Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Neil Thrun
Honors: Noelle Choy – KC STUDIO
Noelle Choy in her West Bottoms studio (photo by Jim Barcus) Noelle Choy has won a Charlotte Street 2025 Visual Artist Award. One of three visual artists to win the award, Choy has lived in Kansas City for the last three years and made her presence felt in the local art community with her compelling installations, performance art and collaborations, as well as through teaching and running an art space.
“James Woodfill: Draft Set,” Haw Contemporary – KC STUDIO
installation view “Draft Set” at Haw Contemporary features a dozen new paintings by James Woodfill. Featuring hard-edged geometric shapes and bright colors, the minimalist paintings are a departure for Woodfill, who is perhaps best known for his sculptures, installations and public art projects, but the works stay true to his iconic style, mixing high art and utilitarian hardware.
Carlos Setien: ‘Missouri River Paintings’ – KC STUDIO
Carlos Setien Seventy years ago, the concepts of abstract painting and regional landscape painting were the polar opposites of the fine art world, but longtime Kansas City artist Carlos Setien’s “Missouri River Paintings” offer a seamless fusion of the two styles. His tapestry paintings are covered in splashes and drips of bright colors, capturing many facets of America’s longest river. Setien’s paintings are enormous works, each in three parts, each part measuring roughly 3 by 10 feet.
“Wilbur Niewald JUBILEE 2025: A Centennial Celebration of His Painting,” Haw Contemporary – KC STUDIO
“Self Portrait,” 1985, oil on canvas, 24” x 20.5” Wilbur Niewald’s legacy cannot be overstated. For more than 70 years, Niewald lived and painted in Kansas City, right up until his death in 2022. “JUBILEE 2025: A Centennial Celebration of His Painting” at Haw Contemporary marks what would have been the artist’s 100th birthday and features upwards of 50 paintings and drawings, including works from the 1950s and his final painting.
“Control≈Center: Noelle Choy and Adams Puryear,” Bad Seed – KC STUDIO
installation view How will the world end and when will it do so? This is the central question raised by “Control≈Center,” an exhibition at Bad Seed by Noelle Choy and Adams Puryear. In a comical exploration of our society’s fears, the artists have created a fake doomsday bunker and held celebrations and ritual performances to get people thinking about what might, or might not, be in store for our civilization.
“Michael Krueger: Untie the Spell” & “Armin Mühsam: The Elastic Continuum,” Haw Contemporary – KC STUDIO
“Armin Mühsam: The Elastic Contiuum,” installation view”Armin Mühsam: The Elastic Contiuum,” installation view Two fantastic exhibitions are on display at Haw Contemporary. “Untie the Spell” by Michael Krueger features breathtakingly beautiful landscapes inspired by American folk music and Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” while Armin Mühsam’s “The Elastic Continuum” comprises expertly painted works filled with strange optical effects.
Honors: Sean Nash – KC STUDIO
(photo by Jim Barcus) Known for his combination of fine art and fermentation, Sean Nash fuses painting and sculpture with culinary arts into a unique social practice. With a recent project at the Kansas City International Airport and as one of three recipients of Charlotte Street’s 2023 Visual Artist Awards, Nash is quickly growing a reputation as a major artist in Kansas City and beyond. Born in 1980, Nash earned his MFA from Yale in 2005 and then spent time living in New York.
“Davin Watne: Hello Darkness My Old Friend,” Haw Contemporary – KC STUDIO
Davin Watne, “If…Then” Davin Watne’s “Hello Darkness My Old Friend” at Haw Contemporary is a meditation on darkness and visibility taking on wide-ranging subject matter including car crashes, wild animals, plein-air painting and cable television. While the topics might seem unrelated, they create a unique mixture that allows Watne to explore a world that is both dark and overexposed. Entering the gallery, the viewer is first greeted by two paintings of cacti, one at day and one at night.
Equidistant - A Personal Rendition
“Globe: Gray, Black, Buff White,” 2022. 70x70x 70in, Acrylic, Aluminum Composite, Rivets and D Rings (from the artist) “Equidistant – A Personal Rendition” at Gallery Bogart features 11 sculptures by Cesar Lopez. Made from aluminum strips, rivets and paint, the minimalist sculptures build on a repeating form and explore different possibilities of their arrangement to form loops and spheres.
"Full Volume," The Box Gallery
“Safe Space” installation by Bubble Gum Kurt at The Box Gallery. (photo courtesy Commerce Bank) “Full Volume” at The Box Gallery at Commerce Bank is a unique collaboration between two openly queer KC artists, Bubble Gum Kurt and Jared Horman. Kurt’s fiber art and installations are vibrant, unusual and sometimes messy, a quirky match for Horman’s paintings of anthropomorphic fruit and vegetables. Together, the artists explore what they call “Queer Joy” in a slightly silly but impressive exhibition.
“Lamplighters,” Vulpes Bastille – KC STUDIO
Lamplighters installation There’s an age-old question: “Is something art just because you hang it on the wall?” The “Lamplighters” exhibition at Vulpes Bastille asks a variation of this: “Is something a lamp just because it has a light bulb?” For the exhibition, more than 40 artists were invited to explore the idea of making a ceramic lamp. They delivered an astonishing variety of objects, giving viewers a chance to explore their own preconceptions about ceramic art and light bulbs.
“Sweeping the Chimney through the Mantle of the Earth,” Charlotte Street Foundation – KC STUDIO
Installation view (Artists from left to right: Fred Vorder-Bruegge, Pia Bakala, Rachel Youn) Curated by Charlotte Street resident Andrew Ordonez, “Sweeping the Chimney through the Mantle of the Earth” is an exhibition about the decay of the world. Each artists tackles their own concept of ruin through painting, sculptures, photography, film and drawing.
“Gregg Deal: Yadooa Hookwu (I Will Speak Now),” UMKC Gallery of Art | KC STUDIO
Indigenous Flags 2, 3 & 4. Medium: Inkjet print on fabric Gregg Deal’s exhibition “Yadooa Hookwu (I Will Speak Now)” is a combination of tested pop art techniques and Indigenous Native American images. Combining both historical photos with bubble gum and comic book images of “indians warriors,” Deal, a member of the Paiute Tribe of Pyramid Lake, stylizes the images with both traditional patterns and Warholian aesthetics.
“Who We Were, Who We Are, Who We Will Be,” Charlotte Street Foundation – KC STUDIO
The Charlotte Street Foundation is celebrating the grand opening of its new facilities with the exhibition: “Who We Were, Who We Are, Who We Will Be.” Featuring ten artists working in a range of mediums, the exhibition is a fitting representation of the wide range of art happening in and near Kansas City.
An Infusion of Curatorial Energy for KC
An Infusion of Curatorial Energy for KC Charlotte Street Foundation Names Kimi Kitada As Its Curator in Residence Kimi Kitada (photo by Miria-Sabina Maciagiewicz) Kimi Kitada has been named the Charlotte Street Foundation’s new Jedel Family Foundation Curatorial Fellow, a new iteration of its longstanding Curatorial Residency Program.
"Hew Locke: Here’s the Thing," Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
The legacy of colonialism looms large over Hew Locke’s exhibition “Here’s the Thing” at Kemper Museum. The artist describes himself as part of the last generation of Guyanans to receive a “colonial education;” he was born in England, moved to the newly independent Guyana at age five, and has spent his life in both countries.
Brandon Frederick, Artist and Impresario
Know for his incisive social commentary in photographs and other projects, the artist also has an impressive history of creating spaces for his art. Brandon Frederick calls himself a photographer, but he’s also a sculptor, a fiber artist, a ceramicist, a gallerist, a curator, a publisher and probably a few other things too. His artwork often focuses on trash, though he doesn’t call it that. And for the last decade, Frederick has been creating art and organizing art events in KC.
Arts News: A 'Safe Space' for Artists of Color
Arts News: A ‘Safe Space’ for Artists of Color In the wake of the 2016 election, many were shaken and uncertain of what to do next. Encouraged by then Charlotte Street Foundation curator in residence Lynnette Miranda, a group of young artists formed the Artists of Color Alliance, an organization for non-white artists in Kansas City to come together, share thoughts and organize.
Benjamin Rosenthal and the ‘Crisis of Masculinity’
The Widely Exhibited Kansas City Artist Explores the Facets and Future of Sexuality in Riveting Video Works In the future, will people still have sex? How will we form our sexual identities? As the popular slogans say: “The Future is Female” and “The Future is Queer,” but what place will masculinity have in our brave new world? Benjamin Rosenthal’s videos and installations are a fascinating dive into hypothetical futures and the ever-changing course of human sexuality.
"Amy Kligman: Everyday," Haw Contemporary
It might be up on the second floor and in the smallest gallery space in Haw Contemporary, but Amy Kligman’s exhibition “Everyday” speaks volumes. True to the exhibition’s name, Kligman paints ordinary and everyday objects: lighters, hair clips, a sheet cake, a bowling trophy. With a loose brush and attention to detail, Kligman paints objects that we’ve all seen, but that we also look past. The kinds of objects that don’t seem important, but can hold deep emotional memories.
"Worlds Otherwise Hidden," Kemper Museum
In the grand scheme of art history, abstract art is still a new genre, but it is also old enough for reappraisals. In “Worlds Otherwise Hidden,” curated by Erin Dziedzic, the Kemper Museum’s director of curatorial affairs, three international artists are doing just that. No longer is abstraction about academic formalism, spiritual excess or pseudo-scientific purity. Instead, Nari Ward, Kimsooja and Nevin Aladağ make abstract art from a cultural, historical and cosmopolitan perspective.
Visual Art Reviews
Kansas City artist Robert Quackenbush chisels multi-faceted stories of the earth and humanity in his "Fragments" show of recent paintings and mixed-media collages at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. Layered in a rich stratum of materials and ideas, the exhibit is a compelling voyage through thought-provoking, enigmatic juxtapositions.
Nostalgia, activism and regret flavor Charlotte Street awards exhibition
A focus on the past unifies the “Charlotte Street Foundation Fellows 2014” show at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibit features works by Kansas City artists Amy Kligman, Garry Noland and Sean Starowitz, who each received a $10,000 cash award from the Charlotte Street Foundation for artistic accomplishment.
Visual artist Michael Manning goes tech-wild at KC’s Bill Brady Gallery
Los Angeles-based Michael Manning is an artist on the rise. “Wild Fusion Vol. IV: Technoeconomicology,” a dizzying installation of HD flat screens, power cords, wires, paintings and found objects at Bill Brady Gallery, is his fourth one-person show this year. Blurring boundaries between the digital and the physical, cheap objects such as fake plants are juxtaposed with high-definition wildlife videos. While the installation is visually stunning, its message and purpose are ambiguous.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Neil
Contact Neil, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack