Abstract works take center stage at Mark Arts

The beauty of abstract art, Brian Hinkle said, is that the viewer is never wrong.

“Your own interpretation is legitimate, even if it isn’t what the artist may have had a direct intention of (conveying),” said Hinkle, an artist and instructor at Mark Arts in Wichita. “As long as you’re having an aesthetic experience with it, I think that’s valid.”

Mark Arts, which changed its name last month from Wichita Center for the Arts, is giving visitors about 80 different chances at interpretation with its new “Abstract National Exhibition,” which opens Friday, July 8, and continues through Aug. 7.

Although abstract art has been represented in various exhibits at the center throughout the years, this is the first show there devoted entirely to the concept.

“It’s not like they’ve only done stodgy, old realism for the past 20 years and all of a sudden they’ve gone modern,” Hinkle said. “There’s more young adults with more contemporary tastes involved in the center now, and they needed it showcased a little more succinctly.”

Dimitris Skliris, who began this spring as exhibitions director, said 373 works were submitted from artists nationwide. Of the 80 selected for the show, he said, about one-third were from Kansas and surrounding states and the rest were nationwide.

They include “Transition of Magrathea,” an acrylic/plexiglass/fiberglass piece by Darryl Halbrooks of Richmond, Ky., which won the Mary R. Koch Memorial Award for best in show.

“The best of show piece goes beyond 2-D art, with resin and rivets,” Skliris said. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

Some abstract art in the exhibit includes elements of fiber, looms, painted cloth, collage, printmaking and photography, Skliris said.

“You can paint abstract or create abstract art in any media,” he added.

Halbrooks drove from Kentucky to deliver that piece and another in the exhibit.

Likewise, Hinkle’s work, “Vessels #8,” barely fit into his car to deliver it to the museum. His work is a depiction of various vessels, from wine bottles to olive oil containers.

“It all started with the theme of being still life, and then you start taking it apart and moving it toward abstraction,” Hinkle said.

The exhibit’s juror, Sandra Duran Wilson of Santa Fe, N.M., will speak about realistic abstraction at 6:30 p.m. Friday. An opening reception, from 5 to 7 p.m., will include light hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar and music by Evasive Flowers, the one-woman band of Wichita’s Annie Adams. Wilson also will return July 9-10 for classes in acrylics.

Hinkle said he enjoys the variety of stepping back and forth between realism and abstraction.

“To me, they are both equally rich areas and equally interesting,” he said. “You can get burnt out on both modes. Realism is a little more straight-forward problem solving, but sometimes I get very worn out doing that. There’s a lot of detail.

“Abstraction has a lot of freedom in it. Painting abstractly is almost like a philosophical pursuit. You begin with a completely blank canvas, no set of preconceptions, and paint it just completely from whatever internal urge,” he added. “It’s an absolutely fascinating creative undertaking, really.”

Hinkle said there are two fields of abstract art: something that begins with a straight-forward depiction and then moves in a different direction; and non-objective painting that’s “not meant to look like anything at all.”

“When viewers are used to a picture that looks like something, it takes a little (suspension) of belief at first,” Hinkle said. “Over time, if you spend a lot of time with abstract, they’ll find something that’s very interesting.”

Hinkle said abstract art first gained popularity more than a century ago, around the beginning of World War I, and has eventually become popular even among the most conservative of collectors.

“It’s not ‘new’ anymore,” he said. “For a lot of people, especially intellectually intrigued, culturally interested people, it’s something you want to figure out.”

This story was originally published July 6, 2016 at 8:47 PM with the headline "Abstract works take center stage at Mark Arts."