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Untitled
The Plan: Pollen Series
Slowinski currently serves as professor of painting at the Kansas City Art Institute. He received a Certificate of Art in painting from the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 1954. Thirty years later he had a twenty-five year retrospective at the Sheldon Memorial Gallery of Art at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. His works are a part of major museum collections such as the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, New York, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Japan. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Advanced Grant to Japan and taught at Indiana University before coming to Kansas City.
World of Interiors
Monida Horses No. 3
Storage Jar
Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Missouri since 1992, Clarke received his M.F.A. degree from the University of Iowa in 1990. He has received the Kennedy Center Fellowship for Teachers for the Arts, the John Eckert Memorial Award for Ceramics, the Artist Resource Grant, the Summer Research Award Fellowship Award and the Research Grant from The University of Iowa Fine Arts Council. His works appear in public and private collections in Japan, Australia and the United States. Themes involving a recording of touch, gesture and energy are repeated in Clarke?s pieces. He believes the viewer can draw a personal interpretation if the artist?s primary concern remains rooted in the recording of the touch. Clarke states that his ?technique amounts to wishing the work well as it moves through the process of forming, articulation of the surface and firing. I find it?s like raising my son; I just put my hands on the work silently encouraging it to be good, be good.? Storage Jar is part of a series of large sculptural vessels that Clarke has worked on over the past several years. The process he uses to create his unusual vessels involves throwing on the wheel, altering and hand-building. Various slips and stains are used to achieve the surface colors. A salt-fired process at earthenware temperatures causes flashing on the surface of the work, but it does not give it the appearance of being glazed.
Untitled (#01177)
Ghost Gamble, Mantra Elemental Series
Dance
A former resident of Sedalia, Missouri, Thomas now serves as the Director of the Library Art Gallery on campus at Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas. He is also an Instructor of Art at the college. In 1998 he was included in Who?s Who Among American Teachers. His art can be found in numerous corporate and private collections throughout the United States. In the early 90’s Thomas underwent several major surgeries that greatly affected him and had a major influence on his work. While enduring his own medical hardships Thomas also suffered the loss of an uncle whom he had a close relationship with. At this time he became interested in biotechnology and questioned the benefits and drawbacks of extending life and the quality of life through medical intervention. He admits he still remains very interested in this topic and continues reading books on the subject. Thomas has always liked drawing and painting heads. He recalls that in Dance the head relates to technological issues since he had recently undergone kidney transplant surgery. It asks questions about our relationship with technology and our increasing reliance on it. The arrangement of various objects on the border compliment this interesting work. Thomas states that, ?interpretation of his heads may vary because his intent is to allow the viewer to discover on his own what his intent may be or make up their own narrative or even create a completely new meaning.