Current Exhibitions

On view August 26 - October 16, 2020

DSLR Photography Level 5 Showcase

Level 5 Photography Students | 3rd Floor Gallery

This exhibit features work from 18 CityArts advanced photography students. Subject matter ranges from landscape to night photography to portraits and more!

On view September 4 - October 16, 2020

Oliver

Jacob Gasho | Boardroom Gallery

I create abstract paintings that focus on color and ambiguous form to express the process of my own human experience. I never start with a plan of how to do this. At most there’s an urge for a color, but most of the time I just begin painting. I figure out what’s supposed to happen as I’m doing it. I try to not only visually do this but be attentive to how the work is affecting me holistically. When there’s enough information to allow an exploration I know I’m close to being done.

Click to view Jacob's work and shop the exhibit online!

On view September 4 - October 16, 2020

Everyday Reflections

Jeffery Burton | Main Hallway Gallery

Jeffery approaches photography with a mindfulness of unconventionality using the concepts contrast, sharpness, and uniqueness. Jeffery prefers the captivating subject matter of portrait photography but always strives to reproduce the originality of his unique perspective. “Everyday Reflections” is a collection Jeffery’s daily inspirations as he see the world in his eyes.

Jeffery Burton was born on October 29th, 1974 in Wichita, KS at Wesley Hospital. At 13 Jeffery was involved in a serious car accident where he received a traumatic brain injury. Due to the traumatic brain injury Jeffery has lived with intellectual difficulties ever since the accident. At the age of 15 Jeffery went to Northeast Magnet high school and studied photography under Dale Strattman for two years. Jeffery learned 35mm techniques and learned dark room development. After high school Jeffery stopped practicing photography due to a lack of access to resources and facilities. 13 years ago Jeffery bought a point and shoot camera at Walmart and started to practice photography as a hobby. Jeffery built his portfolio for two years and lost interest in his hobby due to severe depression. Jeffery currently uses a digital SLR camera and practices photography as a form of self-expression that helps him to overcome his symptoms.

Click to view Jeffery's work and shop the exhibit online!

On view August 20 - October 16, 2020

Everyday Life In Quarantine: Photographs and Reflections

Cody Flory Robertson | Balcony Gallery

My intention with making art is to practice being in the present moment, fully and completely. It is giving my attention to one thing at a time, and spending time getting to know my world from the inside out. It is giving myself the space to be undistracted, and letting go of the need to pin everything down and explain everything. It is releasing the labels I habitually and unconsciously attach to everything I experience, and relaxing the need to put everything into a box. Art is refocusing my mind every time I get caught up in the daily drama of my domestic life, and making room for new and fresh experiences. It is landing physically and emotionally in the here and now. It is feeling my feet upon the earth, my body upon a chair, my skin sensing the breeze, my ears receiving sound, my eyes seeing color and texture, light and line. It is waking up and having the capacity to notice my thoughts, to notice when I am thinking, and remembering to let thoughts dissolve and pass away. It is being able to choose my next step and trusting that I know how to make good decisions. 

I use photography as a medium because it doesn’t require a lot of setup and preparation. I don’t have to set up paints or other supplies, and I can take the camera with me wherever I go. I use the camera as a reminder to look, and to notice my surroundings. I use it as a means to have a conversation with my environment, and to express moments of mind-stopping clarity and vividness when they occur. I use it to pay attention differently. I use it to notice and connect with my kids, my wife, my cats, my home, and my environment. 

Art, to me, is a practice of consciously choosing to be kind to myself and others. It is being truthful. It is about being who I am, unapologetically, and without the need to make anything up. It is a process of gradual unfolding and also a journey of sudden wake-up moments. It is a way of knowing I am connected with my life and with all things through the window of many small encounters with what is ordinary, everyday, and mundane. 

May you, the viewer, also be inspired to pay attention in a different way. May you notice more. May you take delight in small moments. May you see more. May you use your everyday life to wake up, and share that experience with others. May it be so.

Click to view Cody's work and shop the exhibit online!

On view July 20 - October 16, 2020

Before/After

Brenda Jones and Ken Engquist | Main Gallery

BRENDA JONES

Brenda Jones is a ceramic sculptor and artist who lives and maintains a studio in South Fork, Colorado. Having lived through and participated in the feminist movement of the 1970’s, her work reflects a personal viewpoint of women in this world. Work is layered and sometimes appears nostalgic at first glance but is layered with levels of interpretation, seeing women as both powerful and subtle. Patterns, decorative elements and color play a big role in her work. Her work is narrative but invites to viewer to engage with his or her own stories and memories.

As an elementary student, Jones remembers being able to trade her drawings with fellow students for various things like answers to math problems or trinkets. At a young age, she was constantly drawing and painting and entered college with the idea of being a painting teacher. However, her first ceramics class hooked her into a love of clay and its processes. She earned both a Bachelor’s of Art Education and a Master’s of Fine Arts from Wichita State University. Other studies have included classes from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She has traveled through art related Fulbright scholarships to Argentina and Japan and has studied with a National Endowment for the Arts scholarship at Crow Canyon Archaeological Institute, Cortez, CO.

Jones’ sculptures and work have been shown in exhibitions, juried and solo shows across the states, including several times with the Wichita National Center for the Arts/Mark Arts. Her work has also been accepted to the sculpture garden at Georgia O’Keeffe’s house in Abiquiu, New Mexico. She was recently an artist in residence at Red Lodge Clay Center, Montana. Jones taught ceramics in Wichita, Kansas and Denver, CO. She is currently a teaching artist with the program Think360 (a part of the Kennedy Center for the Arts) and is a board member of the Creede, Colorado Arts Council. Her work is in Abbey Lane Gallery in Creede, CO and Strecker-Nelson Gallery in Manhattan, KS.

Click to view Brenda's work and shop the exhibit online!

KEN ENGQUIST

A native Wichitan, Ken has been teaching photography on the secondary and college level since 1977. He has studied at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and at the University of South Florida.

Ken holds degrees from Friends University and Wichita State University. His photographs have been exhibited throughout the United States and he has received numerous regional and national awards. In 1990 he received a grant from the Committee of the Humanities and in 1991 he received a Mid-America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship.

You will find his work in the following permanent collections: Emprise Bank, Mid American Indian Center Museum, Kansas Health Foundation, Salina Arts and Humanities Commission, Salina, KS, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City, MO, Visual Arts Gallery, Pensacola Junior College, Penscola, FL, and Lamar Dodd Art Center, LaGrange College, LaGrange, CA.

Click to view Ken's work and shop the exhibit online!

On view at City Hall

Wizard of Odds

Michael Kline | City Council Office at City Hall (455 N Main)

Michael Kline is the lead illustrator for Kids Discover, an award-winning educational children’s magazine and website in New York. Between contracts he stays busy creating visual oddities out of styrofoam, acrylics, and other found objects from his studio in Riverside, in Wichita.

"Recalling the first time I watched the Wizard of Oz (and the numerous times since), I felt that the characters were just odd enough for me to push even further with my Picasso-esque tendencies."