Artist Profile
Maria Ogedengbe
Artboards (2015)
Statement of Work
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Works produced through my studio are hybrid and varied. From canvas to rope, to the netting of cord with beads, to fashion a shekere… textiles often serve as material and theme in my work. I seek to engage a wide audience, and to that end several recent projects have been situated along public thoroughfares outdoors.
Fancy This, 2017 - Idea of presenting a painted "canvas" in an outdoor context & stirring up fanciful daydreams about voyages on the nearby Missouri River, on view in City Market Park of Kansas City, along the street car line from May-October. Created for the City of Kansas City, Missouri & Art in the Loop Foundation Cue! program.
Missouri GOURDen garden house, 2017 - Built for the Missouri GOURDen community arts & gardening project. Project goals include offering recreation and a shared project (raising gourds & fashioning them into instruments) for Kansas City, Missouri neighbors from a range of socio-economic backgrounds. 3 pairs of trellis walls are interspersed between 3 doorways to create an open, welcoming meeting place - a shady refuge in summer. The garden house, encircled by the garden, is situated adjacent to Troost Avenue, seen as a dividing line between neighborhoods that differ by race/class in Kansas City. This was funded in part through a grant from ArtsKC.
Fancy Buoy, 2017 - Eyes, resembling fish, recall eyes on sails of ancient Greek ships. Sail tethered to limit movement, let down during bad weather/high winds & stowed in a sail cover I sewed. This was located in the Olathe Downtown Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, through spring 2018. It is sited at edge of Calamity Line Park in view of a busy road.
Sis !, 2016 - Strap fastened to back of the swing seat served as an invitation to pull the figure & make her swing. It is displayed beneath a great oak in the Roeland Park (Kansas) Community Center courtyard in July & August 2016.
Painting Contest: MO real, 2015 - Relates an ancient story recorded by Pliny the Elder of a contest between painters: a painting of grapes was so real-looking it fooled birds, but a painting of a curtain fooled the other artist when he reached to pull it back - thinking the painted image was behind. It was commissioned by Missouri Bank through the Charlotte Street Foundation; displayed in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District Sept. – Nov. 2015.