03/03/11

Story by Stevie Greco, administrative assistant, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

Visiting Artists’ Presentations

Kati Toivanen, Fading Flowers & Melting Ice Cream, 2010, 12 x 18 inches, Digitally composed color photograph, image courtesy the artist

Portrait of Kati Toivanan

Susan White, On Breathing, 2010, Video, 4:00 minutes, image courtesy the artist

Portrait of Susan White

The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College continues its popular program, Third Thursday · Visiting Artists’ Presentations, from 3:30-4:30 p.m. March 24 in the museum’s M.R. and Evelyn Hudson Auditorium, with special guest artists Kati Toivanen and Susan White, and moderators Larry Thomas, JCCC professor and chair, fine arts, and Mark Cowardin, JCCC associate professor, fine arts. The program is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required.

Kati Toivanen works in photography, digital media, sculpture and installation to examine identity informed by childhood experience. Revealing both beauty and darkness, attuned to her own life while jettisoning an autobiographical impetus, Toivanen’s work investigates self-image, gender, societal boundaries and value systems. In her most recent series, Domestic Debris, the artist uses domestic detritus (marbles, ribbons, dead insects and aluminum cans) to create unexpected visual juxtapositions and reconciliations.

“In this work I come to accept, and even embrace, the accumulation of debris in my domestic environment,” said Toivanen.

Participating in play and discovery, the artist de-contextualizes and manipulates digitally composed photographs, presenting images of her colorful debris in both fuzzy and hyper sharp moments. Toivanen is a professor of studio art and the department chair of art and art history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The State of Finland; The Artist’s Association of Finland; and Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

Susan White works primarily in three forms: pyrographs (burn drawings), thorn works and video installation. Her pyrographs, or wood-burning tool marks on paper, are quiet, minimalist compositions informed by the landscape, architecture and the body. Using soldering tools of her own design, White lightly brands her surfaces, leaving behind smoky traces and carbon shadows. White’s thorn works, constructions made from thorns of the honey locust tree, act as three-dimensional crosshatch drawings wherein each mark responds to the one that came before it. Finally, the artist’s installation works (video and photography) provide a means for the artist to document the everyday and to draw (lure) viewers into an unfamiliar environment.

White describes her mark making as a “very physical process,” explaining, “Often there is an urge to move forward, to move on with a piece, but the process itself requires that the motion be arrested.”

In summer 2010, White completed a Youkobo Artist Residency in Tokyo, Japan, with the Lighton International Artist Exchange Program. Her work is included in the corporate collections of Hallmark Cards, Inc.; H&R Block; the JE Dunn Company Collection; and Sprint-Nextel in Kansas City, Mo., as well as numerous private collections.

Due to JCCC’s spring break, this Third Thursday is planned for the fourth Thursday of March. The next Third Thursday program is scheduled for April 21, 2011. These free programs feature two artists working within the KC region, with each artist giving a 20-minute presentation followed by discussion in the museum’s Hudson Auditorium. Museum staff facilitate conversation and audience participation by pairing each artist with a JCCC faculty moderator. Third Thursday programs promote student interface with area artists.

The Nerman Museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday; and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays and all JCCC holidays.  Admission and parking are free.

For more information, call 913-469-3000 or visit www.nermanmuseum.org.

Third Thursday programs are supported in part by an Ovation Grant from the ArtsKC Fund of the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City.

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