The cofounder of the Kansas City Artists Coalition and former art editor of Helcion Nine, Bennett has played an active role in the Kansas City art scene for nearly four decades. She has been a visiting and adjunct professor at Kansas City Art Institute and lectured at museums and art departments at college campuses around the country for many years. A graduate of the University of Nebraska and recipient of its Achievement Award for the class of 1956, Bennett continues her reputation as a prolific artist and advocate for the arts in Kansas City. Her work is included in the collections of The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Prominent corporate collections such as Hallmark, Incorporated and Prudential Life Insurance also include her work in their prestigious collections. Reminiscent of Motherwell?s famous Elegy series, this mostly white and black work with its oval imagery contains the gestural markings commonly seen in the works of the Abstract Expressionists. These markings convey the spontaneity of Bennett?s work. The auras surrounding the oval symbols add an element of spirituality often found in her early works.
Oil On Canvas
“Untitled” Painting from Viable Elevation V-3
Itatani received her B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1976. She also graduated from the Kobe Jogakuin University in Japan. Her grants and awards include a John Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council Artist?s Fellowship, Chicago Artists Abroad Grant and Marie Walsh Sharpe New York City Space Grant. An Associate Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1979, Itatani teaches Studio Painting/Drawing, Undergraduate Critic Seminar, Graduate Project and Graduate Seminar. The Art Institute of Chicago, Tokoha Museum in Japan, Museu D?art Contemporani Barcelona, Spain and the Olympic Museum in Switzerland are among the museums that include Itatani?s works in their collections. Her worldwide solo exhibitions include Tokoha Museum in Japan, the Galeria Senda in Barcelona, Spain, and the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York. This monumental painting by Itatani demands the presence of the viewer with its sheer size and curious imagery. The large black field with an array of ellipses surrounded by stringy lines can be interpreted in various ways depending on the background of the spectator. The small painting located in the lower left-hand corner of this work looks like a smaller version of the fan-like imagery on the other side of the painting. The visual dialogue between the two images leaves the spectator contemplating the exact nature of their relationship.
Column Structure #4, Harbor
Freed received his B.F.A. degree in 1967 and his M.A. degree in 1968 from Fort Hays State University in Kansas. He was the founding director of The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. Freed was also the head of the art department at State Fair Community College from 1968 to 2002 and served as the Director of Goddard Gallery in Sedalia, Missouri. Freed has been an advocate for the arts for many years. As a result of his active participation in the arts, Freed received a gubernatorial appointment to the Missouri Arts Council Board from 1984-1988. He also served as the legislative liaison for the Missouri Citizens for the Arts/Senate and Legislature. Besides receiving a National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 for a Design Arts Project Special Project Grant and a ?Creative Artist Project Grant? from the Missouri Arts Council in 1990, Freed has received several other grants and fellowships. His works appear in numerous collections such as the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Newark Museum in New Jersey, the Steinberg Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. During the past twenty years he has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Freed is represented by galleries on the east coast, west coast, and the heartland.
Column Structure #2, Shrine
Freed received his B.F.A. degree in 1967 and his M.A. degree in 1968 from Fort Hays State University in Kansas. He was the founding director of The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. Freed was also the head of the art department at State Fair Community College from 1968 to 2002 and served as the Director of Goddard Gallery in Sedalia, Missouri. Freed has been an advocate for the arts for many years. As a result of his active participation in the arts, Freed received a gubernatorial appointment to the Missouri Arts Council Board from 1984-1988. He also served as the legislative liaison for the Missouri Citizens for the Arts/Senate and Legislature. Besides receiving a National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 for a Design Arts Project Special Project Grant and a ?Creative Artist Project Grant? from the Missouri Arts Council in 1990, Freed has received several other grants and fellowships. His works appear in numerous collections such as the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Newark Museum in New Jersey, the Steinberg Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. During the past twenty years he has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Freed is represented by galleries on the east coast, west coast, and the heartland.
All is in All
Freed received his B.F.A. degree in 1967 and his M.A. degree in 1968 from Fort Hays State University in Kansas. He was the founding director of The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. Freed was also the head of the art department at State Fair Community College from 1968 to 2002 and served as the Director of Goddard Gallery in Sedalia, Missouri. Freed has been an advocate for the arts for many years. As a result of his active participation in the arts, Freed received a gubernatorial appointment to the Missouri Arts Council Board from 1984-1988. He also served as the legislative liaison for the Missouri Citizens for the Arts/Senate and Legislature. Besides receiving a National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 for a Design Arts Project Special Project Grant and a ?Creative Artist Project Grant? from the Missouri Arts Council in 1990, Freed has received several other grants and fellowships. His works appear in numerous collections such as the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Newark Museum in New Jersey, the Steinberg Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Museum of Art and Archaeology at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. During the past twenty years he has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Freed is represented by galleries on the east coast, west coast, and the heartland.
Signal Dance
Ascension
Reception
Born in Sedalia, Missouri, Patten was an only child whose parents divorced when she was very young. She grew up close to her grandfather, Marion Hall, who sparked her early love of horses. In 1965 she graduated with a B.A. in German from the University of Kansas. Later, when one of her favorite horses was accidentally electrocuted, she suffered a bout with mental illness. In a television interview nearly twenty years later, Patten recalled with certainty that it was this ?sick and pitiful? period in her life which led to her discovering she really wanted to be an artist. She acted on this realization and received her B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1979. The unique and rather eccentric style of art that Patten brought to her work had no precedent in the Kansas City area. Her tendency to overload canvases with layer upon layer of oil paint with a palette knife gave her works a dramatic and emotional quality. Patten preferred working with canvases of up to nine feet or more in size. Patten?s independent vision resulted in wide recognition in her short sixteen years as an artist. In 1988 she won the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship with just a few slides and a one-page resume. Her work was featured in Art in America in June of 1995. Patten was 52 when she died in December 1995, a few short months after receiving the news she had liver cancer.
Success
Born in Sedalia, Missouri, Patten was an only child whose parents divorced when she was very young. She grew up close to her grandfather, Marion Hall, who sparked her early love of horses. In 1965 she graduated with a B.A. in German from the University of Kansas. Later, when one of her favorite horses was accidentally electrocuted, she suffered a bout with mental illness. In a television interview nearly twenty years later, Patten recalled with certainty that it was this ?sick and pitiful? period in her life which led to her discovering she really wanted to be an artist. She acted on this realization and received her B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1979. The unique and rather eccentric style of art that Patten brought to her work had no precedent in the Kansas City area. Her tendency to overload canvases with layer upon layer of oil paint with a palette knife gave her works a dramatic and emotional quality. Patten preferred working with canvases of up to nine feet or more in size. Patten?s independent vision resulted in wide recognition in her short sixteen years as an artist. In 1988 she won the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship with just a few slides and a one-page resume. Her work was featured in Art in America in June of 1995. Patten was 52 when she died in December 1995, a few short months after receiving the news she had liver cancer.
Signal
Born in Sedalia, Missouri, Patten was an only child whose parents divorced when she was very young. She grew up close to her grandfather, Marion Hall, who sparked her early love of horses. In 1965 she graduated with a B.A. in German from the University of Kansas. Later, when one of her favorite horses was accidentally electrocuted, she suffered a bout with mental illness. In a television interview nearly twenty years later, Patten recalled with certainty that it was this ?sick and pitiful? period in her life which led to her discovering she really wanted to be an artist. She acted on this realization and received her B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1979. The unique and rather eccentric style of art that Patten brought to her work had no precedent in the Kansas City area. Her tendency to overload canvases with layer upon layer of oil paint with a palette knife gave her works a dramatic and emotional quality. Patten preferred working with canvases of up to nine feet or more in size. Patten?s independent vision resulted in wide recognition in her short sixteen years as an artist. In 1988 she won the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship with just a few slides and a one-page resume. Her work was featured in Art in America in June of 1995. Patten was 52 when she died in December 1995, a few short months after receiving the news she had liver cancer.