SHERRY LEEDY CONTEMPORARY ART | 2004 Baltimore Ave. Kansas City, MO 64108 816.221.2626 www.sherryleedy.com
MICHIKO ITATANI
Michiko Itatani often describes her painting process in terms of writing, composing each phrase, paragraph, and chapter. Over the course of her career she has become a painter who writes paintings and a writer who paints novels. She has been called a world traveler informed by her experiences in transit. Originally from Japan, Itatani now calls Chicago home and has been a professor of painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1979. She has received many prestigious awards including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship among many others. Her work is held in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; American Embassy Permanent Collection, Brasilia, Brazil; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea, Museum D’art Contemporani, Barcelona, Spain and numerous others.
Michiko Itatani, “Starry Night” painting from Encounter 16-B-05, 78” x 96”, oil on canvas
10’ 6” 19’ 11 1/2”
“Cosmic Wanderlust” painting from Cosmic Theater CWC-6, 96” x 78”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, “Cosmic Wanderlust” painting from Cosmic Theater CWC-7, 96” x 78”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, “Cosmic Wanderlust” painting from Cosmic Theater CWC-8, 96” x 78”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani,“Cosmic Wanderlust” painting from Encounter 16-B-8, 78” x 96”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, “Untitled” painting from Cosmic Theater CT-3, 84” x 96”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, Delayed Response, painting from Cosmic Theater CT-2, 96� x 78�, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, Redon’s Garden, painting from Moon-light/Mooring MM-5, 78” x 84”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, Untitled, painting from Hybrid Vibration HV-2, 78” x 112” x 4”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, Untitled painting from Radiant Triage RT-2, 84� x 72�, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, Untitled, painting from Fragments of Change, 98” x 160” x 4”, oil on canvas
Michiko Itatani, “Untitled” painting from Viable Elevation V-4, 78” x 96” x 4”, oil on canvas
JANE BOOTH
Jane Booth lives and paints far from the city in rural Kansas. Inside her light-filled studio, vistas of landscape and weather fill every window. For Jane Booth, this place grounds and nurtures her and makes possible the freedom she expresses in her paintings of color, atmosphere, line and form. Booth’s paintings begin as a physical endeavor. Huge swaths of raw canvas are rolled out on the floor and saturated with poured color until canvas and paint are bonded as one. The resulting paintings seem a part of nature, becoming atmosphere, environment and stage holding memories of land and light. Beautiful and honest, Jane Booth’s paintings reveal wide-open spaces of strength, openness and vulnerability. Ultimately, they disclose the artist’s vision of the continuity and richness of life and express the poetry of creativity, intellect and passion. Jane Booth’s paintings are in more than 300 private collections and numerous museum and corporate collec¬tions including the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum, Polsinelli Shughart PC, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Emprise Bank, Cisco Systems, H&R Block World Headquarters, Hilton Hotels, and Kansas University Heart Hospital.
Jane Booth, Blue Beyond, 56” x 124”, acrylic on canvas
Jane Booth, Fish Flora Fowl, 53” x 132”, acrylic on canvas
Jane Booth, Libretto, 55” x 127”, acrylic on canvas
LARRY SCHWARM
Larry Schwarm’s photographs are a continuation of what has become his life’s passion: documenting fire on the landscape of the Kansas Flint Hills. An essential element in the prairie ecosystem, fire benefits the land by destroying invasive plants and trees and encouraging new growth. Historically, prairie fires began as a natural phenomenon, which provided an essential element in the ecosystem. Not content to let nature take its course, though, this burning has evolved into human-controlled annual events. As the artist himself states, “The metaphor is obvious - without destruction there is no rebirth; for every act there is an opposing one.“ Recognized for his excellence, Larry Schwarm’s photographs were chosen from over 500 submissions to be the inaugural winner of the Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography. The resulting book On Fire has brought critical acclaim to this important body of work. Larry Schwarm’s photographs have been exhibited widely across the United States. His work is in the collections of the American Art Museum. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC ; Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, Kansas; Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Library of Congress, Washington, DC ; LACMA (Los Angeles Museum of Art) ; Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Mulvane Art Museum, Topeka, Kansas; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (Hallmark Collection); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Oklahoma University Art Museum, Norman, Oklahoma; SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) ; Sheldon Art Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas; Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas
Larry Schwarm, Fire and Moon, along Bloody Creek Road, Chase County, 48” x 48” , photography.
Larry Schwarm, Smoke and Clouds north of Bazaar, Kansas, 48” x 48”, Photography.
Larry Schwarm, Fire near Cassoday, Kansas, 48” x 48”, photography.
Larry Schwarm, Fire and Pond, Chase County, 48” x 48”, photography.
JEFF AELING
The paintings of Jeff Aeling tell the experience of being on the land, the power of nature and the beauty of light. They reveal to us a deep connection to the vastness of the landscape of our country. Informed by the history of art and science, Aeling looks at the mutual embrace of land and sky as a twenty-first century observer. He shows us the specific qualities of a particular day and season, the temperature cool and the atmosphere clear or warm and humid, winds blustery or still, as he searches for the essence of what is universal. Wide-open spaces have always been an essential part of our national identity and Jeff Aeling’s landscape paintings serve as a contemporary metaphor for the expansiveness and openness of America itself. Aeling’s paintings anticipate memory and capture the transitory and eternal as one. The paintings of Jeff Aeling are held in numerous museum and corporate collections including The Beach Museum, Manhattan, Kansas; The Denver Art Museum, Colorado; The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri; The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and Sprint World Headquarters, Overland Park, Kansas; Exeter Oil Corporation, Denver, Colorado; and DST Systems, Kansas City. Missouri.
Jeff Aeling, Sunset East of Dodge City KS, 56.5” x 80.5”, oil on canvas
Jeff Aeling, Cloud to Cloud Lightening, 57” x 81.5”, oil on canvas
Jeff Aeling, Thunderstorm at Sundown, 57”x 81.5”, oil on canvas
Jeff Aeling, Afternoon Cumulus, 25”x 33”, oil on canvas
Jeff Aeling, South of Denver, 34”x 48”, oil on canvas
KIEL JOHNSON
Kiel Johnson’s drawings and sculptures tell tales; layered narratives speak of his travels and adventures through everyday life. His works become a springboard for metaphorical investigations of the world he inhabits. Although both factual fictions and absurd scenarios, they are ultimately testaments to observation that force us to question the concrete and truthful. What at first might appear safe and secure will be, upon further inspection, very precarious. Johnson (b. 1975, Missouri) received his MFA at California State University, Long Beach (CA). He has received prestigious awards and honors including the Pollock-Krasner Grant, Durfee Foundation ARC Grant, and the CSULB Outstanding Creative Achievement Award. He has had solo exhibitions at the Taubman Museum of Art (VA), Irvine Art Center (CA), and the Creative Artists Agency (CA), in addition to group inclusion at the McNay Museum (TX), Torrance Art Museum (CA), Huntington Beach Art Center (CA), and the University Art Museum, Long Beach (CA). His work appears in several important public and private collections including the Creative Artist Agency (CA), Tubert International (CA), Steve Martin Collection (NY), Todd Oldham (NY), and Sprint World Headquarters (MO). Johnson currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Kiel Johnson, Everything Drawings, graphite and watercolor on paper, various sizes
Kiel Johnson, Everything Drawings, graphite on paper, various sizes
ANNE PEARCE
“Throughout my travels I happily accepted that the only sense of pattern, schedule, or habit that I needed in order to provide me a sense of place, balance and self was the process of making work. This truth allowed me to readily breathe in the new, bright, and unknown.” - Anne Austin Pearce Anne Austin Pearce has always used her life experiences as a guide to understand herself and the world around her. A thoughtful, deliberate observer and exuberant participant, Pearce has absolute trust in the process of drawing and painting to translate and transform her interactions into pure visual language. When Pearce began a 15-month sabbatical from teaching at Rockhurst University, in May of 2013, she left behind her sense of place, routine, and comfort. This is How I Feel When I Think About You explores her participation in artist residencies in Wyoming, Mexico and Mauritius where Pearce created three distinct but interrelated series, each related to specic geography and the journey as a whole. Shaped by the unfamiliarity of place, Pearce reinvented her art practice as each step of her voyage revealed new ways in which our internal senses impact our experience of the natural world. Pearce received a BFA with an emphasis in printmaking from the University of Kansas in 1990 before continuing her graduate studies at James Madison University where she received her MFA. Pearce has exhibited nationally including at the Miami Dade College’s Museum of Art + Design, Miami, FL; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; Corcoran School of Art and Design, Washington D.C.; the Drawing Center, New York City. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the Spencer Museum of Art.
Anne Pearce, Wyoming Rock Series, acrylic, ink and pencil on paper, 30” x 22” each
Anne Pearce, Loosened #1, 12.5� x 76
6�, ink, acrylic/ black gesso on paper
SHERRY LEEDY CONTEMPORARY ART | 2004 Baltimore Ave. Kansas City, MO 64108 816.221.2626 | www.sherryleedy.com