Welcome to the Digital version of Exhibition: the Queer Experience 2020. Below, you’ll find info about each participating artist, as well as a suite of works by each. Many pieces are for sale, so if you see something you like, visit the show’s online store HERE
McKenzie Lewis Adkins
The following series is of selections and outtakes from an editorial spread entitled "Fragile Masculinity" used in the third issue of Kansas City's art and literary magazine, For Your Eyes Only. The ideas explored for this photoshoot concerned the intersectionality of queer sexuality and gender. Under our current patriarchal system of values, men can either be powerful or they can be connected, but choosing one forgoes the other.
Masculinity is a currency in which men can gain social advantages and economic stability but that masculinity is hard to gain and easy to lose. Over reliance on independence and "playing through the pain" leaves many men alone and unable to reach out to others for help. Sex is often the only socially acceptable forum for men to express any emotion other than rage. Using a variety of textiles and two skilled male dancers, I sought to create images with juxtaposing textures and movement. The firm, muscular bodies are at once sensually intertwined, enveloped in delicate, vapor-like fabrics and then stripped bare and intensely clash with one another.
I am also head of Electrosexual, a group of queer creatives that produces safe, inclusive events for the Kansas City area LGBTQIA community and its allies.
Learn more at https://www.electrosexualkc.com/
and buy the zine at https://gumroad.com/fyeo
Craig Deppen Auge
In my work I explore relationships; the relationship between material, shape, color, gesture and mark-making. These formal explorations speak to relationships with self, each other, and what we call reality. Works reflect personal through-lines, contain the drift and accumulation of time, existing as mementos, recordings. I often relate my abstractions to instrumental or electronic music; expressive visual poems that point to the liminal.
Learn more at https://www.craigdeppenauge.com/
Joseph Christian Banez
Christian was born in Cebu City, Philippines. In 2001, his family moved to the United States in rural Missouri surrounding long stretches of highway and acres of farming land. In the Fall of 2014, he enrolled at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri to pursue a Bachelors of Science degree in Health Science with the aspiration to go to medical school.
In his final semester, his passion for painting and art was rekindled and he decided to pursue a career in art. Christian is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art-Painting with a minor in Art History at Missouri Western State University.
Christian’s art explores modern conflicts in identity, self-vulnerability, and relishing the mundane moments of life.
Learn more at http://www.christianbanezart.com
Joe Bussell
In the process of making 2-D or 3-D, I always add what makes sense and subtract what doesn’t. That is usually in the context of formal elements. In the case of the Frag series, the materials I add represent the different parts of my history, dreams, or memories.
I want the additions to finish the psychological loop and have aesthetic resonance. As the work got larger, the narrative got more complex and so did the list of materials.
For all of the complexities of the Frag series, there is also humor and joy.
When I get to the heart of why I make art, it is to find a sense of play. Of course, making art satisfies my intellectual self as well, but it has to be fun in the studio.
Here’s a short documentary on Joe made by Flatland KC.
You can learn more at joebussell.com
Mary Ann Coonrod
June is Pride Month: Time to honor diversity in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as the array of experiences, struggles, and visions that LGBTQIA+ people bring to the world. I am happy to be a part of this show, “The Queer Experience” at the InterUrban ArtHouse.
I am a lesbian and an abstract artist. These are my identities that I have had the privilege to struggle with in my life.
Learn more at http://www.artwanted.com/maryanncoonrod
Jacory Deon Harold
This series explores my experience as a queer man of color at this point in America.
I am a KC-based artist, working mainly in photography. Born and raised in the midwest, my work explores queer black identity, the gothic, and cityscapes. When not making art, I works as a freelance graphic designer and private fitness trainer.
I think of myself as primarily a gothic queer artist whose work straddles the line between the erotic and horrific. I'm intensely attracted to shadows, skin, and negative space. The social, the political. I'm also attracted to the quiet details of life, be it the weed that grows through the broken concrete or the isolated person waiting for the train in a city. There is beauty in everything, also horror, and our identities are filtered through the perception of both.
See more at https://www.instagram.com/jacorydeon/
Jared Horman
Jared is a local artist, illustrator and muralist. He attended Missouri State University where he studied graphic design. He works professionally as a graphic designer in the non-profit sector focusing on branding and editorial projects.
With a strong influence from his graphic design background, his artwork focuses on reimagining and reinterpretation of the natural world around us.
In his spare time he’s an active member of the LGBTQ+ community and recently helped found Stonewall Sports, Kansas City’s first queer sports league, with a few of his friends.
His murals can be seen all across the metro area including but not limited to: West Bottoms Whisky Company, Parlor and The HillKC.
Learn more at https://jaredhorman.com/
Zakk Norris-Hoyt
My art reflects countless hours of my childhood spent sitting in the library of a house museum decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany combined with years of operatic and theater performance. Until quite recently, I worked in mixed media, combining ephemera and decorative paper elements crafting visual narratives from disparate elements.
I’ve carried this practice into a digital format, adapting and merging historical design elements such as Racinet’s L’Ornement Polychrome (1875), and 18th century engravings from the moralist William Hogarth, in an effort to externalize my imagination and the thoughts I only tell my therapist.
When not engrossed in Adobe Creative Suite or obsessively cutting tiny bits of paper, I try to keep up with my kids and husband, read anything I can and work to understand who I am and then write about it.
Learn more at https://www.zakkhoyt.com/
Tanith Kartman
We’re told from a young age to think outside of “the box.” Through critical thinking skills and asking not enough questions, we slowly gain knowledge and lived experiences that help shape who we are at our core. We learn words and phrases to help us to not only identify ourselves but to also connect with others. A simple human desire to not be alone and to feel seen. Labels change as we change. Sometimes, those labels are enough. Oftentimes, they act as a snapshot to who we are in that moment. We are so much more than a description - we defy description and that makes us divine.
I want to capture that snapshot - a moment in time that by its very nature cannot sit still. I want to sit with it, the label and the attachment, the healing and release. I want to question everything, feel everything - knowing that there’s a strange certainty that I’ll find joy in the silence and softness of the journey. I exist outside of the box, and what an incredible world to explore outside of the walls of expectation.
Learn more at http://www.thetanith.com
April Marie Mai
My work utilizes bright colors, simple patterns, and textures to explore the collective human unconscious abstractly. I then use the results of my purely abstract pieces to create other works that address difficult and taboo topics. Painting and fiber are used in much of my work, along with a variety of other media. The hand is always visible; it provides grounding, and breathes life.
My personal narrative shapes the second branch of my work, which addresses my experiences with sexual assault and harassment, as well as my identity as a queer person. Using imagery I developed in my purely abstract works, I focus on creating pieces that are readable and relatively palatable, as well as deeply honest and personal. They are vulnerable to the point of being raw, both out of a need to process my experiences, and in the hopes that others will understand and feel less alone in theirs.
In addition to works that share my story, I also share the stories of others who have dealt with sexual assault and harassment. I seek to remove their cost for speaking up by sharing what they have submitted online anonymously. My work functions as a means to help them feel seen and heard, to have people understand how vast the problem actually is, and to call for societal change. It grows and changes with the addition of each new panel. I use fiber in these pieces, both because of its versatility and because it has historically been seen as ‘women’s work.’ Reclaiming its power for storytelling is empowering.
Learn more at https://aprilmariemai.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AprilMarieMai/
twitter & instagram @AprilMarieMai
https://www.patreon.com/AprilMarieMai
JoAnna Termini
Watch her artist statement video below
Learn more at http://joannaterminiarts.wixsite.com/portfolio
Fred Trease
My education has been as a biologist and a sociologist. The majority of my career has been spent in the practice of environmental public health. Whether I was making double exposures with a Brownie as a boy, photographing chromosomes and cells in college or documenting environmental conditions as an adult professional, photography has always been a part of my life. I have come to understand the world through the lens of a camera.
In 2006 I began exploring the medium as an artistic outlet. For me a photograph is not a static entity, it takes a moment and allows it to be preserved for later contemplation. My images are extracted from daily life and after spending time in my head eventually becoming photographs.
Several years ago I began using a tablet to make digital drawings based on my background in science. This daily practice is an exploration of everything from the subatomic and microscopic to the cosmological. The impact of the covid19 pandemic is clearly evident. New ways to look at familiar things. Essentially that’s what my work is about. Using the camera and other digital devices in different ways to shift the paradigm of daily life.
Since the 2016 presidential election my husband and I have been active in the resistance to the current administration. As a photographer I feel it is my responsibility to document these actions both to preserve them but also to understand them.
Learn more at http://fredtrease.com
