Celluloid meltdown inspired painter Nicole Mauser's works ...

New abstractions by Nicole Mauser at the Beggars Table Church and Gallery top the list of May?s First Friday attractions.

Mauser has been an active presence in the KC art world since she moved here in 2006, teaching in the Kansas City Art Institute?s continuing education program, co-founding Plug Projects and participating in the KC PAC plein air painting group?s weekly sessions.

Locally, Mauser has shown work at multiple venues, including Dolphin, Paragraph and the Kansas City Artists Coalition. Her new exhibit at Beggars Table coincides with a recently opened solo show at the Gladstone Community Center and follows two one-person shows in Chicago in 2010 and 2011.

Titled ?Lacuna,? Mauser?s Crossroads exhibit includes a series of collages inspired by a film meltdown. According to the artist, a projector malfunctioned during a screening of a Joseph Cornell film, causing the film to ignite and melting the celluloid as the audience, including Mauser, watched.

The visual spectacle fired her imagination. ?These works are an elegy for the frames lost, or lacuna, from the Cornell film,? she writes.

The colors in the collages, applied with a squeegee, allude to the colored gels sometimes used in the projection of Cornell?s films. The contrasting black-and-white passages come from snapshots she took in Berlin, which she photocopied and enlarged and extracted details. They also incorporate scans of the sheets of paper Mauser uses as palettes.

She wants that ?blurring,? she says, ?between painting and collage? and ?object and reproduction.? She also likes the way that collage enables her to ?flatten dimensionality.?

Mauser?s exhibit will feature roughly a dozen works. In small paintings developed from the collages, she builds up color fields by putting down long swipes of acrylic and then applying oil paint. ?I think of them as having different speeds,? she said. ?I want to play each material off the other.?

The most recent pieces are paintings on paper. Evidencing a greater sense of motion and compositional risk than the previous works, they also fully realize her drive to activate blank space as positive space.

Abstraction often critiques or converses with its antecedents. Mauser is aware of her artistic precedents, but she?s more interested in abstraction as a record of her own experiences and creative life. A recurrent touchstone of her works is that residue of strokes and forms left on the sheets of paper she uses as a palette.

Joe Bussell and Calder Kamin exhibits

It?s a big weekend for Joe Bussell and Calder Kamin. Both artists will show new Artboards at the Missouri Bank Crossroads Branch. Bussell?s west-facing boards feature whimsical abstract forms based on microscopic images of pollen, Hubble Telescope images from space and colorful beadwork presented on stark white backdrops.

Titled ?Invaders,? Kamin?s east-facing boards feature images of starlings ? one shows a few birds; the other depicts a swarm ? and refer to the astronomical growth of the species following their introduction to the United States in 1890 and 1891.

Bussell also has an opening at City Ice Arts Friday night. His exhibit, ?Spit,? includes new acrylic and tempera paintings on paper and canvas with colorful biomorpic forms.

On Saturday at the Lakeside Nature Center, 4701 E. Gregory Blvd., Kamin presents her ?Impact Proof? project of vinyl decals, which are designed to prevent birds from crashing into windows. As part of the center?s Urban Bird Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Kamin will hold a workshop to make preventative decals from paper. She will also introduce her line of greeting cards of birds, which help raise money for the center?s hospital.

Kemper at the Crossroads

It?s Jim Sajovic?s turn to speak in the ?Be Inspired? series at Kemper at the Crossroads, where the Kansas City artist and long-time Kansas City Art Institute professor has a large painting of local philanthropist Scott Francis on view.

The image is a composite of multiple photographs Sajovic took of Francis and is overlaid with words from a T.S. Eliot poem, ?Little Gidding.?

The poem is important to Francis, Sajovic said, and is ?about the passing of time, the shifting nature of reality and the temporary nature of life.? It is also the source of the painting?s title, ?The Fire and the Rose? (2011).

Sajovic?s talk will contextualize the painting within the evolution of his work. The museum?s purchase of the 49 1/2 by 45-inch canvas, created with pigmented inks and acrylic, was made possible by a gift from J. Scott Francis, Francis Family Foundation Discretionary Fund.

Richard Berkley photos

Berkley buffs, as in former Kansas City mayor Richard Berkley, know he?s a shutterbug, and now they can take in his portraits of politicians and celebrities at the Buttonwood Art Center.

The exhibit also includes images from his travels to more than 70 countries, as well as shots by other photographers of some of the celebrities that Berkley and his wife, Sandy, met over the years.

Beggars Table Church and Gallery

?Nicole Mauser: Lacuna?

When: Reception 6-10 p.m. Friday. Open by appointment through June 29.

Where: 2010 W. Baltimore Ave., second floor

Info: 816-807-6455

Blue Djinn Gallery

?David Olson?

When: Reception 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through May 25.

Where: 1400 Union Ave.

Info: 816-518-4649

Buttonwood Art Space

?The Photograph Collection of Mayor Richard Berkley?

When: Reception: 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. May 4 and by appointment through May 27.

Where: 3013 Main St.

Info: 816-285-9040

Centric Projects

Works by Kansas City Art Institute printmaking students

When: Reception and live printmaking event from 5-8 p.m. Friday. Open one night only.

Where: 2024 Main St., Suite One West.

Info: 816-802-3426

City Ice Arts

?Spit: New Paintings by Joe Bussell?

When: Reception: 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open noon-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and by appointment through June 15.

Where: 2015 Campbell St.

Info: 816-820-4105

The Guild Event Space

Inaugural One Night Art Exhibition, a group show curated by Skyler Bieberly

When: Reception 6-9 p.m. Friday with live music from the Conquerors, Your Reflection and Danny ?Dan Matic? Staton. Open one night only.

Where: 1621 Locust St.

Info:816-471-8550

Hilliard Gallery

?Guinette Wise: Cold Beer and Steel?

When: Reception 6-10 p.m. Friday. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon-4 p.m. Saturday through May 27

Where: 1820 McGee St.

Info: 816-561-2956

Kansas City Artists Coalition

Nelson Smith, Eileen Thomas, Cathy Deuschle, John Hare and Todd Peterson

When: Artist talks at 6 p.m. and reception 7-8:30 p.m. Friday. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday through May 31.

Where: 201 Wyandotte St.

Info: 816-421-5222

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

?Be Inspired!?

When: Conversation with Jim Sajovic at 6 p.m. Friday. Open noon-10 p.m. Friday through June 7.

Where: 33 W. 19th St.

Info: 816-753-5784

The Late Show

?Darwin Arevalo: New Work?

?Doug Schwietert: Assemblage?

When: Reception 6-10 p.m. Friday. Open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and by appointment through May 25.

Where: 1600 Cherry St.

Info: 816-474-1300

Leedy-Voulkos Art Center

?Jared Flaming: Parergon?

?Jared Green : A Coherent Story to Tell?

?Spring Group Show Highlighting: Angela Burson?

?Keith Young : Assemblage?

Continuing exhibits

?Ada Koch: La Piazza: Praising Architecture and a Balanced Life?

?Michael Stack: Eagleman & 9/11 Series?

When: Reception 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday through May 25. Flaming exhibit through June 29.

Where: 2012 Baltimore Ave.

Info: 816-474-1919

Locust Factory

First Friday Art Fair

When: 6-9 p.m. Friday and noon-4 p.m. May 5

Where: 504 E. 18th St. (west end of the building)

Info: 816-716-5940

Main Street Gallery

?Hookin? Is Hard Work: Hooked Yarn Portraits by Omaha artist Wanda Ewing?

When: Reception 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday through Sunday through May 31.

Where: 1610 Main St. (upstairs at Anton?s Tap Room & Restaurant)

Info: 816-210-6534

Mattie Rhodes Art Gallery

?Children?s Art Exhibition?

When: Reception 5-8 p.m. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday through May 23.

Where: 919 W. 17th St.

Info: 816-221-2349

Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art

?Tanya Hartman: We Write Ourselves Anew?

?Tracy Krumm: In the Making?

When: Reception 7-9 p.m. Friday. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment through June 29.

Where: 2004 Baltimore Ave.

Info: 816-221-2626

Slap-n-Tickle Gallery

?Ceramics by Paul Mallory and Jewelry by Melissa Moore & Julia Pitt?

When: Reception 6-11 p.m. Friday. Open noon-4 p.m. May 4 and by appointment through May 19.

Where: 504 E. 18th St.

Info: 816-716-5940

Todd Weiner Gallery

?Michael Young: This Is My World?

When: Reception 5-10 p.m. Friday. Open 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday through June 1

Where: 115 W. 18th St.

Info: 816-984-8538

Red Star Studios

?Jessica Brandl?

When: Reception 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Saturdays through June 29.

Where: 2100 Walnut St.

Info:816-474-7316

Red Star Studios in Belger Crane Yard Studios

?Akio Takamori: Lust?

When: Reception 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open by appointment through Aug. 24.

Where: 2011 Tracy Ave.

Info: 816-474-7316

Spray Booth Gallery

?Lovely/Lonely: Molly Kaderka?

When: Reception 6-11 p.m. Friday. Open noon-6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon-3 p.m. Saturday through June 1.

Where: 130 W. 18th St., inside Volker Bicycles

Info: 816-471-5555

Vine Street Studio

?Cultures Without Borders?

When: Reception 5-8 p.m. Friday with music by Eddie Moore and the Outer Circle Jazz Group 8-9:30 p.m. ($5 requested donation). Open 3-5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4-6 p.m. Friday and by appointment through May 31.

Where: 2033 Vine St.

Info: 816-645-1052

1714 Holmes St.

?From Castles to Sand : Claire Bryant Senior Thesis Exhibition?

When: Reception 6-9 p.m. Friday. Open noon-4 p.m. May 4 and 5 and by appointment through May 10.

Where: 1714 Holmes St.

Info:512-636-3410

Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/01/4210613/may-first-friday-guide.html

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