Miguel Rivera at the Kansas City Collection

“Miguel Rivera’s work is best experienced up close, in person, and with a history book on hand. Every print is like digging

through historical bedrock to understand a timeline of human movement, politics, climate, and culture. This is especially

the case in the print Fin de si cle II titled for a phrase used to characterize the end of the 19 century a period of such

artistic movements as symbolism and modernism. Here, Rivera presents facets of a polyhedron, a centered jewel

interrupting a red belt and dotted grid in the background.

The print suggests something plebeian disrupted by the excessive visual layering, like a bird’s eye view of a crystal tower

obscuring the foundations on which it was built. Logical social connections develop as Rivera climbs up through the

layers. In other prints, baroque church facades in Mexico and early marine navigational systems used by colonialists make

up the initial layers. But in most cases, the topmost image is the same polygonal blueprint for a perfect world, built on a

foundation of imperfection. Rivera’s prints take us through history, religion, architecture, political power, and colonialism.

Rivera is quick to acknowledge he is not a traditional printmaker—that his process is more in line with painterly behaviors.

The convergence is something he considers in his studio. “The difference between printmaking and painting is—for

printmaking you have to have a plan before you execute anything. I get bored with having a plan and prefer to think in

layers and chance.” At the base of the image, a map provides the foundation for everything that follows. “I can see all the

layers, like strata, when I look at a print. I think about architecture and living in transparent houses. I want to see what

those houses were built upon, to see the foundation underneath.” The region depicted in the maps informs the next

layer: the image of a virus, like Chagas disease, common to the poorest classes of South and Central America. Rivera

manipulates the virus images, pushing the layer back when he applies the polyhedrons. Rivera uses this approach in

Simplicity in Rejection, integrating cultural and historical information without altering the original maps he uses at the

base. Orbital marks circle the print’s outer edge, corralling the shapes towards the center of the composition where the

eye is thrust into a flushed, bodily red.

“At one point, I must come to terms with the fact that I’m going to deny the first layers of information,” Rivera says, his

hand on the edge of Simplicity in Rejection. “I think, ‘what if I push a little more?’ I’ve lost images that way.” So have the

history books, as geographical and regional memories are overwritten by time and hierarchy, buried deeper beneath new

layers of time and information. It’s only a matter of time until that top layer—the recurring blueprint for perfection—is

negated by another vision.”

– Annie Raab

The Kansas City Collection, @2016, All Rights Reserved

the vortex trinity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Kansas City, Mo. On Friday, April 7th, 2017 from 5-10 PM the Todd Weiner Gallery will host the exhibition

opening for “the vortex trinity” featuring three major artists based in Kansas City: Hugh Merrill, Miguel

Rivera, and Jim Sajovic. The exhibition will run through Saturday May 27th, 2017.

There are major moments in an artists career that define their art practice. These zenith moments are

experienced in the mastery of personal style, challenging experiences that redefine ones thinking, or even

conquering a seemingly unconquerable quest.

In September 2016, Jim Sajovic, longstanding professor at the Kansas City Art Institute celebrated his

retirement. Anyone who knows Jim had no doubt that his retirement would only invigorate his art making

process. The work that Jim has produced in the months following is nothing short of prolific, an entire new

body to be exact. “Provisional Chaos”, is made up of colorful energized paintings that play on alignments

and convergences of color and structural relationships. The concept and process of creating these paintings

nods to Raphael Rubenstein’s notion of “Provisional Painting” where artists, “In different ways, all

deliberately turn away from strong’ painting for something that seems to constantly risk inconsequence or

collapse.” Jim sets out to create a piece with, “No idea what the appearance of the finished work will be.”

Beginning with selected images from artists such as Albert Oehlen and Christopher Wood, Sajovic organically

adds and retracts colors over layers of images of cells, viruses, minerals, lunar maps, Hubble photographs,

and facial closeups until a finished product is achieved. “Provisional Chaos 2/26/17” incorporates Sajovic’s

vibrant use of color with his newly developed highly abstracted forms in mastery of his personal style.

Miguel Rivera, a Kansas City transplant, is the current print chair of the Kansas City Art Institute, President

of the Kansas City Artist Coalition, and recent winner of a three-year residency at Studios Inc. Miguel had a

robust career in Mexico where he was classically trained and entered his career in higher education before

moving to the United States to continue his own study. Landing in Kansas City has given Miguel the

opportunity to educate students while continuing to further his art practice. As with many classically trained

artists, a majority of the subject matter in his previous work linked heavily to the larger art historical

cannon. In the last year, Miguel has confronted how he approaches the creative process. As a result, the

body of mixed media work that has emerged is truly reflective of Miguel as an individual coming to terms

with his ideological art discourse. All of the works in this body subsist of soft color combinations with

vibrant bursts of statement colors filling the myriad of constructed geometric shapes over images of a

Peruvian pigeon or even the chicken pox virus. Miguel states, “In my current work, I am visiting my

recollection of events and structures that lead one’s daily life such as maps, the magic of belief in forces of

physics and deep embedded images from baroque Mexican fades.” With these ideas in mind, Miguel layers

manipulated photos and vector drawings which he deconstructs with a laser resulting in a complex push and

pull between the layers in the work. The additive and subtractive process creates an ambiguity that Miguel

relates to his experience of traveling, living in several environments, and being displaced all the while

collecting a visual memory of the path.

The past year has been an especially hard battle for artist Hugh Merrill. In 2016 he was diagnosed with

throat cancer and began to fight the disease that threatened his life. Hugh is a studio artist, community

artist, educator, writer and poet. He helped to build the Kansas City art community as we know it today

and has work in many major museums including MOMA, Harvard, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and

the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. One of his greatest joys comes from the ability to connect, interact, and

communicate with community members. Part of the journey in his fight with cancer was coping with the

fact that for a while we would lose all verbal communication. His work in “the vortex trinity” was created

during the time when he was not able to communicate with those around him. He embraced the harsh

effects of the medicine coursing through his body and translated the emotional journey onto paper. This

work is truly revolutionary in Merrill’s career. He incorporated his emblematic style of strong geometric

shapes full of competing color and marks with a new element of deliberately empty geometric forms. The

monoprints in this series are harmoniously unified in a way that is distinctly different of Hugh’s previous

the vortex trinity bodies of work. This work is a testament to Hugh’s character and his dedication to his practice as a life

long artist. The work in “the vortex trinity” is a reflection of his ability to harness the energy from his

major life moments and translate them into art.

“the vortex trinity” at the Todd Weiner Gallery in the Crossroads Arts District pairs these three dynamic

artists as they define their place in the art world. Each of them brings a fresh approach to their work. All

three were professors at the Kansas City Art Institute and have dedicated a significant part of their life to

developing young artists. The Spencer Reference Library in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is a pioneer in

the cataloging of selected living artists careers. Through a program they have created entitled the Artist File

Initiative, artists work together with the library to curate their file. The files contain researchable material of

the artists which is available to not only academics but the entire community. All three artists in the “the

vortex trinity” are members of the Artist File Initiative and contribute to ensure that others will be able to

learn from their careers.

The second exhibition space in the Todd Weiner Gallery will open the exhibition “Welcome Home” by Kansas

City Art Institute senior Ace Robinson. Robinson was instructed by all three of the professors showing in

“the vortex trinity”. With their guidance, he was begun to hone his medium of choice, textiles. In reference

to this work, Robinson says, “The quilts are being used as a mirror; a space to re-evaluate my childhood

memories and come to understand how they have shaped my life today.”