Chromaphobia | Chromaphilia Presenting KCAI Alumni in the Ceramic Arts Kansas City Art Institute Gallery March 16 – June 3, 2016 Exhibition Checklist Chromaphobia Untitled Chromaphilia Lauren Mabry (’07 ceramics) 2015 Curved Plane Laura De Angelis (’95 sculpture) Silver plated brass and porcelain Cary Esser (‘78 ceramics) 2012 Hybrid Vigor 13 x 16 x 20 inches Chromaphilia Veils Red earthenware, slips, glaze 2012 Courtesy of the Artists 2015-2016 24 x 60 x 15 inches Ceramic, encaustic, fresh water pearls Glazed earthenware Dick and Gloria Anderson Collection, 20.5 x 16 x 9 inches Nathan Mabry (’01 ceramics) 16 x 79 x .75 inches Lake Quivira, Kansas Courtesy of Sherry Leedy Vanitas (Banana) Courtesy of Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City 2007 Contemporary Art, Kansas City and Fragmented Cylinder Cast rubber the Artist 2012 Teri Frame (’05 ceramics; art history) 8 x 8 x 8 inches red earthenware, slips, glaze Sons of Cain Lithophane #1 Courtesy of Cherry and Martin, Los Christian Holstad (’94 ceramics) 20 x 24 x 22 inches 2016 Angeles and the Artist Ouroboros 6 (Red with green and yellow snake) Dick and Gloria Anderson Collection, Bone china, walnut 2012 Lake Quivira, Kansas 9 x 7 x .25 inches Nobuhito Nishigawara Vintage glove, fiberfill and antique obi Courtesy of the Artist (’99 ceramics) 39 x 17 x 16 inches Pipe Form Untitled - Manual 3D Like Printer Courtesy of the Artist and Andrew 2014 Sons of Cain Lithophane #2 2013 Kreps Gallery, New York Red earthenware, slips and glaze 2016 Clay 20 x 28 x 28 inches Bone china, walnut 23 x 23 x 2 inches Ouroboros 2 (Big yellow snake) Courtesy of the Artist and Belger Crane 9 x 7 x .25 inches Courtesy of the Artist 2012 Yard Gallery, Kansas City Courtesy of the Artist Vintage glove, fiberfill and antique obi Untitled - Manual 3D Like Printer #2 24 x 15 x 24 inches Bobby Silverman (’80 ceramics) Sons of Cain Lithophane #3 2013 Courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Tirana (installation view) 2016 Clay Kreps Gallery, New York 2015 Bone china, walnut 16 x 16 x 1.5 inches Porcelain, glaze, vinyl wall installation, 9 x 7 x .25 inches Courtesy of the artist Kahlil Irving (’15 ceramics) wood pedestal Courtesy of the Artist Collaged Mass Dimensions variable Tia Pulitzer (’01 ceramics) 2014 Courtesy of Leslie Ferrin Sons of Cain Teacup #1 Timeless vs. Ageless Clay, glaze, decals, china paint, lustre Contemporary, North Adams, 2016 2010 10.5 x 7.5 x 7.5 inches Massachusetts and Sherry Leedy Bone china Clay, underglaze, wax Courtesy of the Artist Contemporary Art, Kansas City 3 x 3 x 3 inches 15” x 15” x 2.5” (5” x 15” x 2.5” each Courtesy of the Artist hand) Layered Mass Joey Watson (‘14 ceramics) Courtesy of the Artist 2015 Drinking Vessel with Squiggle Tread & Sons of Cain Teacup #2 Clay, glaze, steel Tripod Zigzag Straw 2016 Head Study 8 x 11 x 18 inches 2016 Bone china 2016 Courtesy of the Artist Porcelain 3 x 3 x 3 inches Clay. underglaze, glaze 13 x 7 x 7 inches Courtesy of the Artist 8 x 8 x 14.5 inches Dark Matter Courtesy of the Artist Courtesy of the Artist 2015 Sons of Cain Teacup #3 Clay, glaze, steel Drinking Vessel with Squiggle Tread & 2016 It’s About Time 12 x 20 x 15 inches Zigzag Straw Bone china 2016 Courtesy of the Artist 2016 3 x 3 x 3 inches Clay, foam, metal and enamel Porcelain Courtesy of the Artist 8 x 33.5 x 17.5 inches Debbie Kupinsky (’99 ceramics) 9 x 7 x 7 inches Courtesy of the Artist Thicket Series 2 Courtesy of the Artist Sons of Cain Teacup #4 2016 2016 Armando Ramos (’99 ceramics) Stoneware, found objects Drinking Vessel with Squiggle Tread & Bone china Gebs 15 x 10 x 10 inches Zigzag Straw 3 x 3 x 3 inches 2014 Courtesy of the Artist 2016 Courtesy of the Artist Clay, thread Porcelain 19 x 13 x 13 inches Thicket Series 2 9 x 7 x 7 inches Ben Harle (’12 ceramics; art history) Courtesy of the Artist 2016 Courtesy of the Artist Faded Memories Stoneware, found objects 2015 Portrait of Puissance 11 x 7 x 8 inches Drinking Vessel with Squiggle Tread & single-channel video (8:05 min) 2015 Courtesy of the Artist Zigzag Straw Courtesy of the Artist Clay, thread 2016 14 x 11 x 7 inches Thicket Series 2 Porcelain Linda Lighton (’89 sculpture) & Courtesy of the Artist 2016 9 x 7 x 7 inches Mark Southerland Stoneware, found objects Courtesy of the Artist The Gift of Sound (and Vision) New Oxford 19 x 12 x 11 inches 2016 2015 Courtesy of the Artist Drinking Vessel with Squiggle Tread & Silver plated brass and porcelain Clay, thread Zigzag Straw 44 x 20 x 57 inches 26 x 26 x 7 inches Roberto Lugo (’12 ceramics) 2016 Courtesy of the Artists Courtesy of the Artist Piece Completed Through Process Porcelain 2014 9 x 7 x 7 inches Untitled Clay, underglaze, china paint, lustre Courtesy of the Artist 2015 36 x 24 x 42 inches Silver plated brass and porcelain Courtesy of the Bonnie House 20 x 17 x 9 inches Collection Courtesy of the Artists Chromaphobia Moiré Chromaphobia is a stereoscopic spectrum of embodied energy. Shelved and placed in the manner of a private collection, each object is showcased to catch the labor and time it takes to address pigment and material as a restriction. Color, like worth, is a value we project onto things. White noise is not white, a chlorine stain is an extraction of pigment. Albinism creates a very specific palette. Colorblind people are not blind to color. What is black to me is not black to you. What we quantify as precious is not necessarily fragile, and what we prescribe as high quality is not an equation of being industrial or even utilitarian. Bathtubs and plaster are essentially porcelain. Glaze is glass. Every brick in a landfill is a piece of lost labor and disposable craft. Museum display cases and construction sites are full of the same material, it’s the process of how and when that material is refined that ordains its fate. Chromaphobia is a collection of artists who turn material into thought using contemporary and archaic processes. From three-dimensional printing to silver-plating, this pale shelf composes movement and light with rare beasts and botanicals. Should the Armando Ramos, Gebs, 2014 pedestal fall and I were to sweep all of these objects “To look at the metaphor ‘vibrancy is health,’ we first into the center of the space, you would find freshwater need to understand how it is rooted in our bodily pearls, carved Victorian leg stands, shattered teacups, a experience. Sick people are often described as ‘losing skull, trombone bells, tiny birds and colored thread. color’ or as ‘white as a ghost.’ Regardless of skin tone, there is a loss of rosiness or vibrancy from our skin when we are ill. People look unhealthy the less color they have, whether it’s the loss of their ‘rosy cheeks’ or if they’re on their death bed with ‘all the color drained out of them.’ “This relationship between illness and loss of color can be transferred to symbols as well. If a symbol is portrayed as having lost its’ color, we can think of it as sick. The question we are left with is, ‘What’s making it sick?”1 Peregrine Honig Guest Curator, Chromaphobia 1 Sackin, Jori (October 26, 2014). The Transfiguration of our Collective Symbols [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.tenmillimeters.com/blog-1/2014/10/25/ Laura De Angelis, Hybrid Vigor, 2012 the-transfiguration-of-our-collective-symbols Ben Harle, Faded Memories, 2015 Chromaphilia Mass, a clay facsimile of a striking green plastic bottle atop a layered mass suggests refuse and the Joshua Green, executive director of the National geologic-length time required for it to decompose. Joey Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, recently Watson utilizes slip casting to create tiers of color. The noted that Kansas City’s “legacy of great art institutions, divots that he carves into his cups and straws reveal patrons, artists and educators has long held an important vibrant strata. Debbie Kupinsky’s work suggests role in the development of North American ceramic seasonal rhythms, with bare winter branches colored by arts.”1 songbirds. Her pops of color also recall archaeological cycles, as if industrial detritus is being overtaken by Much of the credit for this area’s leadership should go nature. The cycles of art history appear in to the Kansas City Art Institute, whose past and present Lauren Mabry’s work, where vivid drips and rectangles ceramics faculty and students would make up a great conjure up the aesthetics of abstract painting. The lyrical proportion of a Who’s Who list of American ceramists. Chromaphilia features the work of eight KCAI ceramics alumni, spanning KCAI history from the late 1970s to 2015: Cary Esser, Christian Holstad, Kahlil Irving, Roberto Lugo, Debbie Kupinsky, Lauren Mabry, Robert Silverman and Joey Watson. For each of these artists, color embodies an essential means for them to explore the relationship between art, tradition and change. The works in the exhibition often evoke change as a cycle. Christian Holstad’s two bright Ouroboros forms refer to cycles in shape — a snake biting its own tail — and in materials, as he re-purposes colorful old gloves Bobby Silverman, Tirana (installation view), 2015 and antique Japanese sashes. In Kahlil Irving’s Collaged Christian Holstad, Ouroboros 6 (Red with green and yellow snake), 2012 tiles of KCAI Ceramics Chairperson Cary Esser Ultimately, although these eight artists vary in their hearken the “Iznik blue” glazes of Turkey, which were in approaches to working with color, Chromaphilia turn inspired partly by Chinese blue-and-white ware.