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.

Arts News: Block Artspace Project Wall Features Eminent KCAI Alum Stanley Whitney

Kansas City knows the alluring gridded abstractions of Stanley Whitney from his paintings in the permanent collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. His arrangements of brilliant, gestural, color blocks converse with jazz, African American quilting and the long history of American abstraction. The internationally exhibited artist, whose […]

Editor’s Letter, May/June 2019

The passing of Lennie Berkowitz marks the further diminution of a generation of Jewish art dealers and collectors who played a critical role in making the Kansas City art scene the vibrant place it is today. In the past decade we have lost Byron Cohen, Jan Weiner, Harrison Jedel and Jerry and Margaret Nerman, all […]

Tom Gregg: Still Lifes for Tense Times

Tom Gregg: Still Lifes for Tense Times

Grenades and a MAGA hat, apples and playing cards. They’re all fair game for inclusion in the paintings of well-known Kansas City artist Tom Gregg, whose luminous, enigmatic still lifes have been mystifying and enchanting art lovers in Kansas City and beyond for the better part of 25 years. In this issue’s Artist Pages, we […]

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 […]