Salina Art Center

Artist Exchange and Luis Gispert: Smother

September 4–October 4, 2009
Artist Exchange Opening Reception
Thursday, September 3, 5:00-7:00 pm
Remarks by participating artists at 5:30 pm

SALINA, KANSAS—The Salina Art Center announces the opening of two exhibitions, Artist Exchange and Luis Gispert:  Smother, on view in the galleries from September 4–October 4, 2009. 

Artist Exchange

In working toward its mission to create exchanges among art, artists and audiences that reveal life, the Salina Art Center relies upon creative partnerships with artists who serve their communities as progressive thinkers, leaders, and agents of culture and positive change. The Artist Exchange, initiated in 2006, is one such partnership. Each year, six Kansas artists—working independently or collaboratively in their studios—meet regularly for eight to ten months to share ideas, develop formal skills, and to support each other’s artistic practices. This rigorous interaction culminates in an exhibition at the Salina Art Center, featuring the work produced during this period. Artists participating in this year’s program include Marc Berghaus (Meade), Andrea Fuhrman (Abilene), Brady Hatter (Wichita), Amy Payne (Salina), Barbara Waterman-Peters (Topeka), and Sandy Wedel (Salina).
ABOUT THE 2008-09 ARTIST EXCHANGE PARTICIPANTS

•Marc Berghaus is a sculptor, photographer, and sound artist living in Meade.  His artwork deals with issues of chance, spirituality, nature, and human perception.  He considers each of his works a visual essay on a topic of personal and collective interest.

•Brady Hatter graduated from Wichita State University in May 2009 with a BFA in sculpture.  He seeks to engage the senses through dynamic combinations of organic material and mechanical elements that create a new, alternate biology for natural objects.

•Sandy Wedel is a Salina printmaker, painter, and multimedia installation artist.  Her recent work has focused on investigating digital techniques that reflect the aesthetic qualities of traditional printmaking.

•Amy Payne of Salina is a painter whose abiding interest in textural effects has resulted in a desire to return to the exploration of tactile expression through sculpture.  She frequently introduces subtle contradictions in her abstract works depicting nature and the human form.

•Barbara Waterman-Peters is a Topeka-based painter whose work over the past fifteen years has been strongly influenced by her exploration of the ambiguous nature of women’s roles, environments, and relationships in contemporary society.

•Andrea Fuhrman of Abilene is interested in creating new work that integrates photography and collage.  She is currently experimenting with images of passing trains, documenting the ephemeral abstractions of graffiti art and decay.

Artist Exchange is made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and the R.C. Kemper Charitable Trust, UMB Bank, n.a., Corporate Trustee.

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Luis Gispert:  Smother

Ambulating between the real and the surreal, multi-media artist Luis Gispert’s film Smother (2006–07) follows an 11-year-old boy’s sojourn through an intimidating, and at times violent, adult world in an effort to overcome the adolescent bonds that bind him to mother and home. Within this fractured dreamscape, the artist intertwines autobiographical narratives with an ongoing exploration of the aesthetic and social codes of urban/street culture, links between desire and artifice, and the ambiguous socioeconomic power structures that frame contemporary human condition through a lens of fear, aggression, and domination.
Cocktail Conversations:  Smother
Thursdays, September 10–October 1, 5:30–6:30 pm

Join us on Thursday evenings for lively conversation
about Luis Gispert’s film led by Salina Art Center
docents and staff.

Born in 1972 in Jersey City, NJ, and raised in Miami, FL, Luis Gispert currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. He received his MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT, and his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL. Gispert’s work has been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions, including shows at Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, CA; PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City; and the Salina Art Center in 2007, in the exhibition Situation Comedy: Humor in Recent Art.
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For more information regarding Artist Exchange or Luis Gispert: Smother visit http://www.salinaartcenter.org ( http://www.salinaartcenter.org/ ), or call the Salina Art Center at 785.827.1431.  Gallery hours are from noon–5:00 pm, Wednesday through Saturday, and from 1:00–5:00 pm, Sunday.  Business offices are open from 9:00 am–5:00 pm Monday through Friday.  Admission to the galleries, Opening Reception and Cocktail Conversations:  Smother is FREE and all are open to the public.