Grant Miller
October 9 - November 6, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, October 9, 6pm-8pm
The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Kansas City based artist Grant Miller. We live in a blitz of information and of overexposure: two-dimensions are replaced by three-dimensions, and absence appears larger than presence. For the past few years, Grant Miller’s aluminum and panel paintings have been engaged in a continuing dialogue with the structures and architecture of our advancing and increasingly transparent technological world. The dichotomy of Miller’s hard, slick-edged structures and his lush areas of liquid residue emphasize the battle between the organic and the artificial. Miller builds up layers through a combination of accumulation, which act as mimicry on the current theme of technology and information. In these new, large-scale paintings, Miller continues his complex abstract language. Applied to the panel is an infinite overlay and energetic fields of frames, armatures and architectural structures seen from multiple perspectives that provide varying entry points. The work specifically molds and shapes this architecture and uses it as the basis for invented constructions existing in the space between the abstract and the representational. Drips and large gestures of paint play a more prominent role in this new body of work, flattening space in some areas while on another plane create depth and confusion as the eye works through many linear obstacles. By employing a multiple-perspective technique, Miller restrains the viewer with a network of diagonal lines creating a pervasive energy that can be read as both virtual and actual spaces. The physical process of layering is used to echo the development of information and functions as a stage for visual saturation and the implication of excessiveness.
This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.
Grant Miller is a graduate of the Washington University, St. Louis, MO with MFA in Printmaking and Drawing (2003). He studied Printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO. In 2007 Miller’s work has been included in “More is More: Maximalist Tendencies in Painting” – group exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL and in New American Paintings, Book #71, 2007 Midwest Edition. He has been awarded residencies in Millay Colony of the Arts in Austerlitz, NY and Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France.
syllabus:video series
Qian Li
October 9 - November 6, 2009
"The video titled Epilogue is the life story of two humanized dots discovering love and hardship within today's society. The piece intends to evoke personal memories that are emotionally tied to the viewer's own experiences. The visuals are strongly influenced by traditional Chinese painting. The rising and falling life of the dots is synchronized with the music, with the intent they empower one another." -Qian Li
Qian Li was born and raised in China, where she was educated at The Central Academy of Arts and Design (now the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University) in Bejing, China. She earned her MFA in 2003 at UMass Dartmouth. Her video work was recently shown at MOCA Cleveland, Boston Cyber Art Festival, 12th International Video Festival Videomedeja in Serbia; Transhift08 in Tennessee; SIGGRAPH; "Kinetic Image" in Virginia; International Video Festival in Indonesia; and Electronic Language International Festival's in Brazil.
Asma Kazmi
November 13 - December 18, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, November 13, 6pm-8pm
The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by local artist Asma Kazmi.
A performance artist and sculptor, she is not limited to any one media but maintains an approach of building an unrestrained community of objects, images, and bodies, all in a dialogue with each other. During a recent cultural research trip to New Delhi, India, Kazmi documented the inventions and contraptions that allow the handicapped and homeless people of city to walk, move or navigate for themselves. Kazmi was taken with the heroics, resourcefulness and creativity of these amazing people in their plight for self-reliance. Through a series of large photographs, each device is observed and photographed as a singular object, and set in the studio as if props for a family portrait, these inventions for mobility have a sentimental, yet isolated sculptural presence. Through separation from its owner/creator, the photographs provide the viewer a close examination and to imagine their utility. In addition, Kazmi continues her theme about the questions of one’s condition and “how they surface through exposure to perceptual and situational irregularities.” This personal understanding is an outcome of a work that creates room for the association of ideas and for the possibility of alternative interpretations. In the video, Kazmi is in conversation with the owner’s of these strangely beautiful apparatus. One sees only the talking head of her collaborators as they tell their story through a very animated and emotional dialogue. This approach continues on the subject of communication and what she hopes: “has the ability to generate an esthetic of socially shared meaning through open-ended and complex interactions among people.”
Asma Kazmi
November 13 - December 18, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, November 13, 6pm-8pm
The Hunt Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by local artist Asma Kazmi.
A performance artist and sculptor, she is not limited to any one media but maintains an approach of building an unrestrained community of objects, images, and bodies, all in a dialogue with each other. During a recent cultural research trip to New Delhi, India, Kazmi documented the inventions and contraptions that allow the handicapped and homeless people of city to walk, move or navigate for themselves. Kazmi was taken with the heroics, resourcefulness and creativity of these amazing people in their plight for self-reliance. Through a series of large photographs, each device is observed and photographed as a singular object, and set in the studio as if props for a family portrait, these inventions for mobility have a sentimental, yet isolated sculptural presence. Through separation from its owner/creator, the photographs provide the viewer a close examination and to imagine their utility. In addition, Kazmi continues her theme about the questions of one’s condition and “how they surface through exposure to perceptual and situational irregularities.” This personal understanding is an outcome of a work that creates room for the association of ideas and for the possibility of alternative interpretations. In the video, Kazmi is in conversation with the owner’s of these strangely beautiful apparatus. One sees only the talking head of her collaborators as they tell their story through a very animated and emotional dialogue. This approach continues on the subject of communication and what she hopes: “has the ability to generate an esthetic of socially shared meaning through open-ended and complex interactions among people.”
This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.
Kazmi received a B.F.A. from the Massachusetts College of Art and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In May 2007, she received the At the Edge: Innovative Art in Chicago Award. She has performed and exhibited in St. Louis, Boston, New York, Chicago and Puerto Rico and will be included in a forthcoming exhibition in Brussels, Belgium. She has been a part of the Boston Underground Film Festival, Balagan Film and Video Series, Women in Film and Video/New England. Asma Kazmi was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan.
Drawn from the Webster Collection
January 15 - 29, 2010
Resound
February 5 - March 5, 2010
Curated by Dana Turkovic and Adam Watkins
Bring Me A Lion:
An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art
March 19 - April 16, 2010
Curated by Jeffrey Hughes and Dana Turkovic
The competing forces of tradition and modernity, indigence and diasporas, village economies and international capitalism are primary discourses in contemporary Indian culture. Bring me a Lion seeks to investigate some of these multiple dualities mirrored in the recent art of India. The emblem of the Republic of India is based on Ashoka’s Lion Capital (c. 250 BCE), presently in the Sarnath Museum. Placed atop a pillar to commemorate the Buddha’s first sermon, the capital displays four apposing majestic Asiatic Lions. The lions signify the great Emperor Ashoka and also Gautama, the lion of the Sakya clan - a combining of militarist might and the Buddha’s peaceful message of the Middle Way. Stories of both the grandeur and foibles of lions appear repeatedly in the Hitopadesha and other Sanskritic texts. The powerful Narasimha, the half-man/half-lion avatara of Vishnu, symbolizes the dual nature of times, places and the omnipresence of the sacred. The lion is therefore a fitting metaphor for the many sides of contemporary Indian art and culture. JH
Drawn from the Webster Collection
January 15 - 29, 2010
Resound
February 5 - March 5, 2010
Curated by Dana Turkovic and Adam Watkins
Bring Me A Lion:
An Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art
March 19 - April 16, 2010
Curated by Jeffrey Hughes and Dana Turkovic
The competing forces of tradition and modernity, indigence and diasporas, village economies and international capitalism are primary discourses in contemporary Indian culture. Bring me a Lion seeks to investigate some of these multiple dualities mirrored in the recent art of India. The emblem of the Republic of India is based on Ashoka’s Lion Capital (c. 250 BCE), presently in the Sarnath Museum. Placed atop a pillar to commemorate the Buddha’s first sermon, the capital displays four apposing majestic Asiatic Lions. The lions signify the great Emperor Ashoka and also Gautama, the lion of the Sakya clan - a combining of militarist might and the Buddha’s peaceful message of the Middle Way. Stories of both the grandeur and foibles of lions appear repeatedly in the Hitopadesha and other Sanskritic texts. The powerful Narasimha, the half-man/half-lion avatara of Vishnu, symbolizes the dual nature of times, places and the omnipresence of the sacred. The lion is therefore a fitting metaphor for the many sides of contemporary Indian art and culture. JH
This exhibition made possible by generous support of the Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.
