Past Exhibitions at the KIA

Moon's large-scale watercolor works are painted in the style of mid-20th century American Action painters like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. He layers, drips, and splatters his watercolors, taking advantage of the fluid and translucent nature of watercolor, the speed of the medium's drying time, and its hazy, airy nature. Moon's compositions explore the representation of elements with a visual tension created through color, gloss, luster, and texture, focusing attention over the entire surface. He has been featured in eight solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions throughout Korea. Based in Paris, Moon is represented and exhibited by galleries in Paris and New York.

Sunghyun Moon, Afternoon (detail), 2016, watercolor. Courtesy of Waterfall Gallery.

Celebrate the joys and foibles of French society and culture between 1830 and 1930, when Paris was the world capital of artistic creativity, innovation, and opportunity. The daily life of all people "from the city and country, rich and poor, famous and anonymous "grew to become a most popular subject. The exhibition is organized according to several major themes that dominate the museum s holdings, and fully half of our collection s French prints are featured. These include depictions that glorify or ridicule the ever-present French State, landscapes of the monuments and street life found in big towns and cities, bucolic renditions of farm life, the adoration of beautiful women, the love of children, and the fruitful relationship that arose between printmaking and literature. Among the artists on view are Théodore Géricault, Honoré Daumier, Charles Méryon, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Georges Rouault, and James Tissot. A small number of our French photographs round out the display.

Georges Rouault, Bittersweet, 1935, aquatint. Collection of the KIA, Director's Fund Purchase

This annual exhibition showcases the work of artists from 14 Michigan counties. A guest juror selects roughly 100 works for the show, from hundreds of submissions. More than $5,000 in cash prizes will be awarded at an opening reception for the exhibition on Friday, May 17. The public is invited to vote for their favorite work during the summer, and the Peoples' Choice Award, sponsored by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo, will be awarded in August.

Shown: Douglas LaFerle, Kali s Wheel, motorized kinetic sculpture with found objects

Orna Ben-Ami brings attention to the global refugee crisis through her welded iron works in this exhibition, creating highly symbolic pieces that carry universal, local and deeply personal meanings. Ben-Ami has developed of unique process of selecting photographs of people with their belongings, sculpting the belongings in iron and attaching the welded pieces to the enlarged photographs. Ben-Ami cuts and welds the iron by hand to "soften"it and shape into familiar forms that represent the strongholds of identity and physical and emotional weight of their journey. She is one of the few female welders celebrated internationally.

Over thousands of years, the tradition of Chinese calligraphy and painting has manifested a broad visual language that has served as a cultural wellspring for a person's artistic pursuits and inner character. The artists on view are influenced by millennia of tradition, including that of literati painting, an approach defined by emotional and intellectual growth as the pathway to quality artistic expression.

Praised as a "vibrant, beating assemblage of color," the tissue paper sculptures of Maya Freelon have been exhibited internationally in Paris, Italy, Jamaica, Madagascar, and in the U.S. at the Smithsonian Museum of African American Art. Fragile yet vibrant, they are imbued with the vigor of moving energy.

This annual juried exhibition celebrates the work of high school artists in Southwest Michigan. Students who qualify may concurrently enter the 6th District Congressional Art Competition, and the winner will receive a trip to Washington DC to see their art on view in the U.S. Capitol. (shown: Finn Roberts, Van Buren Tech: An Out of Body Experience, digital art)

Abstract Expressionism, first developed in the 1940s, garnered an almost immediate reaction from a group of painters who began reintroducing the figure into this high-energy postwar movement. The Expressionist Figure examines a large group of the leading artists of the time, including important women painters and their contributions to mid-twentieth century expressionist painting. The exhibition includes prominent artists, from Deborah Remington (who co-founded the legendary Six Gallery in San Francisco), to the leading feminist painter of the late 20th century, Nancy Spero. During a self-imposed exile to Paris, Spero completed the important series, the Black Paris Paintings, and established herself as one of the important social and political artists of her time.

Every year, art teachers in the Kalamazoo County schools (private, public, and charter schools) submit a selection of works produced by their students, featured in an exhibition that is a delight to behold. In one of our most popular shows each year, the KIA's galleries are filled with the most creative, colorful, whimsical art by young artists from kindergarten through eighth grades.