Matter Matters
Karolina Gnatowski, Dan Gunn, Alex Lockwood, Noël Morical
January 31-March 9, 2019
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 31st, 5-7 pm
Free Parking in the Cherry St. Garage, levels 5 & 6
UMKC Gallery of Art presents Matter Matters, a powerful new exhibition exploring materiality in the work of four artists. Karolina Gnatowski, Dan Gunn, Alex Lockwood, Noël Morical use many variations of everyday materials from bottle caps to plywood to express rather than consume by shifting material conditions from utility to aesthetics and symbolic meaning. Materialism is a defining attribute of humanness. These four artists explore human connections to materials by using consumables to invent new forms celebrating and re-interpreting materiality in our daily lives.
Each of these artists is united by their individual explorations that stem from a fascination and an experimentation with familiar materials. Each artist chooses their commodities differently, whether its personal objects, recycled material or military grade fibers, seeking to achieve various effects. These effects manifest in the mimicry of other materials (Gunn), they create meaning (Gnatowski), build narratives (Lockwood) or manipulate scale (Morical), thus transcending the accepted role of materiality in contemporary life.
Artist Bios
Karolina Gnatowski (Poland, b.1980 ) lives and works in Chicago. They have attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2017), received an MFA 2007 Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA 2002 Fiber and Material Studies from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. They have had recent solo exhibitions, DePaul Art Museum. Chicago, IL, Free Range. Chicago, IL, Julius Caesar, Chicago, IL. Group and two-person exhibitions include University of Missouri, Kansas City, MO, Sputnik Press, Chicago, IL, Compound Yellow. Oak Park, IL, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Chicago, IL, Fiber Workshop, Cleveland, OH. They have received the following awards, Roselyn Borowski Award for Fibers, SAIC Faculty Enrichment Grant 2011.
Dan Gunn (American, b. 1980) is an artist, writer and educator living and working in Chicago. He received an MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. Recent exhibitions include A Sag, Harbored, Western Exhibitions, Chicago (2017); The Dangerous Professors, Triumph Gallery, Chicago (2017); Midwest Mindset, curated by Austin Radcliffe, University of Toledo, Center for Visual Art, Toledo, OH (2016); LUMA at 10: Greatest Hits, Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago (2015); New American Paintings, Midwest Edition, Elmhurt Art Museum (2015); Impromptu Airs, Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago (solo, 2014); 12×12 New Artists New Work , Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2011). In 2012 he was a participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and an artist in residence at Anderson Ranch in 2018. In 2013, Gunn received the Artadia Award at EXPO Chicago. His work has been reviewed in Frieze, Art in America, Artforum.com, Artslant.com, Newcity Magazine, New American Paintings, TimeOut Chicago and the Chicago Tribune. His work is in the collection of Marciano Foundation, Los Angeles; Fideltiy Corporate Art Collection, Chicago; TD Bank, New York; and The Joyce Foundation, Chicago. Gunn is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.
Alex Lockwood (b.1974) is a sculptor and the director of Elephant Gallery in Nashville, TN. He began making art from the detritus he collected on city streets: losing lottery tickets, glasses lenses, dead lighters and plastic bottle caps, to name a few, which he would fold, wire or glue together into abstract forms. While the shapes and content of Lockwood’s work have evolved over time (most recently dealing with fatherhood, divorce and the evolution of a community of plastic beings in the distant future), his process remains essentially the same: Lockwood always begins by collecting huge numbers of worthless, usually plastic objects from the world around him.
Noël Morical (American, b. 1989) lives and works in Chicago IL. She received her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. She has had recent solo exhibition High Swoon At Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago 57W57 Arts, New York, and at the Fiberspace Gallery, Stockholm. Group and two-person exhibitions include Weinburg-Newton Gallery, Chicago; 99¢ Plus Gallery, Brooklyn; Athen B. Gallery, Oakland, Chicago Artist Coalition, Chicago, Slow Gallery, Chicago, LVL3; Chicago.
