Ken Konchel
In Place of Context
The Gallery at The Kranzberg
December 1, 2023 – January 27, 2024
Artist Reception January 12, 2024 5 – 8pm
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a photographer, I am drawn to the expressive power of buildings. Provocatively capturing architecture in an abstract, graphic way keenly interests me. My intention is to make compelling photographs that remove the context and distill architecture to nothing but relationships of shape, line, pattern, detail, tone and/or texture.
Architecture forms the physical environment of our lives. It connects us to the past, it helps define our relationships to one another, and it gives us a sense of place and identity. Architecture also embodies our values and expresses our individual and collective aspirations. And most importantly, architecture enhances and advances our creative legacy. Yet something so integral to the sense of who we are – something that contributes immeasurably to our quality of life – is often dismissed as mundane, taken for granted, or at worst ignored. My ambition is to raise awareness of and appreciation for architecture by presenting it as engaging and dynamic geometric arrangements and interactions. More concisely expressed, I use photography to substantiate the connection between art and architecture.
My aim is to photograph buildings in arresting ways, creating compositions that do not immediately reveal themselves as architecture. Buildings present rich opportunities for me to imaginatively explore the angle, the cube, the curve, the triangle, and the rectangle. By examining these forms individually or by grouping them into unconventional configurations, I aspire to challenge and captivate people by introducing them to architecture’s intriguing visual possibilities.
ARTIST BIO
Ken Konchel has won 77 awards. Ken was selected as a featured artist for the state of Missouri by the Missouri Arts Council in March 2022. He received a commission for the Lambert Art and Culture Program from the Lambert-St Louis International Airport from May 2016—May 2017. His book of photographs Architectonic is in the collection of the Library of Congress. His previous solo exhibitions include Detail/Oriented at International Photography Hall of Fame & Museum in St. Louis, MO, Architectural Abstractions at Green Door Art Gallery in St. Louis, Edifice Complex at Houska Gallery in St, Louis, MO, Point Perspective at St. Louis Artists’ Guild in St. Louis, MO, Ken Konchel Photography at Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science in Evansville, IN, Architecture: Out of Context at Schmidt Art Center in Belleville, IL, Ken Konchel Photography at Gallery 180, Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago, Building Arrangements at Kansas City Artists Coalition in Kansas City, MO, Framing Structure at ARC Gallery in Chicago, IL, Order/Form at Fontbonne University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, MO, Elegant City at Gallery 210, University of Missouri-St. Louis, MO, Ken Konchel Photography at The Kansas City Artists Coalition, Kansas City, MO, and Architectural Art in St. Louis in the Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture at the Sheldon Art Galleries in St. Louis, MO.
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