KANSAS CITY, MO, JANUARY 4, 2024: Charlotte Street is pleased to announce the first Crossroads Artboards for the 2024 season, featuring artwork by Hanna Oliver and Grace Suh. The newly installed Artboards, located on exterior double-sided billboards at 125 Southwest Blvd, will be on view until March 2024.
On the east-facing Artboards is Grace Suh’s My Kansas / My Korea which depicts the storefront sign of Joong-Ang, located in a Korean strip mall in Shawnee Mission. To the right is the Korean countryside, referencing the idyllic imagery of mountains and temples found in free calendars given away at Korean grocery stores. These stores, Suh reflects, “were the source of the foods and goods that reminded us of home, not only rice and kimchi and seaweed and sesame oil, but also the heavy blankets and extra-soft toothbrushes and scrubby washcloths that are now available everywhere but were found then only in Korea stores.” Both nostalgic and familiar, Suh’s work depicts the dual landscapes of Korea and Kansas in an homage to home.
Featured on the west-facing Artboards is artist Hanna Oliver and her work Gemini which depicts a pair of eyes overlooking the Crossroads. Oliver’s work references the feeling of always being watched as a queer, trans, and bi-racial human growing up in Overland Park. Whether providing a protective gaze or creating a sense of surveillance, Gemini is a reflection of Oliver’s love for movement, color, and vibrancy.
To schedule an interview or for other press inquiries, contact Hope-Lian Vinson, Charlotte Street Marketing + Communications Manager, at [email protected].
ABOUT HANNA OLIVER
Hanna Oliver is an artist located in Kansas City. She gets inspiration from traveling, people, rock climbers, pets, and the outdoors. From multiple sources and life experiences she melds a unique voice and style brought forth through various mediums. Themes of queerness, other worlds, solitude, storytelling, nature, and everyday life run throughout her work.
ABOUT GRACE SUH
Grace Suh was born in Korea and lives in Kansas. She learned English in the ESL program of the Chicago public school system, studied literature at Barnard College, worked at Oxford University Press and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, styled Dwayne Johnson for People, interviewed Nam June Paik for Koream, and was a contestant on Jeopardy. Her work has received awards from the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Djerassi Resident Artists, Hedgebrook Writers in Residence, National Endowment for the Arts USC Arts Journalism Fellowship and the Charlotte Street Rocket Grants program.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street centers Kansas City’s most forward-thinking visual artists, writers, and performers—acting as the primary incubator, provocateur, and connector for the region’s contemporary arts community, and its leading advocate on the national stage. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $2 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects, and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.
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View the Press Release as a PDF here.
