HAPPY TREE FRIENDS (PART II) Artist Focus - Kurt Flecksing

An excerpt from artist Kurt Flecksing's gallery talk, which took place on Friday May 15, 2009 at Charlotte Street Foundation's Urban Culture Project Paragraph Gallery.

HAPPY TREE FRIENDS, PART II
Paragraph / 23 E 12th, Kansas City, MO
On View April 17 - June 4, 2009

Happy Tree Friends (Part II) at Paragraph featured work by Kurt Flecksing (Kansas City), Ke-Sook Lee (Kansas City), Hmh Services (Kansas City), Sarah Vandersall (Kansas City), BJ Vogt (St. Louis, MO), and Chris Wildrick (Syracuse, NY). It was the second component of a two-part exhibition project curated by Charlotte Street Foundation Associate Director Kate Hackman and featured artworks that depicted, referenced, incorporated, documented, and otherwise derived or drew inspiration from trees.

Happy Tree Friends (Part II) focused primarily on exhibition-specific installation-based works, creating an immersive, interactive, multi-sensorial experience for viewers. Works included "Root", a new installation by St. Louis based artist (and KCAI alumni) B.J. Vogt, which incorporated motion sensors and tree limbs to form a connection between the synaptic connections in the brain and the branching structures of trees; "Tree Woman and Tree Woman Leaf", two new related installations by Ke-Sook Lee, that employed leaves and bark gathered by the artist as sculptural elements and surfaces for drawings; and several works from an ongoing project by Syracuse, NY-based artist Chris Wildrick titled "The Best Tree in the World". An installation of seating made from raw wood by Kurt Flecksing served as the gathering space for a series of tree-related lectures and conversations by area arborealists on Saturday afternoons in May.

To view the full press release, visit this page and click on the link: http://www.charlottestreet.org/2009/05/happy-tree-friends-part-2-opens-at-par...

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Charlotte
• Street
• Foundation
• Urban
• Culture
• Project
• Art
• Exhibit
• Happy
• Tree
• Friends
• (Part
• II)
• Parag