaking all stereotypes associated with textiles, from ideas of craft to that of “women’s work” Smith’s pieced images have a strong language that is much more similar to that of painting.
In 2012 Smith was honored as one of the Women to Watch 2012: Focus on Fiber & Textiles from The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
Her work has been shown internationally over the past two decades, including solo & group exhibitions: Spring Revival, Markel Fine Art, NYC (2013), Release of Time, Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art (2012), Inbetween Spaces/ New work, Roswell Museum & Art Center, Roswell, NM (2010), Looking to The Left, Julie Saul Gallery, NYC (2008), Sense of Presence, Davidson Gallery, Brisbane, Australia (2004), Celestial Navigation, Vancouver, BC (2002)
After living in Brooklyn, NY, for over a decade, Smith returned to her native Midwestern roots in 2004. She now lives in Kansas City, where she continues to create art from vintage textiles.
Transition of Place, 2014
by Debra Smith
51 x 61 inches
pieced vintage silk
$9800 (framed)
Memory Trace, 2017
by Debra Smith
10 x 10 inches
pieced vintage silk
$250 each (framed)
Studios Inc provides studio space, professional development, networking, and exhibitions for mid-career artists in Greater Kansas City.
Launched in 2003 to serve mid-career artists, Studios Inc is Kansas City’s only nonprofit arts organization oering pivotal three-year residencies to mid-career artists who are poised to significantly expand their careers in accordance with the career goals articulated in their residency application. Its competitive application process, sharp focus on career advancement, and commitment to serve the under-served population of mid-career artists set Studios Inc apart from other artistsupport organizations. Studios Inc oers a unique immersion experience for resident artists, who use their studio and exhibition space to produce and exhibit work, network and learn from one another, and attract and cultivate relationships with art patrons, collectors, and arts professionals.
Courtney Wasson, Executive Director
courtney@thestudiosinc.org
thestudiosinc.org