Best Welcome Home
Homecoming
Kansas City was producing great artists years before the surge in Crossroads foot traffic — it's just that a lot of them moved away. Proving that you can come home again, the Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art teamed up with the Epsten Gallery to produce Homecoming, a showcase for 10 artists, raised and formed in Kansas City, who followed their muses to the coasts and abroad. Curated by the Epsten's Kent Smith and JCCC's Bruce Hartman, the show displayed the works of nationally recognized painters such as Andrzej Zielinski, who paints colorful and deformed ATMs, and Rashawn Griffin, a collage artist who exhibits in New York City. With its combination of artists' lectures, the standard wine-and-cheese opening and the hometown nostalgia, this show was at once local and cosmopolitan, sophisticated and fun.