A grouping of paintings and ceramic sculptures using playfulness and sarcasm in response to midwestern ideologies of hard work and kindness.

A series of prints in black and white exploring abstract mark making.

THAT WHICH CONNECTS US is an exhibition of prints by Nebraska-based artist Keith D. Buswell. Using the root systems of trees as a central metaphor, Buswell explores our deeper connection with the environment and one another.

Artist Statement

Community is a notion that we are not only connected by not only our heritage or proximity, but also through an exchange of ideas and a desire to help one another. Trees personify this complex and vital system. In 2016, ecologist Suzanne Simard wanted to find out if trees could talk to each other. What she found was a network of fungi underground connecting the roots of trees that not only relayed information to each other, but also provided nutrients for young and dying plants. This discovery is an embodiment of community.

Lamplighters is an expansive group exhibition organized by Adams Puryear that brings together a diverse group of Kansas City-based artists. Selected works explore the functional aspects of clay thru the medium of the lighted object. This exhibition opens October 7, 2022 at Vulpes Bastille with a performance by EMAS and has a closing reception Saturday October 22, 2022 with readings by selected poets exploring truth in their writing.

Lamplighters is taken from the eponymous poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. The poem imagines the lamplighter as having an adventurous, exciting life as lamplighters in essence are bringing light to a darkened and unknown area. The lamp is generally a mundane item in daily life and this exhibit seeks to revitalize this object, capture the spirit of the poem and harness some of the lively energy that initially built the Crossroads arts district. Invited artists are asked to think metaphorically as well as fundamentally about a lighted sculpture. This definition is open to interpretation which brings an eclectic array of artworks into Vulpes Bastille.

The Lamplighters art exhibit of 40+ artists will have an opening reception on Friday October 7 and a closing reception on Saturday October 22. On October 7th 6-9, the improvisational ensemble Extemporaneous Music & Arts Society (EMAS) will perform featuring Evan Verploegh, Aaron Osborne, Krista Kopper and Brooke Knoll. The closing reception on October 22nd 6-9pm, poets Jordan Stempleman, Meagan Dermody, Jackob Graves, and Hyejung Kook are scheduled to read their works.

Invited artists include:

Adam Lucas, Adams Puryear, Alison Siegel, Andrew Mcilvaine, Casey Whittier, Cindy Leung, Corey Antis, Eager Zhang, Elaine Buss, Eleanor Foy, Emily Reinhardt, Jada Patterson, Jing Huang, Joey Watson, Johanna Winters, John "Moose" Kimball, Josh Martin, Kate Horvat & Heidi Schultz, Katherine Moes, Kathy Liao, Kevin Umaña, Lilly Powell, Lisa Maione, Luke Haynes, Meredith Smith, Michael Martin, Nicole Woodard, Paul Maloney, Rachel Ferber, Robert Flowers, Rodrigo Carazas Portal, Roth Ayers Design (Meredith Host & Alex Watson), Ruben Castillo, Simone Mele, SK Reed, Steph Becker, Steve Snell, Summer Brooks, Sun Young Park, Susi Lulaki, Tyler Kimball

Special thanks to ArtsKC and Belger Crane Yard Studio for their support as well as Steph Becker for the poster design.

When you think of Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, you probably think about artists. But which artists? The faceless names printed on the walls, or the nameless faces that fill the halls? The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art houses two collections, one visible and one invisible to the everyday visitor. Adjacent to the artwork in the galleries, a community of artists works behind the scenes to clean, guard, install, archive, market, curate, and manage the museum. The exhibition ART | WORK seeks to challenge our perspective by asking what it means to be a working artist through the eyes of artists employed by the Nelson-Atkins.

ART | WORK brings together artists from across the museum at the artist-run space Vulpes Bastille. By featuring a group diverse in material, process, and content, the exhibition reflects each artist’s individual approach to their dual roles as creators and caretakers. For these artists, art never stops: they bring creativity not only to their artwork, but to their jobs, their relationships, and their roles in the broader community.

ART | WORK shows us that art lives not only in galleries and museums, but in the many individuals who curate, support, and maintain them.

Organized by Elinore Noyes and Kimber Starnes

Artists:

Steve Armbruster

Ali Bouchard

Talia Bowman

Ivy Boyd

C. Rea Brandt

Madeline Brice

Summer Brooks

Lyle Burk

Kerry Butcher

Faviola Calymayor

Mike Chapman

Len Clouser

Cosmo Crouch

Tara Crow

Adam Crowley

Maggie Curran

Kevin Donohue

Danny Duran

Arlan Engin

Jana Evans

Mikayla Findlay

Scott Foulk

Fredy Gabuardy

John Gilluly

Bret Gottschall

KE Griffin

Shirley Harryman

Jason Heft

Jason Heisler

Anthony High

Riley Hohman

Nell Hull

Alejandro Izaguirre

Linda Jankowski

Debbie Jensen

Maggie Keenan

Alex Krahenbuhl

Travis Linthicum

Nia Danielle Lovemore

Katyna Manard

Andy Maugh

Gwen McGuire

Kari Mishler

Rebeka Pech Moguel

Elinore Noyes

Gabriela Pabon

Socorro Reyes Ramirez

Qwenton Russell

Hunter Saxton

Dianna Smith

Jenna Spencer

Kimber Starnes

Michael Straws

Chaneryna Thach

Brianne Umbach

Justice Westphal

Garrett Williams

Cate Wise

Dee Dee Wolahan

Don Yaworski

Keepsake is an exhibition of work by André Melchor and Katharine Suchan that demonstrates how we memorialize our family, friends, and experiences. A keepsake is defined as “a small item kept in memory of the person who gave it or originally owned it.”

Both artists pull from their cultural, social, and familial background to honor their experiences and create new futures. The work depicts or is a surrogate for these mementos, cataloging and defining a moment in time. Their work carves out a space that resides in between the unconscious, revealing empathetic material decisions. Paint and plaster become the languages in which we solidify our memories and the ephemera that binds us to it.

Deep Fried Inferno is a culmination of research and artwork I've made over the past year reflecting on memes, internet aesthetics, and perceived race and gender online.

I use photographic printing and transferring processes of early 2000's cartoons, video games, and memes that reflect my identity online and offline. The images I work with reference internet pop culture but also reflect my queerness and identity as a mixed race artist. Through these images and installation processes I'm able to present to you my senior thesis show, Deep Fried Inferno.

Light, Fuse and Get Away: a group show featuring the works of Bella Martinez, Eva Llarena, Hunter Silvey, and Jamie Novak will be opening Friday, May 6th at Vulpes Bastille.

This exhibition will consist of various mediums and processes experimenting with the theme of distortion. Displaying works from each artist in both individual and collaborative pieces that share and question the manipulation of color, pattern, and shape. Working with new ways of creating and installing work, this show completely changes what one expects from an art gallery.

Bella Martinez is a multimedia artist that explores degrees of abstraction through collage and sculpture, seeking to push the extent to which an image or material can transform into something else.

Jamie Novak, by contrast, is a fiber artist and designer working with multiple fiber processes and materials to blur the line between functional and non-functional objects, with childhood as an inspiration to create a visual playground.

Hunter Silvey is a multimedia artist creating immersive installations using transparent materials and surfaces to fabricate a metaphysical filter with his work.

Eva Llarena uses her work as a stream of consciousness; playful forms become a device to relate viewers to objects. Processes such as tufting, sculpture, bookmaking, and installation create an exchange between the work and invite the viewer into an interaction.

Reservoirs like lake mead are at their lowest levels since the 1950’s as overpopulated urban centers like Las Vegas, San Diego, and Los Angeles drain them at an alarming rate. In my photographs I’m asking the viewer to look again, pay attention to the resources we take for granted, question whether we should be manipulating our environment to the point of exhaustion, and to examine the aftermath of that exploitation. Throughout this project I focused on areas that have lost their placeness due to over-development, places in danger of being lost to over-development, and the institutions responsible for that displacement. When someone views a symmetrical image they’re recording the same scene twice, it’s like revisiting a memory right after you’ve made it. By reflecting visual information I can force my viewer to look again and hopefully cement these places in their memory on a neuroaesthetic level that mimics the awe of a new experience.

These images are a small sample from an extensive archive I have built up over the past 2 years for my senior thesis at the Kansas City Art Institute. My archive consists of large format panoramas as well as small supporting images. The panoramas are made by stitching images from a high resolution camera in order to achieve a desired aspect ratio and high level of detail.