About This Exhibition
Wichita-based artist Kathleen Shanahan explores “all the gritty relationships possible” in her mix media canvases—both in the shrewd and slippery visual links she creates and in her investigation of sensory contrasts. Now and Then: From the Studio of Kathleen Shanahan reunites early examples of her art with recent projects, inviting viewers to chart the “gritty relationships” in her work. A Jack-in-the-pulpit flower’s slender stem and undulating bloom; a water bird’s S-curve neck and scissors-shaped head; a dog’s corkscrew tail; a child’s bouncy curls—these are a handful of the many images she rhymes, layers, and splices together.
Like a planful gardener, sowing excess seeds then thinning seedlings to promote healthy growth, she often tests compositions with constructed paper collages, repositioning elements then paring down. Other times, she plants one visual component on a canvas and responds with abstract mark-making, as if the object is a wild garden grounded by a mature tree. Buzzing through Now and Then like pollinators are found objects—from McCall’s sewing pattern pieces to neckties. Some of the pre-fabricated items perch carefully on surfaces, while others she traps in thick paint or deposits of mixed media. Her pairings of images and references—whether painted, drawn, or affixed—alongside her poetic titles offer playful, sometimes biting, possibilities. This exhibition brings decades of Shanahan’s practice together and invites you to—imaginatively—feel the surfaces, peel back the layers, and make new gritty relationships among her images.
WAM’s Naftzger Family Regional Creatives exhibition series is dedicated to exhibiting art by local artists. This program is a partnership with Harvester Arts, a local nonprofit art organization fostering opportunities for Wichita creatives. Their core values of experimentation, capacity building, and community engagement are a framework for this partnership, which includes this exhibition space and programming with local creatives, including performances, talks, and pop-up experiences.
Artist Statement:
Kathleen Shanahan…