SWEET AND STRANGE CREATURES OCCUPY
SURREAL WORLD IN ELISSA ARMSTRONGS CERAMIC WORKS
Elissa Armstrong:
Objects of Innocence and Experience
July 7-October 1, 2006
public reception 5:307:30 p.m., Friday, July 7, with an artist discussion 6:307:00 p.m.
Kemper Museum of
Contemporary Art
4420 Warwick Blvd.
Kansas City, Missouri 64111
Tel 816-753-5784 Fax 816-753-5806
Open Tues.Thurs. 104,
Fri.Sat.109, Sun. 115
Free admission and parking
Ranging from highly prized Wedgwood vases and porcelain figurines to Hummel collectibles and kitschy souvenirs, the history of the decorative ceramic object is varied and complex, and includes both fine arts and hobby craft. In her latest body of work, Elissa Armstrong, an artist based in Lawrence, Kansas, comments on this complicated history by creating forms that occupy an aesthetic limbo, where traditional practices and conventional ideals in ceramics are both celebrated and subverted, and recognizable figures are transformed into hybrid, mysterious beings.
The public is invited to contemplate Armstrongs creative manipulations of the decorative object at the artists first solo museum exhibition, Elissa Armstrong: Objects of Innocence and Experience, on view July 7October 1, 2006 at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition opens with a free, public reception 5:307:30 p.m., Friday, July 7, with an artist discussion 6:307:00 p.m. Museum admission and parking are free, and seating is first come, first served.
Armstrong is a visiting artist at the Kemper Museum.
Like the prose in Songs of Innocence and Experience, a collection of poetry by William Blake, the exhibition Objects of Innocence and Experience includes nearly ten works that exist in a state of duality reflecting childhood simplicity as well as adult experience. Using commercial hobby molds and found objectssources that clash with the hand-cast individuality and authenticity of traditional ceramic works Armstrong creates seemingly innocent animal figures reminiscent of Beatrix Potter. She then purposefully overwhelms and caricatures these figures with layers of thick, garish, colorful glazes, hand-molded appendages and an array of materials not associated with conventional ceramics, such as felt, glitter, and decalsdecorations that give the figures a Baroque-like excessiveness and a grotesque glamour. The result is a collection of creatures who have morphed from their cute, kitschy idealizations into surreal beings that have escaped the prescribed conventions of the ceramic object to live in a modern world of perpetual transition. Looking at them evokes questions about their evolution: Are they becoming or unbecoming?
Armstrongs more abstract sculptural forms also address this endless state of transition. Lacking recognizable forms and features, these non-traditional objects speak to the humble beginnings of one of her more defined, mythical creatures, or perhaps their final, mature end after being stripped of frivolous and unnecessary accessories over time.
Occupying a place where reality and fantasy coexist, Armstrongs works display a postmodern awareness of the past and a contemporary irreverence toward what are deemed to be the appropriate materials, techniques, and subjects for ceramic art, Elizabeth Dunbar, curator at the Kemper Museum, writes in an accompanying essay. The free-form abstraction of plaster, the gaudiness of glitter, and the sentimentality of childhood figurines all combine to push the boundaries of ceramics to their limits, and ultimately, transcend them.
About the Kemper Museum
Kansas Citys acclaimed, free contemporary art museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 and draws more than 130,000 visitors each year. The Museum boasts a rapidly growing permanent collection of modern and contemporary works of artists from around the world. The Museum hosts temporary exhibitions, installations, performance work, film and video series, lectures, concerts, childrens workshops, and other creative programs designed to both entertain and challenge. For more information, visit www.kemperart.org.
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art is open 10:00 a.m.4:00 p.m., TuesdayThursday; 10:00 a.m.9:00 p.m., FridaySaturday; and 11:00 a.m.5:00 p.m., Sunday. The galleries at Kemper East (200 E. 44th Street) are open 10:00 a.m.4:00 p.m., TuesdayFriday. The Museums popular Café Sebastienne serves lunch 11:00 a.m.2:30 p.m., TuesdaySaturday; dinner 5:309:30 p.m., FridaySaturday; and brunch 11:00 a.m.2:30 p.m., Sunday. The Museum and Café are closed on Mondays.
For more information or digital images for reproduction, contact:
Margaret Keough at 816-457-6132 or margaret@kemperart.org
or Becca Ramspott (Tues.Thurs.) at 816-457-6140 or bramspott@kemperart.org
