Sweeping the Chimney through the Mantle of the Earth

Sweeping the Chimney through the Mantle of the Earth features nine North American artists working in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and video. Redefining their own interiors and exterior parameters, the artists in this exhibition examine the physiological extensions between the body and the Earth through the lens of social and environmental unrest.

Adapting geological nomenclature and languages similar to the era of Romanticism, these artists address livelihood as an emotional abstraction and an action necessary for survival. The works depict fleeting materiality of the natural, supernatural and spiritual world, boldly using the landscape as the subject and the medium. Uprooting their generational histories and lived experiences, the nine artists featured in this exhibition use material of labor, landscape, and shelter as a means to navigate shifting geographical and environmental milieus. Dropping a pin on the inhabitants, the selected artists in this exhibition all currently live and work in the North American Central Time Zone region. Collectively sharing space in Kansas City, MO, the works in this exhibition decipher new interpretations and recordings of nature and naturalistic observation. Similar to the philosophies of the Romanticism movement, the human being operating as an extension of nature remains an intersubjective principle in Sweeping the Chimney through the Mantle of the Earth. Relational to the changing world around them, the artists in this exhibition use this principle to blur the boundaries between entropy and empathy.

Featuring: Pia Bakala (Kansas City, MO), Kevin Demery (Kansas City, MO), Juan Molina Hernández (Chicago, IL), Jada Patterson (Kansas City, MO), Ximena Prieto (Ciudad de México), Donald Pruitt (Kansas City, MO), Jose Villalobos (San Antonio, TX), Fred Vorder-Bruegge (Kansas City, MO), Rachel Youn (St. Louis, MO) Curated by Charlotte Street Studio Resident Andrew Ordonez

Programming