Tag Archives: Painting

2025 Young Artists Retreat Speakers Confirmed

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Speakers have been confirmed for the 2025 Young Artists Retreat, occurring on Friday, October 25!

For those unable to attend in person, we will have a livestream available as well. Register for the livestream by Tuesday, Oct. 22!

LIVESTREAM AGENDA (times listed in CST):

  • 9:10 AM-10: Session Speakers
    • SunYoung Park or Joy Rhodes
  • 10:10-11 AM: Professional Development Session with Harold Smith
  • 11:10 AM-noon: Session Speakers
    • Christopher Erazo or Matthew Willie Garcia
  • 1 PM: Keynote Speaker, Amy Kligman

All sessions will be recorded and available after the livestream airs.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Brunette woman with shoulder length hair

Amy Kligman

Amy Kligman, artist and organizer of The Salon for Possible Futures, which is on view in the Nerman Museum, will be the Keynote Speaker for the Young Artists Retreat program. The Salon for Possible Futures is an interactive space for community gathering and collective imagining. Themes of fostering humanity and relationships, learning from the past, and building sustainability, hope, and magic are the underpinnings of The Salon’s assembled objects and imagery. Amy Kligman was the Executive Artistic Director at Charlotte Street 2015-2025. Kligman’s career and experience as an exhibiting artist and grassroots curator/arts administrator spans 20 years of studio & exhibition work, independent curating and organizing, and artist-run projects.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SPEAKER

Man with a beard wearing a dark shirt

Harold Smith

Harold Smith is a Kansas City-based visual artist whose internationally exhibited and collected work includes painting, collage, mixed media, performance, video, sound, and assemblage. His work focuses on the complexity of black masculinity in America. He also writes for KC Studio magazine. Smith was an educator in Kansas City for 30 years, teaching computer science and other computer classes, and later coding and game design, at Kansas City’s Manual Career & Technical Center. Before retiring from teaching in 2021, Smith taught art at Lincoln College Preparatory Middle School for two and a half years. He received a Charlotte Street Visual Arts Award and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2022. He was selected for the Art Omi International Artists Residency Program in 2023. Locally, he’s exhibited at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the Lawrence Arts Center.

SESSION SPEAKERS

Brunette man with short hair and mustache

Christopher Erazo

Christopher Erazo is a Chicano/Mexican American photographer and videographer based in Lawrence, Kansas. His creative yet simple style and distinctive use of VHS videography have earned his work exhibitions in Mexico City, multiple regional galleries, and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Through his art, Christopher celebrates Chicano culture while highlighting the beauty of all cultures, reimagining traditional works with a modern perspective, and inspiring young creators to embrace their heritage and unique voices.

 

 

Man sitting down on a wooden floor in front of a white wall

Matthew Willie Garcia

Matthew Willie Garcia is a California native now based in Kansas City, MO. Garcia’s work transcends traditional print media working in screen printing, mokuhanga, projection-mapping, animation, and large-scale installations. Inspired by a blend of science, science fiction, and their queer identity, Garcia explores these themes through color abstraction and nonrepresentational forms. Holding a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the University of Kansas, Garcia has earned acclaim regionally, notably exhibiting at the Nerman Contemporary Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center and internationally in Japan and Spain. Garcia recently served as the 2024/2025 Grant Wood Fellow at the University of Iowa.

Woman next to botanical sculpture

SunYoung Park

SunYoung Park is a South Korean interdisciplinary artist exploring hybridity, memory, and cultural identity through ceramics and mixed media. Her sculptures merge clay with fabric, wood, and botanical elements, blurring boundaries between body and object. She is a 2026 Studio Mass MoCA Fellowship recipient, a Wassaic Project Fellowship recipient, and has also held residencies at the Interdisciplinary Ceramic Research Center, University of Kansas; Charlotte Street Foundation; and Clayarch Gimhae Museum. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Jingdezhen International Ceramic Biennale, the International Contemporary Ceramic Art Triennial in Andenne, Belgium, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Brunette woman with shoulder length hair

Joy Rhodes

Joy Rhodes is Professor and Department Chair of Fashion Merchandising and Design at JCCC. Prior to her career in higher education, she worked many years in the industry, as a merchandising manager for an apparel licensing company overseeing all aspects of product development from concept through to production and working for technology solution providers that developed software specifically for the fashion industry both on the retail and product development sides of the business. She earned her BA in Apparel Design and Production from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO and her MBA from Baker University in Baldwin City, KS. She also completed an extended semester program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

New Works on View in the Mezzanine!

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Il Lee, BL-076 , 2006, ballpoint pen on canvas, 72 x 48 in. Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, Acquired in part by gift of Jung Lee Sanders and Andrew Jonas Sanders and in part by purchase with funds provided by the Barton P. and Mary D. Cohen Art Acquisition Endowment at the JCCC Foundation

There are new works on view in the museum’s mezzanine now that the Shooting Stars High School Scholarship show has been de-installed.

Some of the works are old friends (Tomory Dodge’s Wasteland, for example) but others have never been on view before.

This drawing by Il Lee was recently added to the collection thanks to a generous donation. Learn more about Il’s work:

 

IL LEE – Artist – Biography – Art Projects International

Exhibition open! Amy Kligman’s Salon is a huge hit!

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It has been amazing to see how fast folks have taken to using The Salon for Possible Futures to meet and hang out! I have seen so many students, families and community members using the space, playing games, writing in the notebooks, having meetings.

A reminder that this exhibition is activated through extensive programming, and you are invited to attend any of the programs that will be hosted each month through December. We hope to see you at a movie or karaoke night or a workshop in the weeks and months ahead!

There are a couple programs on the calendar coming up (one is tomorrow!)

A Match Made in Heaven!

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Attendance is up, people are spreading the word about the exhibition and bringing their friends!  As we welcome more people to the museum, we are adding more resources and options for engagement.

Just this last 2 weeks we’ve hosted groups from local middle and high schools, homeschoolers, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, numerous JCCC classes and the JCCC student sustainability committee to name only the folks who attended guided tours (and in spite of the snow days!)

Middle school student fashion design, inspired by tour

We’re looking forward to announcing more activities and resources soon.

As was announced at the talk on Feb 6, there was a review in Vogue magazine here

And mark your calendar, if you are a fan of fashion and wish to support JCCC Fashion students, there is the annual student fashion show coming up Friday, April 18

 

We’re gearing up for a BIG exhibition!

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It’s been a hive of activity at the museum since we re-opened Jan 2. There have been hundreds of pedestals being built, floating shelves installed, giant paintings hung, mannequins assembled and dressed, and so much more (including a wall being moved from inside the gallery to out in the lobby). It is impossible to express in words just how packed with creativity this show is going to be! On our exhibition page

Don’t forget to mark your calendar for the opening talk Feb 6th: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott Artists Talk | Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

Perhaps, like me, you hadn’t heard of Jeremy Scott or Katherine Bernhardt before. Here is a brief bio page for them both to get started:

1-pager JS+KB

A documentary about Jeremy: Jeremy Scott: The People’s Designer – Wikipedia Jeremy Scott and Katie Perry at MET Gala (NY Times)

About the chandelier dress: Katie Perry Chandelier Dress (Vogue)

A recap (with images) of some of the most exciting designs Jeremy made during his tenure at Moschino: Jeremy Scott’s designs 2013-2023 (Business Insider)

Katherine’s gallery:

Katherine Bernhardt at David Zwirner Gallery

An interesting article about her home: Katherine Bernhardt’s amazing home (T-magazine)

A video of her discussing her work and process: Katherine Bernhardt (Apartmento Magazine)

Interview with Katherine in St. Louis Magazine: Both written and audio interview

More info and images to come!

 

Gabriel Mills: Aunechei

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Gabriel Mill’s exhibition at the Nerman Museum features large scale abstract works in the Oppenheimer New Media gallery, though they do not feature new media but one of the oldest media – oil paint. Read about Gabriel’s thoughts on how his work relates to the long history of painting in an interview:

SPOTLIGHT: GABRIEL MILLS | PLATFORM (platformart.com)

And more about his process here:

Gabriel Mills: TIDSOPTIMIST | Micki Meng (friendsindeed.art)

The museum is so excited not only to be hosting this exhibition but also to have a work by Mills in the permanent collection. We were able to pull Gabriel aside to discuss this work specifically, Thira. Listen here:

We also have bookmarks now available with an image of Thira to give to visitors!

 

Audio of Jason Andrew discussing Elizabeth Murray

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If you missed seeing Jason Andrew, manager and curator of the Estate of Elizabeth Murray, speak about her work here at the Nerman Museum Landing on March 23rd, here is an audio recording of the gallery talk (this was on Instagram Live, recorded in the galleries, so the audio is a little echo-y)!

And a transcript of the talk here: Jason Andrew discusses Elizabeth Murray (PDF)

Jason Andrew has lectured, curated, and published extensively on the work and life of Elizabeth Murray. Andrew is the Founding Partner at Artist Estate Studio, LLC, the entity that services the studios of artists and the estates of artists in the management, cataloguing, and promotion of their art and the stewardship of their legacies. Much of his work is the re-discovery of under-recognized artists and the contextualization of their work. He is the founder of the non-profit Norte Maar, now celebrating 20 years, and is the co-owner of the Ausable Theater.

Image credits:

Jason Andrew – Photo: @rosscollab

Artwork: Elizabeth Murray, Landing, 1999, Oil on canvas, 115 x 138″, Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Gift of JCCC Gallery Associates