Alice Thorson

Alice Thorson

Alice Thorson is the editor of KC Studio. She has written about the visual arts for numerous publications locally and nationally.

Gallery Glance: “Nicky Nodjoumi: The Long Day” at H&R Block Artspace

Gallery Glance: “Nicky Nodjoumi: The Long Day” at H&R Block Artspace

The problem was choosing. In early November, Block Artspace director and curator Raechell Smith surrounded herself with color printouts of the paintings of Iranian-born, Brooklyn-based painter Nicky Nodjoumi, trying to decide which ones she would include in the artist’s one-person show at Block Artspace. With their figurative imagery and complex layered meanings delivered at large […]

Steve Maturo: Rethinking the Room

It’s time to abandon the old cliché, ‘buy a painting to match the sofa.’ Why not turn that around: Buy a statement work of art and choose furniture to complement it? That’s the way to give contemporary art its due and achieve a room that makes a truly personal statement. Several months ago, “KC Studio” […]

Editor’s Letter, January/February 2018

Happy New Year! It is one we kick off with “See Hear,” a new regular column by author and “KC Studio” contributing writer Steve Paul, who knows KC’s arts scene — visual, performing, cinematic, literary, architectural — better than anyone, following his decades of work as arts editor at the Kansas City Star. Steve gets […]

Artful Gift Guide

With their rich, variegated coloration and swelling organic forms, Jackie Kincaid’s felted vessels are wondrous. To gaze at one is to watch a rosy sunset, lapping waves, the swirl of a geode, the path of a river twisting across the earth. With a lifelong love of textiles inspired by her mother’s sewing talents, Kincaid began exploring felt making six years ago and soon perfected the technique of turning wool fibers into perfectly balanced tabletop sculptures.

Ruben Castillo: Images of Intimacy

Ruben Castillo: Images of Intimacy

“My work is about the image of intimacy,” says Kansas City artist Ruben Castillo, a second-year Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Resident who teaches in the printmaking department at the Kansas City Art Institute. Castillo is known for his sensitive etchings and ink wash drawings of ordinary domestic objects — sofas, chairs, closets and hangers, a […]

At KC’s Galleries: A Proliferation of Issue Art

At KC’s Galleries: A Proliferation of Issue Art

From Gun Violence to Discrimination, Artists Weight In The centerpiece of Archie Scott Gobber’s summer one-person show at Haw Contemporary Crossroads generated a firestorm of interest and commentary on social media after “New York Magazine” senior art critic Jerry Saltz posted a picture of it with the comment, “Put one in front of every NFL […]