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.

Artist Pages | Fuko Ito: Fumblys, Shruggles and Plushscapes

Artist Pages | Fuko Ito: Fumblys, Shruggles and Plushscapes

Using colored pencil, graphite and gel pen, Kansas City/Lawrence artist Fuko Ito conjures imaginary worlds in her entrancing small works featuring “fumblys,” the artist’s name for the invented little characters she presents in “plushy environments.” “They’re a way of sucking trauma out of something hurtful,” Ito explained during a recent visit to her studio on […]

Editor’s Letter, March/April 2019

In a time of crisis and division in American culture, arts institutions are doing their best to foster tolerance and understanding, and in some cases, to directly address issues of financial stress and income inequality. During the recent government shutdown, the Kansas City Symphony offered free tickets to furloughed government employees for its January 25-27 […]

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 […]