Cafe Gratitude

I recently exhibited my new body of work at the Cafe Gratitude in Kansas City's Cross Roads art district.  The show, titled Illusion of Boundaries, was up from August to November, 2016.  

Artist statement from the Illusion of Boundaries:

This is a whimsical magical world where everything is the same.  Foreground becomes background, figure becomes ground, animal becomes earth, and earth forms into ideas. It all grows out of the paint and is rooted in the paint. The illusion of boundaries dissolves, feathers become air, air becomes color, color becomes vision, and vision becomes playfulness.  When I look at the animals on my little farm, I watch them move through the grass, I see them swim in the water, I watch them flapping their wings sometimes leaving the earth becoming part of the air.  They move in groups in overlapping patterns, ducks against dogs, against goats, against bunnies in an infinite variety of combinations.  When I look closely at the earth, I see the evidence of their existence intertwined with the earth, feathers, poop, fur, and footprints.  They move through the earth, eating the plants and bugs, digging and scratching, shaping the environment while simultaneously being shaped by the earth, plants, water, sunlight.  As an image maker, sometimes I am tempted by extraction and isolation.  I want the bunny, just the bunny.  I want to see the bunny's body, all of the bunny.  I want to see the animals as individuals, clean and minimal, like a scientific illustration.  Erasing the background and cutting the figure out from the background alters the figure leaving behind hoofs and claws and fur.  Isolation of the animal reveals the connections between the animal and the earth, and reveals the magical unity of figure and ground.