"The more influenced I am the more original I get" 

- Edwin Dickenson -

 

The title for this exhibition, Site as Seen, is taken from the teachings of Edwin Dickenson, considered by many the first Modern American painter and one of the greatest painting teachers of his time. Dickenson considered the 'site' to be nature, as well as the history of art, and was adamant that his students did not allow preconceived notions of what gave that 'site' authority to influence their work. Instead, he asked his students to consider the motif as it was experienced in a phenomenological sense while still allowing academic research to form the core of ones acuity as an artist.

This summer, 13 KCAI students traveled to Florence, Italy to live and work for 5-weeks in one of the most influential cities in the history of Western Art. The students were immersed in a city rich with masterworks of painting, sculpture, the decorative arts, and architecture. The students were asked to respond to the rhetorical qualities of the artwork in the city: to examine the uses perspective and landscape; to analyze sculptural form; and to recognize visual theory and referential devices. In one morning, walking from the fresco cycle that began the Renaissance to Mannerist masterpieces that marked it end, the students were able to see how generations of lineage and innovation developed and flourished with in the city walls. Somewhere between Masaccio and Pontormo, the students gained insight into influence in order to formulate a singular, yet informed response.

The work in this exhibition, ranging from long-term academic drawings of sculptural form and interior cathedral lighting, architectural plans for facades that were never completed, video performance and costuming responding to archetype, site-specific responses to uses of trompe'loeil and perspective, the generation of optical framing devices, photographic interpretation of the city, the serial analysis of narrative tropes and the collection, uses of surrealism and intuition to the selfportrait, all displays the diversity inherent in a complex source. Juliana Lynn, currently a senior in the painting department, was awarded a Benjamin H. Gilman Award for international travel in order to participate in this program.

Associate Professor in Painting, Kansas City Art Institute
Program Head, KCAI at SACI: A 6-credit Collaborative Summer Program in Florence, Italy

STRETCH's works have been on display in private and corporate collections throughout the world. The sculptures vary in scale from small approachable pieces to environmentally dominating. The choice of materials STRETCH uses in his pieces - glass & steel - work against each other, causing tension while maintaining a high level of dialogue.

STRETCH is a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute. He completed his masters at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, VA. Both Dale Eldred and Jim Leedy mentored STRETCH into the growing Kansas City art scene. STRETCH has since worked with many renowned artists including Mark di Suvero and John Henry. STRETCH has worked with numerous artists on public commissions - for airports, college campuses, and city sculpture parks around the world. Presented with an Urban Hero Award, STRETCH plays a major role in the community. He served as vice president of KC's oldest non-profit artist coalition (KCAC), has been a board member for Review Magazine and the Crossroads Community Association and the Board of Directors for the Inter-national Sculpture Center and accepted a nomination to the TIF Commission of Kansas City.

In the last few years, STRETCH has completed a two-story computerized LED wall installation for Davis Brown Tower, Des Moines, IA, a large-scale sculpture commission for the H&R Block World Headquarters in Kansas City, as well as four sculptures for the Woodsweather Bridge. STRETCH has been building large-scale sculpture for more than twenty five years.