Take Shelter

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 31st, 7-10pm
March 31st - April 21st, 2012

Join us during the Rustbelt to Artist Belt Cherokee Street Party: Saturday, April 14th, 6-8pm

Curated by Plug Projects
Featuring Ah-ram Park, Yoonmi Nam, Erika Lynne Hanson, and Leo Esquivel

Los Caminos, in conjunction with Plug Projects, presents TAKE SHELTER, an exhibition featuring Kansas City area artists Ah-ram Park, Yoonmi Nam, Erika Lynne Hanson, and Leo Esquivel, whose practices navigate the domestic sphere through photography, sculpture, printmaking, textiles, and installation. TAKE SHELTER is curated by Plug Projects as a response to the location and environment of the Los Caminos apartment gallery as both an exhibition site and a living space. The selected works investigate both the physical and intangible structures that permeate our daily lives. Strategies of repetition offer moments of introspection in the midst of everyday objects, banal palettes, and familiar materials that echo the discrete patterns found in the daily routine. The work on display highlights the tension between the comforts and discomforts found in the home.

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Ah-ram Park's color photographs frame anonymous architectural spaces that are void of human presence from both interior and exterior perspectives. Park’s formal compositions present the viewer with moments of quiet contemplation that are somber and hopeful. They consider remarkable moments found in the common, overlooked background. Ah-ram Park is a photographer based in Kansas City whose work addresses the theme of social landscapes. He was born in Pusan, Korea, and moved to Manhattan, Kansas where he completed his BS in Economics at Kansas State University in 2010. His photographs are gaining critical acclaim and have been exhibited at the Dolphin Gallery and the Spray Booth Gallery (both located in Kansas City), and are currently featured in the Bemis Center Regional Juried Exhibition in Omaha. Currently, Park is the gallery manager at Bill Brady KC.

Similar observations of our surrounding architecture also influence the work of Yoonmi Nam. The toile wallpaper, created specifically for this exhibition, synthesizes traditional Chinese drawing approaches with depictions of Midwestern dwellings in various states of creation and collapse. The wallpapering in itself acts as a reminder of domestic décor as a demonstration of control over our environment, and a desire to enable change over one’s immediate surroundings. Yoonmi Nam (born in Seoul, Korea) is an artist based in Lawrence, KS. Nam obtained an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from The Rhode Island School of Design (2000) and a BFA in Printmaking from Hong Ik University (1997). Recent solo exhibitions include, In Between and In Transition, at the Upper Art Gallery at The University of Dallas in Irving, TX, as well as, Book of Rocks, Flowers, and Birds, at The Front in New Orleans, LA. Nam has exhibited work at The Golden Parachutes Gallery in Berlin, the Kyoto Art Center in Japan,Yamazaki Art Bookstore in Kyoto, Japan, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice Italy. Currently, Nam is the Associate Chair for the Department of Visual Art at The University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS.

In contrast, Erika Lynne Hanson's work relies on the developed abstract and reductive visual language embodied in a set of materials. Hanson’s work presents scenarios where a precarious balance is achieved through the interdependent arrangement of hand-dyed textile weavings, succulent plants, fragrant cedar planks and ice. The instability of the artificial structures both mirrors the landscape and invites the viewer to contemplate the fluctuating nature of our environment. Hanson obtained an MFA from California College of the Arts (2010) and a BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute (2006). Recently, Hanson’s work has been featured in Re-Search: Three Projects at Charlotte Street Foundation’s Paragraph+Project Space. Her work has also been exhibited in group shows at the Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City, Little Paper Planes in Oakland, Monument2 in Chicago, and Tompkins Projects West in Los Angeles. Hanson has also been a recipient of an Urban Culture Project Studio Residency in Kansas City. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Hanson is currently a lecturer in the Fiber Department at The Kansas City Art Institute.

The sculptures of Leo Esquivel are facsimiles of pillows and mattresses created from common building materials such as sheetrock mud, primer, and construction foam. Trompe l’oeil stains act as the residual evidence left by absent, anonymous bodies. The work, Bottom Stair, embodies a paradox, alluding to comfort and anxiety at the same time. Originally from Houston, TX, Leo Esquivel obtained a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute (1995) and currently lives and works in Kansas City. In 2003 Esquivel was a recipient of The Charlotte Street Foundation Award for Visual Arts. Esquivel was co-curator of the Dirt Gallery from 1996 until its closing in 2003. His work is part of many private and public collections including the Sprint Corporate Collection and The Kansas City Collection.

PLUG Projects is a curatorial collaboration by five Kansas City artists who share the mission of bringing fresh perspectives and conversation to the local art community. Their goal is to energize artists and the public at large by exhibiting challenging new work, initiating critical dialogue, and expanding connections of artists in Kansas City as part of a wider, national network of artists.  Please visit their website to learn more about exhibitions, opportunities, and programming.

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Image caption: Ah-ram Park, Kansas City, Missouri, 2011. Cotton rag on archival pigment print, 20 x 30".