Friday, June 19th to Saturday, August 8th, 2009
Paragraph | 23 East 12th | KCMO 64105 | 816.221.5115
Opening reception: Friday, June 19, 6-9pm
Artist talk: June 19, 6 pm
The exhibition runs June 19-August 8, 2009
Hours: Thursdays + Saturdays, 12-5pm
Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project is pleased to present Information is Incidental, a two-person exhibition by Kansas City-based artist Emily Sall and Austin, Texas-based artist Rebecca Ward, opening at Paragraph gallery on Friday, June 20, 6-9pm. The artists will deliver a gallery talk at 6 pm that evening, free and open to the public.
The exhibition centers around these two artists’ ideas about space, in terms of responding to the architectures of existing spaces as well as creating new spaces within these architectures or within the confines of flat surfaces. In exploring these interests, the two artists share a high-key color palette, the use of crisp, graphic line, and a cumulative process, whereby forms are constructed or suggested through repetition and layering of lines. The exhibition will feature a series of new paintings by Sall, installation-based work by Ward, and a new collaborative installation developed by the artists (who have never met) on site. CSF Associate Director Kate Hackman invited Sall and Ward to exhibit together based on perceived affinities in their work following a studio visit with Ward in Austin in summer 2008 while planning UCP’s prior exchange/collaboration with Austin’s Okay Mountain.
Emily Sall’s work in this exhibition is inspired by our ever-changing architectural landscape and her interest in the qualities and processes of morphing, overlapping, merging, and adapting. Known in Kansas City for cut vinyl wall pieces as well as drawings and paintings on paper, canvas, and of installation-scale executed directly on walls, Sall’s work exemplifies an interest using line and color to build form, define space, and evoke motion.
Rebecca Ward is known for site-specific works constructed of vividly colored tape, typically duct tape, which is dependent upon the space they occupy. Utilizing existing lines, beams, and angles, each piece she creates is informed by the individual site and its unique linear movement, with patterns and shapes chosen according to detailed measurements of the installation site. Stunning in terms of color, formal qualities, and the physical and perceptual spaces they create within other spaces, Ward’s installation has also included video as a means of further animating the installations and enhancing a sense of illusionary space.
For photos of the event, check out our flickr.
About the artists:
Emily Sall is a 2005 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at venues including Dolphin gallery, Leedy Voulkos Art Center, Jan Weiner Gallery, Monarch Gallery, Grand Arts, and the H&R Block Artspace, and in publications including The Kansas City Star, The Pitch, and Review Magazine. Last year, her work traveled to fakespace in Los Angeles. Sall was a 2005 Urban Culture Project Studio Resident and earned a Charlotte Street Award in 2007. She was recently commissioned by Missouri Bank to create two images to be displayed on its outdoor “Artboards” in the Crossroads, which will be on public view June – September 2009.
Rebecca Ward received her BA in Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006. She has presented solo exhibitions at First Night Austin; Finesilver Gallery, Houston; and Lawndale Art Center, Houston; and has been featured in group exhibitions at venues including Mini Dutch Gallery, Chicago; Domy Books, Houston; Box 13 Artspace, Houston; Austin Museum of Art (in New Art in Austin: 20 to Watch); Art Palace, Austin; and Arthouse, Austin (in New American Talent 21). Publications that have featured her work include De:Bug, FRAME Magazine, Grafik Magazine, Design Boom, San Antonio Current, Austin Chronicle, and …might be good.
