Perfecting Imperfections: Contemporary RISO/Graphic Work

ON VIEW JUNE 24, 2022 – AUGUST 21, 2022

This exhibition showcases how artists and designers are exploring risography in innovative and exciting ways. A workhorse printing method specializing in low- to mid- run commercial printing, the RISO printer replaces the typical, predictable output of four-color printing with unique combinations of ink. The resulting prints and publications share an aesthetic that is characteristically RISO. While not a new technology—it has been around since the 1980’s—a recent swell of interest in this printing process has proven to be an important means of production currently thriving at the intersection of community engagement, education, printmaking, graphic design, book arts, and zine culture.

Included in this exhibition is work made during a recent RISO-focused symposium held in Lawrence. Artists and designers from around the country created new work as they shared ideas around pedagogy, research, and professional practices.

Participating artists include:

Will Arnold

Will received his MFA in Photography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he now manages the student labs and studios at the School of Art + Design. He is the co-founder of Work Press & Publication, a Risograph-based zine and artist book self-publishing venture. In recent years, Will’s practice has primarily focused on zines, comics, and artist books. Through collage and delving into and remixing historical comics, he explores themes such as landscape, perception, and memory.

Artist website: rwarnold.com
Instagram: @t.will.arnold

Kate Bingaman-Burt

Kate Bingaman-Burt mostly draws, letters, documents, and collects, but she also does a lot of other things that involve energy, conversation, and exchange. Kate is a full-time educator and makes illustrations for all sorts of clients all around the world. Since 2008, she has worked at Portland State University and now holds the rank of Professor of Graphic Design. She opened Outlet in 2017, which hosts workshops, pop-up events and a fully operational risograph print studio. She also sits on the board of Design Portland and has been scheming with them since 2012. 

Artist website: katebingamanburt.com
Instagram: @katebingburt

Mikey Burton

Not quite a designer, not completely an illustrator, Mikey Burton has spent a decently long time toeing the rope between both disciplines. Mikey's works are both graphic and textural; they harken back to simpler printing methods and naive doodling in grade school. The thing that sets him apart is the thought and wit that goes into every piece he makes for himself and his clients. Basically, he thinks long and hard about stuff, then creates compelling visuals about those things.

He has won awards from organizations such as the Art Directors Club, Communication Arts, and Print Magazine to name a few, and enjoys bragging about it in the third person. He spent his formative years and earned a master's degree from the great Kent State University in Ohio. He also has worked for the likes of The New York Times, Apple, and the Emmy Award-Winning Last Week Tonight with John Oliver just to name a few.

Artist website: mikeyburton.com
Instagram: @mikeyburton

Ryan Clifford

Ryan Clifford is an Assistant Professor of Design at the University of Kansas, where he is the founder and faculty coordinator of ColorBar, a unique analog RISO service center and design lab, and is also responsible directing the team of student Design Fellows. In 2021, he founded Ampersand Studio at KU, a multi-disciplinary project-based studio focused on collaborative community engagement, social impact, and connects student designers and artists with outside partners in socially conscious projects with the goal of making a positive impact on society.

Previously, Ryan was the Co-Director and Chief Instigator of the Think Wrong Institute at the University of Kansas, which is focused on disrupting design education and empowering designers to become creative change agents for the greater good. His work has been recognized by Core77, How International Design Annual and Print Regional Design Annual, National Paperbox Association and the Rochester Advertising Foundation. Ryan’s work has been featured in the books Just Design: Socially Conscious Design for Critical Causes, Designing for Social Change, Fingerprint 2, and Indie Publishing.

Instagram: @vernacularpreservationsociety

Josh Dannin

Josh Dannin is an artist and printmaker originally from Philadelphia, now based in Bethlehem, New Hampshire. Dannin runs Directangle Press, a letterpress and risograph printshop and artist residency in the White Mountains. Previously a regular contributor to Printeresting.org, he coedits Power Washer Zine, a semiannual publication about screenprinting featuring artist interviews and essays, high-end humor, and lo-fi graphics. In addition to leading workshops at Directangle Press, Dannin has taught printmaking and graphic design at institutions including Dartmouth College, New Hampshire Institute of Art, and Saint Anselm College.

Artist website: directanglepress.com
Instagram: @directanglepress

Tate Foley

From birth announcement to obituary, my life started and will end in print media. 

I explore conflicting themes of spirituality and physicality, life and death, temporality and permanence. Like the never-ending struggle of Sisyphus, my work strives to give physical presence to the immaterial.

Tate's work has been recently exhibited in Vienna, Austria, New York City, Washington D.C., Portland, Saint Louis, Cleveland, and purchased by Toledo Museum of Art, and the UCLA Fine Arts, Yale University, and Reed College libraries.

Artist website: tatefoley.com
Instagram: @tate_foley

Joe Galbreath

Joe Galbreath received his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and his BFA from the University of Akron. His interests in graphic design include exploring and documenting vernacular design traditions, manual design making processes, and independent publishing. Currently, his letterpress work focuses on the American poster print shop. He is director of the GramLee Collection at West Virginia University. Galbreath began his design career as an Art Director at a public relations firm creating annual reports, branding campaigns, strategic graphics and identity work and he maintains a design studio with his wife Kelley. His work has been featured in Print Magazine’s Regional Annual, Indie Publishing, Fingerprint No. 2: The Evolution of Handmade Elements in Graphic Design and Fox News-Minneapolis.

Sage Perrott

Sage Perrott, aka Haypeep, is a printmaker and educator originally from West Virginia. Her artwork features grumpy, lumpy, ghost-like creatures situated in cramped, often humorous circumstances. Perrott’s preferred process is screenprinting. She has degrees in printmaking from West Virginia University (BFA) and from Ohio University (MFA). Her prints, drawings, and zines have found their way into the hands of folks all over the United States and the world.

Artist website: haypeep.com
Instagram: @haypeep

Travis Shaffer

Travis Shaffer is a visual artist whose work spans the mediums of photography, digital imaging, and the artist's book. Schffer founded theretherenow in 2016. theretherenow. is a risograph atelier and lab oriented towards collaboration and research and is currently housed in the School of Visual Studies at the University of Missouri. 

At theretherenow. the RISO printer is our campfire.  It is the warmth around which we huddle. The RISO is peripheral by nature: institutional by design but co-oped by artists for creative possibilities. The RISO is hybrid by nature: an absurdly analog method of digital reproduction. The RISO is experimental by nature: it resists the service to the content inherent to the ‘publishing’ concept.  The RISO is experimental by nature: it is a method of production that lacks a disciplinary frame.

Artist website: theretherenow.com
Instagram: @tr_v_ssh_ff_r

Anna Tararova

Anna Tararova was born in Russia and currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Anna is a printmaker and papermaker. She received an MFA in Printmaking from Ohio University and completed artist residencies at Paper Circle, Women’s Studio Workshop, The Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, The Morgan Conservatory, and Dundee Contemporary Arts.

Anna runs Empress Editions and is the Shop Manager at Zygote Press, a community print studio in Cleveland.

Artist website: annatararova.com
Instagram: @empresseditions

Perfecting Imperfections is presented with support from The University of Kansas, West Virginia University, and Eastern Tennessee State University.

 

Emmett Merrill: Dead Deer

ON VIEW APRIL 29, 2022 – JUNE 19, 2022

Emmett Merrill’s work uses the lithographic printmaking process to create narrative prints which combine Americana imagery with that of myth and legend. The prints deal with the emptiness of the American landscape, the derivation of ghost stories and local legends, objects of Art History, and the culture surrounding the highway system. The work also explores how time can move within a single visual space, similar to the way hieroglyphs exist as a contained image, but can be read in the same fashion as words on a page. Objects and foliage appear scattered along the ground in the works, as if a tornado whipped through a gas station and a history museum and all their artifacts landed together in the same field.

The collection of works shown here in the exhibition Dead Deer are a series of visual ghost stories, each exploring the theme of nature colliding with human-made spaces, like a deer bursting through the windshield of a car. Nature in this case isn’t just the idea of foliage, animals, or wide open landscapes, but also the presence of death as a natural (and sometimes supernatural?) part of life. Deer along the side of the highway manifest this ghostly symbol. Driving at night, you just make out their form as you speed by, wary eyes illuminated by headlights. Yet it seems more common that we see deer dead than alive, victims of our cars and freeways.

Throughout this group of prints on view, ghosts are also embodied as geese crashing into a bathroom window, a figure with mismatched socks under a sheet, or mysterious footsteps in the snow, walking away from someone who’s slipped beneath the ice. For the artist, these and all ghost stories are an exploration of the uneasy feeling of the unknown, not just the cliche of not feeling alone in a dark room, but also the excitement and anxiety of entering an unfamiliar building, landscape, town, etc. The curiosity and unease we sometimes feel when we lack experience with something new, or when our experiences don’t align with others’, is palpable here–and so is the feeling that perfect understanding may be outside of our grasp.

In his study of Kentucky folklore, Ghosts Along the Cumberland author William Montell recounts the tale of a farm worker who comes across the ghost of a cow he had put down the previous week. He sees it in the field, goes to get his family, and when they return to see the spectacle, the cow is gone... and that’s the end of the story. To Emmitt Merrill, the works in Dead Deer are a similar kind of short, temporal "ghost story”. They don’t represent any kind of cautionary tale. Instead, they simply record the moment when someone in their day-to-day life experiences the absurd, and, when they try and share it with someone else, that thing is gone.

Nightmares and dreams, history and progress, ghosts and legends: in America (and everywhere), we rarely experience any of these in exactly the same way. However they strike you, we hope you’ll enjoy the prints that bring together these moments in Dead Deer, and that their stories will linger in your imagination for a long time to come.

Emmett Merrill is an independent artist-printmaker hailing from Kansas City, Missouri and living in St. Louis. His work uses lithography to explore topics including ghost stories, the American Highway system, and art history. He is a collaborator with artist collective and fine art print shop, Grafik House, where he self-publishes his work. Merrill received his BFA in printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His work is included in numerous public and private collections in the U.S. and internationally, most notably the Library of Congress and the China Printmaking Museum.

Dead Deer opens to the public on Final Friday, April 29th for a reception with the artist from 5-9pm. The exhibition remains on view through June 19. Wonder Gallery hours are Thursday–Sunday, 12-6pm. 

Artist website: emmettmerr.wixsite.com/mysite
Instagram: @stagprint

 

Paulina Otero: Looking Through

ON VIEW FEBRUARY 25, 2022 – APRIL 24, 2022

In her first show at Wonder Gallery, Kansas City-based Mexican fiber artist Paulina Otero will bring a new architecturally-inspired collection of fiber and jewelry artworks, all revealing the artist's joy in exploring the effects of layering, transparency, pattern, color, and textural harmonies. From richly-toned tufted wall hangings to wearable art, we anticipate that it'll be a show to make you look, linger, and long to touch.

The artist states, “Looking Through is an exhibition inspired by the rhythm found in Mexican architectural patterns and use of raw materials. Elements such as brise-soleils, colonial metal lattice, and clay tiles are used in contemporary Mexican architecture as well as its history. The organization of light is another fundamental element used to preserve the beauty in spaces; While geometry provides a structure for breaking those experiences up.”

Otero continues, “Mexico is my home, but I live and work in the United States. I find myself constantly comparing the context that surrounds me to the one that raised me. When I think of home I think of rawness, color, and light–and with a variety of materials and colors like wood, stone, and metal. In Mexico, the asymmetries of a space–and the organization of its chaos–are often the very thing which makes it feel harmonious; Like a place to settle into comfort. In this way, Looking Through is a metaphor for home.”

Paulina Otero is a recent graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute and has exhibited her work at the St. Louis Art Guild, The Yeiser Art Center, and The Appalachian Center of Craft among others. She has also developed a jewelry brand that is currently sold through several local boutiques including The Kemper Museum.

Looking Through opens to the public on Final Friday, February 25th for a reception with the artist from 5-9pm. The exhibition remains on view through April 25. Wonder Gallery hours are Thursday–Sunday, 12-6pm. 

Artist website: paulina-otero.com
Instagram: @paulina_otero_

 

Matthew Willie Garcia: Speculative Romance of Space and Time

ON VIEW OCTOBER 29, 2021 – JANUARY 16, 2022

Wonder Fair has officially reopened our gallery space at 15 West 9th Street with a renewed focus on beautiful and useful items for the home, a utopian bookstore, and an exhibition of work by printmaker Matthew Willie Garcia.

Speculative Romance of Space and Time draws on the idea of the space-time continuum: that space and time are two dimensions of a single fluid four-dimensional construct. Like the continuum, the works within this series explore what it means to be formed of space and time and uses these ideas to talk about the fluid nature of existence, and explore what it means to be queer. The exhibition draws from ideas of quantum mechanics, cosmology and astrophysics to speculate what it looks like to have a queer fluid existence. This is a series of speculative/science fiction that strives to explore the ineffable qualities of the universe and what it means to be intrinsically tied to every aspect of the universe.

Matthew Willie Garcia is a printmaker whose work moves far beyond the traditional print media, he specializes in what he calls 4d printmaking, which includes screen printing, projection-mapped animation, large-scale installation, and drawing. His work explores ideas of queer quantum mechanics, intersectional existence, and speculative/science fiction identity narratives through color abstraction and nonrepresentational forms. Garcia was born and raised in Tulare, CA. He received a B.F.A. in Printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute and his M.F.A. from the University of Kansas. Garcia has shown his work regionally though out the Midwest, notably his work has been included as part of "Queer Abstraction" group exhibition at the Nerman Contemporary Museum of art, "Star Children" Group exhibition at the Bradbury Art Museum, and will be part of the upcoming "SUMI-FUSION" Mokuhanga exhibition in Nara, Japan. Garcia is the Print Studio Coordinator at the Lawrence Arts Center.

Artist website: matthewwilliegarcia.com
Instagram: @matthewwilliegarcia

 

Jenn Dierdorf and Tess Michalik: bloom doom

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bloom doom

ON VIEW JANUARY 30, 2019 – MARCH 27, 2020

Opening Final Friday, January 31st, Wonder Fair Gallery presents "Bloom Doom" pairing Brooklyn painters Jenn Dierforf and Tess Michalik.

The paintings in Bloom Doom know that flowers wilt, but it's the attempt to capture this transient freshness that gives the mark making in these works their urgency. Brooklyn painters, Jenn Dierdorf and Tess Michalik, know how to bring angst, fluidity, and muscularity to a painting genre that many viewers may wrongly think to be merely passive or pretty.

Artist website: jenndierdorf.com, tessmichalik.com
Artist Instagram: @jenndier, @tess_michalik

 

Garry Noland: WOULDWORK

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WOULDWORK

ON VIEW NOVEMBER 29, 2019 – JANUARY 19, 2020

Opening Final Friday, November 29th, Wonder Fair Gallery presents "WOULDWORK" by Kansas City artist Garry Noland.

Garry's practice relies heavily on the ability to see possibility in the humblest of materials.

Traditionally dismissed goods such as contact paper, duct tape, or chip board all receive the gift of ascension. The gifts of the streets are respected, too. There's help from the weather's effects and the previous life certain materials had before landing in Garry's hands. Once there, Noland's art is held together by the dialogue of opposites: new/old, play/toil, purposeful/accidental. Through his alchemy, the familiar is recast.

An artist talk was held on Friday, December 27th.

Artist website: garrynolandart.com
Artist Instagram: instagram.com/garry.noland

 

Kristen Martincic: Deep End

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DEEP END

ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 27, 2019 – NOVEMBER 17, 2019

With the opening of a dedicated gallery space at 15 W. 9th St, Wonder Fair resumes its regular exhibition schedule, a major feature of early iterations of the business. The new gallery space, purportedly once an early 20th-Century bus terminal with high ceilings and gentle northern light, welcomes artist Kristen Martincic for its inaugural exhibition: Deep End.

In Deep End ,Martincic will show newer delicate hand-cut, printed, and stitched paper swimsuits, dimensional pool floats, and crystalline images of swimming pools. Martincic's main body of work in Deep End is its large line up of swimsuits--objects of particular extraordinary delicacy and beauty that can only be truly appreciated in up close and in person. Made of successive layers of delicate woodcut printing on semi-translucent natural printmaking papers, the suits all feature painstakingly and perfectly turned hems, modern clean shapes, and huge rewards for the careful viewer who can appreciate both their big impact as a group, and the incredible subtleties of each piece alone.

Following the Final Friday Grand Opening of Deep End, look for Wonder Fair Gallery to begin regular hours starting Saturday, September 28th. Wonder Fair Gallery will be open 12-8 daily, closed Tuesdays.

 

FRESH INK

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FRESH INK

ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 29, 2017 – NOVEMBER 5, 2017

Wonder Fair's annual juried print show, Fresh Ink, returns for its fourth year with guest juror Jeffrey Dell.

Wonder Fair has always been a celebration of the power of print—we operate with the firm conviction that printed art marries the accessibility of print with the power of creative expression. In 2017, Fresh Ink coincides with Lawrence Print Week (October 16–22), a celebration of Printed Matter for makers and collectors, lead by the Lawrence Arts Center, University of Kansas Printmaking Program, and Wonder Fair.

More information: https://lawrenceartscenter.org/event/print-week-2017

EXHIBITING ARTISTS:

Aaron S. Coleman, Amanda Lee, Anna Hasseltine, Annalise Natasha Gratovich, Arron Foster, Breanne Trammell, Erik Pedersen, Heather Huston, James Ehlers, Janet Ballweg, Jessica Cannon, Kate Horvat, Kelsey Miller, Kyle Peets, Matthew McLaughlin, Miguel A. Aragon, Mike Sonnichsen, Mizin Shin, Nicholas H. Ruth, Nick Perry, Nick Satinover, Taryn McMahon, Tonja Torgerson

Juror Bio:
Jeffrey Dell is a printmaker and faculty member at Texas State University in San Marcos whose vibrant prints engage themes of human desire. Originally from Califonia, Dell grew up in Oregon and has worked in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Italy and now in Texas. His most recent body of work explores the interplay between desire and perception, impulse, appetite, and health in striking screenprints that are at once earnest and playful.

"I rarely want to mean only one thing in an image," says Dell. "I continue to love the way two-dimensional images elicit just what I thought they would not."

Image credit: Mizin Shin

Wallflowers

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WALLFLOWERS

ON VIEW JUNE 6, 2017 – JULY 9, 2017

Wallflowers features new work by artists Grace D. Chin, Rachel Gregor, and Sarah Bogosh. In Wallflowers, these three artists explore memory and craft through floral and botanical imagery. Art blooms in this gorgeous and powerful show.

Local writer Annie Raab says: "Wallflowers challenges the audience to touch the epicene beauty of cycles and breakage, in art, and in women’s societal roles. With roots in traditional media and an instinct for alternative decorum, Wallflowers embraces an observant and calculating position from the edge."

Artist websites:
Grace D. Chin: http://www.gracedchin.com/
Rachel Gregor: http://www.rachelgregor.com/
Sarah Bogosh: https://www.instagram.com/badponies/

For The Tallgrass

FOR THE TALLGRASS

ON VIEW APRIL 28, 2017 – MAY 21, 2017

For The Tallgrass is an art project about plants native to the tallgrass prairie. For the project, the artist, Susy Meyer, completed eight giant life-size drawings with stunning detail. 

This project aims to increase appreciation for prairie plants and build community among those who love them.

Proceeds from print sales for this project go to support organizations working to preserve prairies.

 

Kat Richards

Kat Richards

ON VIEW FEBRUARY 24, 2017 – APRIL 23, 2017

Wonder Fair is excited to share vibrant new monoprints by emerging printmaker Kat Richards.

Kat Richards graduated from KU in 2016 with a BFA in Visual Art and a concentration in printmaking. She spent her childhood on an exotic animal farm and is a vegetarian. Her work captures lively scenes—Richard's bold use of shape and color offer new views of animals and everyday objects. 

Since these are monoprints, they are not editioned—every piece is unique. 

Artist's website: kat-richards.com

Fresh Ink 2016

Fresh Ink Juried Print Show

ON VIEW AUGUST 26, 2016 – OCTOBER 23, 2016

Wonder Fair features the work of up-and-coming printmakers at Fresh Ink, our third annual juried print show. Fresh Ink is a manifestation of Wonder Fair's foundational purpose: to establish Lawrence as a preeminent center for creative print culture in the United States and to highlight the importance of printed matter in the world entire.

This year's submission pool was our biggest yet: 92 artists in 32 states and 3 countries sent in their work, for a total of 273 submissions. Guest juror and printmaker Katie Baldwin selected just 21 choice pieces for the final show. For her print, artist Amanda Maciuba received the honor Best in Show and a $250 cash prize. 

EXHIBITING ARTISTS:

Kristi Arnold, Diana Behl, Ruben Castillo, Mary Gordon, Alexandra Janezic, Andrew Kosten, Rachel Livedalen, Amanda Maciuba, Jon Mahnke, Adrienne Miller, Sean P. Morrissey, Ashley Nason, Edie Overturf, Melissa Schulenberg, Nicole Shaver, Hannah Skoonberg, Sarah Smelser, Mike Sonnichsen, Greg Stone, Ken Wood, Cameron York

About the Juror:

Katie Baldwin is a printmaker and book artist living in Huntsville, AL. She has traveled internationally as an artist in residence. She has exhibited extensively, most recently at Gedai University in Tokyo, Japan, The Ice Box in Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Center for the Book. Her work can be found in collections including the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Baldwin received her MFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama Huntsville.

Juror's website: http://www.katieameliabaldwin.com

Image Credit: Kristi Arnold, Banana Man, Monoprint and Ink, 15x20

 

Hott Sheets 3: Hottest Sheet

Hott Sheets 3: Hottest Sheet

ON VIEW JUNE 24, 2016 – AUGUST 21, 2016

A LITTLE HISTORY:

The concept of the first Hott Sheets show was born in 2010, out of the sudden heat of the summer and inspired by events in the global art market. In 2013, Hott Sheets II: Hotter Sheets followed the third hottest summer on record and reflected the heat of an art market on the rise. As we return to our Hott Sheets theme after another three years have elapsed, we find an even more staggering set of numbers: Summer 2015 made history as the hottest ever recorded, and two works of art (a Picasso and a Modigliani) shattered auction records, fetching above 170 millions dollars each. But despite its high highs, the Art Market is cooling off–especially for contemporary artists. The widening gap between what’s hot and what’s not has us wondering– how is the value of original artwork created? How is it sustained?

THE EXPERIMENT:

We created a complex and convoluted flowchart into which we can plug in any work of art. Starting from an even playing field–a 9" x 6" sheet of paper–Hott Sheets artworks will travel through a series of formalist checks and conceptual balances, until a monetary value is objectively assigned to each entry. Artworks will be installed in the gallery in ascending order of their objective & scientifically-formulated price, and will be on view (and for sale) June 24 to August 14, 2016. This year, our Hott Sheets exhibition presents an open call to artists OF ANY AGE, who wish to submit work and subject themselves to the caprices of our Hott Sheets valuation tabulator.

HOTT SHEETS 3 is presented in collaboration with the Lawrence Arts Center's HANG 12 youth-in-art-curation program.

ANNA METCALFE: A LIVING TOPOGRAPHY: STORIES FROM LAKE SUPERIOR

ANNA METCALFE: A LIVING TOPOGRAPHY: STORIES FROM LAKE SUPERIOR

ON VIEW MARCH 25, 2016 – MAY 8, 2016

A Living Topography: Stories from Lake Superior is a steel, ceramic, and mixed media piece that represents America's Lake Superior – physically and through the stories of people living, both past and present, around the lake. The porcelain boat hulls that hang down from the steel frame carry aspects of life of the lake on their surfaces: letters written by a young woman from Ashland, WI in 1863, pages from a diary written by a young Wisconsin teenager, and navigational charts of the Lake itself. Additionally, there are a series of boats imbedded in the piece that carry QR codes on their surfaces. Each of these codes lead viewers with smart phones to Geo Locations around the lake on Google Earth. 

Timed to coincide with the 2016 NCECA conference and related activities, Wonder Fair has selected the work of Anna Metcalfe to highlight the important contributions of artists who practice at the intersection of public art, social justice, and craft. Just as Metcalfe works within her community in the Minneapolis area to inspire creative, investigative interactions between people and place, Wonder Fair hopes to inspire inquiry and introspection, while fostering community engagement with Art in Lawrence, Kansas.

About the Artist:

Anna Metcalfe lives and works in Minneapolis where she graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2009 with her MFA. Metcalfe currently works for Springboard for the Arts in St. Paul Minnesota. Interested in the junction of public art and craft, she makes work inspired by water, agriculture, food and community. As a teaching artist, Metcalfe loves to promote collaboration and interdisciplinary learning environments between the sciences and art-making. She is a recipient of a Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist’s Project Grant for Public Art in 2009, a MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, a Jerome Foundation Study and Travel Grant in 2013 and most recently a FY 2015 MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.

 

WOOD + PAPER + BOX

WOOD + PAPER + BOX, A PROJECT INSPIRED BY MOKUHANGA, BY KATIE BALDWIN, MARIKO JESSE, AND YOONMI NAM

ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 19, 2015 – NOVEMBER 16, 2015

This Final Friday, see the inaugural exhibition in Wonder Fair's new street-level gallery space. WOOD + PAPER + BOX presents a year of mokuhanga prints and ephemera created and shared through mail exchange between printmaking friends Yoonmi Nam, Katie Baldwin, and Mariko Jesse. Constrained only by the parameter that their artwork should fit into an 8 x 10 inch clamshell box, the resulting portfolio features woodcut prints that range from traditional to experimental, all with a delicacy and intimacy that mirrors their 10-year friendship and lifelong love affairs with paper.

"Ten years ago we met as artist residents on Awaji Island, Japan. Our time there changed us, and our transitions have continued. Inspired by one another, we are marking our decade-long friendship with this project, and with it, beginning new conversations."

 

SHELBY KEIERLEBER: FORMS OF FLATTERY

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SHELBY KEIERLEBER: FORMS OF FLATTERY

ON VIEW AUGUST 28–SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

This August, Wonder Fair presents a new interactive, competitive exhibition by Shelby Keierleber, a favorite emerging artist from 2013's "Young Woman Artists" Exhibition. In the gallery, Keierleber, a 2014 KU painting graduate, will install a regulation-sized ping pong table created entirely by the artist and playable by viewers. Keierleber's installation will "play us out" through September 2015, when Wonder Fair moves to its new, larger, street-level location at 841 Massachusetts Street. To learn more about Keierleber and her work, visit shelbykeierleber.com

 

Barry Fitzgerald: In Between

BARRY FITZGERALD: IN BETWEEN

ON VIEW JANUARY 30–MARCH 22, 2015

January 30 through March 22, Wonder Fair celebrates the Fine Art of Illustration with In Between, a new suite of drawings by KU professor and industry veteran Barry Fitzgerald. 

In each work, an imperfect tree is the centerpiece of an unfolding parable or improbable event: an acorn dreams of the days its leaves will brush the clouds; a snake curls up with a good book in a pool of moonlight emanating from a hollow trunk. The split tree as leitmotif was inspired by the artist’s attachment to a three-story-high ancient oak tree in his yard, struck by an Oak Wilt disease diagnosed in Fall 2014 that ultimately resulted in the tree’s death and eventual removal in January 2015. Knowing this, in Fitzgerald’s new series of drawings, we can identify: 

sixteen original drawings,
and three newly-formed stumps (also original),
each very fine... 

and somehow infinite.

Before In Between:

Students of our history will recall that Wonder Fair was built with the visual language of Illustration as its cornerstone, under the guidance of 2008 KU Illustration graduate and Wonder Founder Eric Dobbins. 

Seven years later, Wonder Fair still champions all forms of art that are accessible but still demonstrate creative and conceptual rigor; promotes artists who possess a certain refreshing optimism that Art and Capital could fairly coexist (but who cannily recognize that they often do not). 

And so, it is with great excitement that we exhibit "In Between", a return, of sorts, to our earliest roots.

About the Artist: 

Barry Fitzgerald is a multi-disciplinary illustrator, artist and visual communicator who loves the challenge of making images that engage intellectually, emotionally, and aesthetically. He enjoys problem solving and collaborating with others, and is available for commissions.

After a previous career as a graphic designer in Washington, DC, Fitzgerald earned an MFA in illustration at SUNY Buffalo where he studied under Hall of Fame illustrator Alan E. Cober. Upon graduation, he was hired by the Detroit New to work as a staff artist, where he was able to combine his love of graphic design, illustration, and visual communication. Currently, Fitzgerald is a Professor of Illustration at the University of Kansas. He has been teaching illustration, drawing, painting, and conceptual problem solving since 1993.

Barry has received over 100 national and international awards for his work, including American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators of NY, Society of Illustrators of LA, 3X3 Magazine, Creative Quarterly, and Print Magazine. He has also been included in ‘200 Best Illustrators Worldwide’ published by Lürzer’s Archive.

Frank & Stein, Inc.

Wonder Fair Ghost Town part III: Frank & Stein Inc.

ON VIEW OCTOBER 31–NOVEMBER 23, 2014

Halloween night, Kansas City artists Dustin Williams and Jon Linn unveil their third installment of the ongoing Ghost Town series. Each October at Wonder Fair, nondescript hallways and dusty back rooms are inexplicably transformed into suspiciously spooky new businesses. In the wake of 2012's Cemetery Cinema, the haunted video rental store, and 2013's Dead End Diner (see our grave reviews on Yelp), comes a new installation and a new business/membership card to add to your wallet. 

SEE THE PHOTO ARCHIVE OF THIS EXHIBITION


Daria Tessler: World Without Us

Daria Tessler: World Without Us

ON VIEW SEPTEMBER 26–OCTOBER 26, 2014

Longtime Wonder Fair favorite Daria Tessler will be our featured artist in the gallery September 26-October 26, displaying original watercolors that expand upon her super-saturated, hyper-strange screen-printed universe. Tessler’s work illustrates her whimsical answer to one of humankind’s most vain and vulnerable questions: what will become of the “World Without Us,” when humans no longer roam and excessively zone the earth? In Tessler’s view, an ecosystem of abandoned plastics and unchecked natural growth will become the fantastical infrastructure of a wondrous new society.

An illustrator, prolific printmaker, and voracious consumer of sci-fi/fantasy books and science podcasts, Tessler is always finding new ways to press against the elastic boundary that divides creatures of pure fantasy from those that are stranger than fiction. We invite you to join us this October to enjoy a rare opportunity to see Tessler’s original watercolors, which often serve as the inspiration for her more widely-known and highly affordable screenprints. 

About the Artist:
Born in Finland and raised in Los Angeles, Daria Tessler currently lives in Portland, Oregon where she draws and screenprints characters of all shapes and sizes who adventure through jumbled, mysterious worlds.

SEE THE PHOTO ARCHIVE OF THIS EXHIBITION

Jenny Harp: Comprehensions and Shifts in Matter

Jenny Harp: Comprehensions and Shifts in Matter

ON VIEW AUGUST 29–SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

Jenny Harp, winner of Wonder Fair's 2013 Print Invitational, returns to Lawrence this August with a new body of work synthesizing the realms of traditional and digital printmaking.

The artist explains: 
"I remember the day my dad brought home our first computer. From that point forward my time was split between exploring nature and exploring a new digital world beyond the screen. My current work focuses on interactions and collaborations with the computer. In a quasi-scientific fashion I build, investigate, collect and archive virtual worlds using traditional print methods and digital media.

Rough Comprehensions and Shifts in Matter weaves together matrix-based information systems-both analog and digital. A merging of past and future creates a semi-fictional and experimental universe that emerges bit by bit."

About the Artist:

A native of Northern California, Jenny currently lives and works in Iowa City Iowa, where she is an MFA candidate at the University of Iowa. When not making prints or creating alternate digital universes, she can be found building forts, baking or throwing sticks for her dog Oscar.