Cocoon Gallery 
Voted KC Mag’s “Best Independent Art Gallery of 2009″!
Gallery Hours:
Thurs + Fri, 11am-5pm
First Fridays, open until 9pm
Or by appointment
To schedule a gallery appointment, contact Jennifer Tuttle at 816-421-2292 or jtuttle@artsincubatorkc.org
Call for Entries
Arts Incubator salutes the achievements of both local and national artists by sponsoring art competitions, juried art shows and exhibition galleries.
If you are interested in exhibiting your artwork please send the required information (below) to jtuttle@artsincubatorkc.org OR Cocoon Gallery/ 115 West 18th Street/ KC, MO/ 64108.
*Current Resume or CV
*Exhibition Proposal
*4 (or more) images that support your exhibition proposal
Current Exhibition
MORNING SPRING
HEINRICH TOH
February 5 - 27, 2010
ARTIST STATEMENT
Inspired by heritage, tradition and fading customs, the exhibit Morning Spring by Heinrich Toh, examines cultural displacement resulting from relocation and travel. As memories seem to shift and change with the assimilation to his current environment, Toh’s work provides a glimpse into what was once seemingly familiar. By revisiting memories of past while surveying the present, his recent works on paper embrace the complexity of culture and identity.
Commonly found Asian objects, architecture and iconography form connections to a lifetime of memories. The use of personal photographs along side imagery of Asian artifacts, symbols and Chinese brocade patterns, provides a striking contrast between the modern and historical elements in Toh’s work – imparting a fresh perspective on traditional and contemporary culture.
ARTIST BIO
Heinrich Toh was born in Singapore and attended the Cleveland Institute of Art. He has exhibited at galleries around the United States and at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle. His work is in private and public collections, which include the University Hospital of Cleveland, Ohio and the Dell Children’s Hospital in Texas. He is a studio artist and instructor at the INKubator Press printmaking studio in the Crossroads Arts District.
Past Exhibitions
NTER CHNG
Opening reception: Second Friday, January 8th from 6-9pm
On view: through January 29th
NTER CHNG (text speak for interchange) is an interactive text messaging experience by Kansas City based artists Drew Bolton, Jamie Burkart and Garrett Fuselier opening Second Friday, January 8 from 6 - 9 at the Arts Incubator’s Cocoon Gallery.
Equal parts software application and architectural installation, NTER CHNG encourages visitors to turn on their cell phones and communicate in real-time through both faces of a digital wall constructed in the gallery. Over the course of the exhibition, messages from participants combine to form a virtual dialog that demonstrates the character of the TXT phenomenon.
NTER CHNG inverts the social practice short messaging. The privacy of a silent exchange is made public. The one-to-one becomes many-to-many. The pragmatic, ephemeral and every-day nature of text messaging is suddenly transformed into a physically immersive aesthetic experience in which visitors can speak and misspeak together as a group.
Bulton, Burkart and Fuselier combine their backgrounds in scenic design, computer programming, motion graphics, and experiential production to craft a social information space that explores the pervasiveness of TXT culture and challenges its insularity. “We hope to make new connections for the gallery visitor. Texting can be a very interior experience. We are asking them to reach outside their address books and step beyond the buddy list,” says Burkart.
“[Opening night] will be our biggest night with the widest range of communication. We feel that because the gallery is conducive to the open exchange of ideas we are allowing people to write anything and communicate in the most comfortable way possible,” says Fuselier.
NTER CHNG is the collective product of a Bolton, Burkart and Fuselier collaboration produced exclusively for the 2010 Cocoon Gallery exhibition.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Drew Bolton was chief editor of the 2009 Grand Arts Film, SSION’s BOY. A 2006 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, he lives and works in Kansas City.
Jamie Burkart has exhibited interactive video works with the Bushwick Art Project in New York and the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco. His recent installation with the Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project addressed the Missouri River in Kansas City as a Social Network. Burkart studied Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Garrett Fuselier is a 2008 graduate of Kansas City Art Institute. He designs interactive projection based experiences with TakeTwo, a cross-media design firm of Kansas City.
RELAX, SWEET PEA, IT’LL ALL BE CIRCLES SOON
Opening reception: Friday, December 4th from 6-9pm
On view: through January 4th
Large-scale, abstract painter Konefal engages in what he calls “structured spontaneity” in a new series of works on view at Cocoon Gallery beginning December 4th. Questions such as “Is it about symbols or surface?” are explored, which in turn “opens boundaries for play.”
THERMALS: HOT NEW WORKS BY INCUBATOR ARTISTS
Opening reception: November 6, 6-9pm
Cocoon Gallery at the Arts Incubator is pleased to have presented Thermals: Hot new works by Incubator Artists. This multi-media, collaborative, and heat-themed exhibition brought together all artists working within the Incubator walls– including INKubator Press Artists and Studio Artists. Participants were asked to respond to the theme of HEAT. The artworks featured in Thermals were raffled off during this year’s Turn on the Heat event, which took place on November 14, 2009. All proceeds benefited the Arts Incubator.
CARDINAL DIRECTIONS
Opening Reception: October 2nd 6-9pm
On view: October 2nd-30th
How have your physical surroundings impacted who you are today? Where are you now and how did you get there? Cardinal Directions engages these questions, discovering that our sense of self is often inextricably bound to the spaces we inhabit over the course of our lives. This exhibition brings together artists teaching at universities to the North, South, East, and West of Kansas City, each of whom is drawn towards the examination of personal identity, geography, and the idea of interfacing with real or imagined boundaries.
Featured artists include John Hendrix from University of Washington in St. Louis, Shawn Bitters from University of Kansas, Santiago Cal from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Duat Vu from Missouri State University.
Read review here.
DRESSED
BETSY TIMMER
On view: Sept. 4th- 26th
Cocoon Gallery is pleased to present Dressed–an installation of recent works by Betsy
Timmer. Functioning as both uncomfortable parodies and reminders of our inevitable
imperfections, Timmer’s anthropomorphic works share a space between tragedy and levity.
Steel armatures, fabric, felt, and found objects are employed in the construction of these
uncanny figures. Beginning September 4th, they will inhabit our exhibition space– hanging
from the ceiling, sitting, standing, kneeling, sprawling and crawling across the gallery floor.
This multi-media, interactive installation will close September 26th.
Though it seems, at first glance, that Timmer’s work is inspired by the ever-increasing
demands placed specifically on her own gender, this sense of discord can easily be translated
into the lived experiences of our society as a whole. Dressed is more about a person’s struggle
to fill many roles simultaneously– spouse, parent, advocate, artist, lover, provider, friend,
homemaker or home-fixer. Timmer succinctly describes this daily tug-of-war as “text
messaging while driving 85 miles per hour.” Our attempts to ‘do it all’ often backfire–
resulting in stress, breakdowns, and what she calls “the looming feeling that there is not
enough time.” Her multi-media and potentially multi-functioning creations imagine a world
in which hybrid objects have become so necessary that they end up defining material culture.
Timmer delves into some sinister subject matter– the physical and mental toll of trudging
through a seventy-hour workweek, living with poor self-image, or a crumbling relationship–
yet she approaches these issues with a wink rather than a heavy hand. She chooses to work
with materials that have an interesting lineage, visibly used objects found at garage sales or
thrift stores. The pre-existing stains, rips and tears, and other imperfections featured in these
repurposed goods imbue her characters with personality and quirk. It is a testament to
Timmer’s apt use of sly humor and metaphor that these vulnerable, torn, exposed, and
abused forms are ultimately still able to tease out a chortle, even if it is a slightly
uncomfortable one.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Betsy Timmer is a 2008 MFA graduate of the University of Kansas and a 2003 BFA graduate
of Western Michigan University. She has shown extensively throughout the region, including
the Olive Gallery, 6 Gallery, Apex Gallery, and Lawrence Art Center. A solo exhibition of
Timmer’s work was featured at ARC Gallery in Chicago, IL. She has attended both Felt
School and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Timmer currently resides in Lawrence,
KS and teaches on the visual arts faculty at the University of Kansas.
View photos of the exhibition here
Read review of Dressed here
CLOSED MONDAYS
A new series of works by LORI BUNTIN
On View: Aug. 7- 31st
In Closed Mondays, painter Lori Buntin explores the geometric forms inherent in an unoccupied public swimming pool. Adhering to a single subject matter, Buntin carefully examines and portrays the visual anatomy of this particular physical space from varying viewpoints. In emphasizing the strong linear language of ladders, pool chairs, signage and tiling, Buntin creates an aesthetic that recurrently challenges fixed boundaries between the figurative and abstract. Geometry of form is not only represented, but also repeated, through its reflection in the pool’s still, undisturbed water.
Documentation of the artist’s process will be exhibited as well, in the form of photographs and gouache sketches.
About the artist:
Lori Buntin earned her MFA in painting from Wichita State University in 1995. In 2001 she moved to Kansas City, became a member of the Arts Incubator and continued working professionally as a custom picture framer. In 2003 Buntin moved into her own building on Troost Avenue where she continues to paint, frame pictures and produce work as a partner in Hoop Dog Studio.
Buntin is represented by Stuff in Kansas City.
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