February 4th – March 29th
The Bunker Center for the Arts
Opening Reception: First Friday, Feb. 6, 5-9pm (map)
GET WILD. presents select paintings from Rachelle Gardner-Roe’s recent solo museum exhibition. The Kansas City debut of these works builds on and refers to the artist’s passion for color and detail seen in her fiber work, but with the added improvisational freedom possible through the medium of painting. Looking to reposition our sense of being of nature, rather than the ever-present sense of separation, GET WILD. refers to “rewilding,” which is a form of ecological restoration aimed at increasing biodiversity and restoring natural processes. Here, Gardner-Roe suggests that a rewilding of the human spirit is also a necessary endeavor in counteracting the trappings of modernity.
“My approach to these paintings is influenced by years of free motion embroidery, which has created a mental map and muscle memory of a library of images. This enables me to work more spontaneously and with more immediacy, a valuable counterbalance to the meticulous processes required in my fiber work. Noting this influence and connection, most of the paintings also feature fringe, a direct reference to the countless hours of “drawing” with thread on a sewing machine. Additionally, the fringe responds to the breeze of the passerby, adding fluidity, almost breath, to the paintings.
While imagery is centered on the natural world and the human figure, references in these works range from my own experiences with lucid dreaming to Matisse or Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Overall, it is a “rewilding” of my own artistic practice and allows me to explore color and form outside the strict confines of representational accuracy — true medicine for a life-long recovering perfectionist.”
Make It Wild │Acrylic on canvas │53 x 77.5″