NEW EXHIBITION: CELEBRATION
Name: Don Wilkison
Title of Piece: Unpaid Work
Size: 18 by 24 in (22.5 by 28.5 in framed)
Medium: pen and colored pencil on bristol
Price: $600
Studio Number: 306
About the Piece: A nation’s wealth is often measured by gross domestic product or per-capita income. These statistics take no account of the considerable volume of other work, namely unpaid domestic tasks such as cooking or caring for family members. Within industrialized countries, the lion’s share of this work is performed by women.
Name: Kim Alexis Newton
Title of Piece: Hope is a Black Woman
Size: 54x55”
Medium: Textile, Indonesian batik 100% cotton
Price: $6,600
Studio Number: 319
About the Piece: : “Hope Is a Black Woman” is a celebration of freedom, dignity, and belonging. The piece portrays a Black woman in quiet yet powerful communion with the American flag—an image that reclaims national symbolism through the lens of resilience, grace, and enduring faith. It speaks to the rights and freedoms that are deserving of all of us, reminding viewers that hope, too, has a face, a voice, and a history.
Name: Milton Lovell Christian
Title of Piece: Unfinished bypass near a forgoten geoglif
Size: 30"x30"
Medium: Oil
Price: $3690
Studio Number: 328
About the Piece: : I believe that if I have to explain my art I am doing something wrong, by the time my art is appreciated I will be gone.
Name: Milton Lovell Christian
Title of Piece: The Contemplation of time
Size: 50"x50"
Medium: Oil and acrylic
Price: $9630
Studio Number: 328
About the Piece: I believe that if I have to explain my art I am doing something wrong, by the time my art is appreciated I will be gone..
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Name: Kenya Martin
Title of Piece: Ubuntu Elegance
Size: Women’s Medium (Corset, fitted) / Women’s Medium (Wide-leg Pants)
Medium: This two-piece wearable art set is a women’s size Medium and will be displayed on a mannequin
Price: $1600
Studio Number: 316
About the Piece: : This exclusive two-piece wearable art set features a hand-constructed, structured corset and wide-leg pants made from premium African-inspired fabric. The garment is elevated with intricate hand-detailing, including hand-applied bling embellishment and original hand-painted artistry. These elements transform the piece into fine art, celebrating culture, confidence, and couture. Because the design cannot be replicated and required extensive craftsmanship, labor, and high-quality materials, it stands as a collectible couture art piece. This one-of-a-kind wearable artwork is priced at $1,600.00
Name: Oli Carioti
Title of Piece: wet specimen (i saved it for you)
Size: 16x20
Medium: acrylic on collaged paper and canvas
Price: $600
Studio Number: 307
About the Piece: : A celebration of self. Despite my best efforts I can not capture and bottle the raw emotion and creativity of my younger self, but I will always work to honor them.
Name: galina pikheeva
Title of Piece: “Basagaan”
Size: 16"x20"
Medium: acrylic paint on canvas
Price: $425
Studio Number: 327
Name: galina pikheeva
Title of Piece: “Eldest” "Эхэ Эгэшэ" /ekh-eh e-guh-shuh/
Size: 16"x20"
Medium: acrylic paint, gesso on canvas
Price: $480
Studio Number: 327
Name: Melissa DiPeri
Title of Piece: Under My Feet
Size: 12"x12"
Medium: Watercolor, color pencil, ink on cold-pressed watercolor paper
Price: 450
Studio Number: 321
About the Piece: : When my childhood best friend took a sabbatical, she invited me to visit her in a place she'd called home for two decades: Hilo, Hawaiʻi. It was an invitation to wander off the map. The lush, untamed vegetation was overwhelming—I couldn't stop taking photos. This trip wasn't a tourist track; it was an experience of her island life, from the black sand beaches to the raw landscape around Kīlauea volcano. I channeled those vibrant memories into a layered visual representation of me walking through that intense green world. The journey began as a quick sketch for Inktober using alcohol markers, but the image stayed with me for years. Over the last three months, I finally brought it to life, piece by piece.
Name: Nam Nguyen
Title of Piece: Another
Size: 18x24
Medium: Acrylic
Price: $900
Studio Number: 327
About the Piece: : A simple moment of reflection. Acknowledging the challenges and journeys that one has overcome. They might have been the things you dreaded before. However, they are now appreciated for the strength and growth they brought.
Name: Janine Carter
Title of Piece: Worship
Size: 5 - 8X10 painting that are one unified work
Medium: Acrylic paint
Price: $350
Studio Number: 320
About the Piece: : Five 8 X 10 canvas that go together to make up this one work called worship. Each of the five subjects are in the act of worship. Worship is celebration.
Name: Janine Carter
Title of Piece: Community
Size: 18x24
Medium: Acrylic paint
Price: $350
Studio Number: 320
About the Piece: The interconnected spirals are like community. We’re all connected no matter our race, and background. We are all different yet we can celebrate one another and our connection.
Name: Mol Mir
Title of Piece: There's only so many shapes
Size: 48" x 48"
Medium: watercolor & graphite
Price: $3000
Studio Number: 304
About the Piece: : Biology reuses the same shapes over and over again. How lovely is it to know that even things we can only see with a microscope resemble things we see in our everyday lives? This work plays with swapping some structures out for others: worms/mitochondria, chromosomes/leaves, muscles/trees, cells/animals, etc. There is so much to be learned from looking at things.
Name: Mol Mir
Title of Piece: Portrait of ATP Synthase
Size: 12" x 15"
Medium: watercolor, pencil, colored pencil
Price: $650
Studio Number: 304
About the Piece: Imagine the world inside a cell. Now, imagine the world inside a mitochondrion. This is where you can find ATP synthase, a molecular machine that creates the energy currency that is used in our cells (ATP). This work is a reflection on the multitude of tiny things that are constantly in motion to keep us alive. While it is impossible to fully comprehend the scale of life, color and shape help to depict the chaos that is essential to our continued existence.
Name: Charlie Quinn
Title of Piece: Still Sane
Size: 16x20
Medium: Textured Acrylic Paint on Canvas
Price: $220
Studio Number: 202A
About the Piece: : Solitary astronaut navigating uncharted territory, trying to stay sane by playing with marbles while uncertainty swirls around him
Name: Charlie Quinn
Title of Piece: Frog's Eye View
Size: 18 x 24
Medium: Textured Acrylic Paint on Canvas
Price: $220
Studio Number: 202A
About the Piece: : Imagining the frog's point of view in the lily pond at Powell Gardens
Name: Misty McNally
Title of Piece: Winning (2)
Size: 40" x 40"
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Price: $2000
Studio Number: 302A
About the Piece: : My dad, his two sisters, my mom, and my uncles--all proper Midwestern young marrieds--decided to have a little fun and go to the races. My Aunt Joi, in the blue, with no understanding of odds or animals, picked the winners! The paintings are derived from photos taken that day in 1967. Their bliss is contagious.
Name: Misty McNally
Title of Piece: Winning (1)
Size: 40" x 40"
Medium: acrylics
Price: $2000
Studio Number: 302A
About the Piece: : My dad, his two sisters, my mom, and my uncles--all proper Midwestern young marrieds--decided to have a little fun and go to the races. My Aunt Joi, in the blue, with no understanding of odds or animals, picked the winners! The paintings are derived from photos taken that day in 1967. Their bliss is contagious.
Name: Jenny Johannsen
Title of Piece: Up We Go
Size: 20in x 24in x 1.5in
Medium: ink and flashe on canvas
Price: $800
Studio Number: 302B
About the Piece: : Up We Go celebrates the simple joy of an abundance of red balloons rising together, a symbol of happiness that feels both universal and nostalgic. The fluid, upward motion in the piece reflects how joy expands and carries us with it. It also acknowledges the fragility of that joy, reminding us how delicate and fleeting celebration can be, even as it fills us with lightness and hope.
Name: Jenny Johannsen
Title of Piece: The Air Was Dancing
Size: 30in x 40in x 1.5in
Medium: ink and flashe on wood panel
Price: 1950
Studio Number: 302B
About the Piece: : This piece celebrates the joy found in movement and the way air itself seems to come alive when streamers twist and dance. The Air Was Dancing captures a fleeting moment when color, light, and motion join together in effortless rhythm. It also honors the beauty in imperfection, the uneven edges and shifting forms that make joy feel both real and earned. This celebration is not an illusion or for show, but something genuine that carries traces of effort, resilience, and lived experience.
Name: Zachary Bendrick
Title of Piece: The Glittering Quiet
Size: 20"x20"
Medium: Rhinestones on Wood Panel
Price: 1900
Studio Number: 315
About the Piece: : Every rhinestone was placed by hand over 20 patient hours, forming a face that only emerges when light finds it. What looks like shimmer up close becomes calm from afar, a portrait made of reflection, rhythm, and restraint
Name: Zachary Bendrick
Title of Piece: Midnight Zoo
Size: 68" x 80"
Medium: acrylic and spray paint
Price: 4000
Studio Number: 315
About the Piece: : Under the glow of a strange blue moon, the animals awaken, foxes whisper secrets to owls, tigers prowl through violet grass, and neon-eyed birds drift like ghosts between trees. It’s a secret world that only exists when the clock strikes twelve, where every creature moves to the quiet rhythm of the night.
Name: Kayla Traxel
Title of Piece: Glimmer, Float, Sway
Size: 11" X 11"
Medium: watercolor on sewn canvas with thread
Price: $250 each
Studio Number: 314
About the Piece: : I wanted to honor the days when the air is soft, the light is kind, and you are un-noticingly content just being. Living a life of these days is worth celebrating.
Name: Shayna Strahm
Title of Piece: You Alone With Your Regrets
Size: 24" x 20"
Medium: Acrylic & Oil on canvas with chine collé rice paper monotypes
Price: $500
Studio Number: 327
About the Piece: : Part of a broader series, this work delves into the complexities of hookup culture, intimacy, and the evolving sense of self in young adulthood. The dogs serve as embodiments of outward masculinity, contrasted by the nude female forms that convey fragility and vulnerability.
Name: Emmalee Rathsam
Title of Piece: Proportions of Change
Size: 33.75” x 35.5”
Medium: archival pigment inkjet print
Price: 2800
Studio Number: 203
About the Piece: : In this self-portrait, Emmalee Rathsam explores her evolving identity and artistic journey through the lens of authenticity. The dimly lit, confined space mirrors the feeling of outgrowing an environment that once defined her—an echo of how comfort can quietly confine creativity. Reaching upward, she illuminates fragments of her past while courageously turning the light toward her future. After more than a decade of photographing everyday portraits, Rathsam now embraces the deeply personal act of self-portraiture, creating work that celebrates truth, vulnerability, and the surreal beauty found in being wholly oneself.
Name: Mark Raddant
Title of Piece: Running Man
Size: Diptych: Two 3' x 4" canvases
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Price: $5500
Studio Number: 200A
About the Piece: : The left piece is called "Seeds", and the Right is called "stems", and the Diptych is "Running Man". The blue figure on the left is the torso of the Running Man, and the right side shows his rear leg trailing behind. The seeds are his organic nature, the stems the pale forces which try to run him down. There are metallic paints in areas that shift in color, most obviously in the blue areas, as one changes the angle from which thee painting is viewed. Perhaps just as we understand the Running Man depending on our psycho social vantage point. Or, it's just a very cool piece of art.
Name: Mark Raddant
Title of Piece: Climb
Size: 38" x 50"
Medium: Oil on canvas
Price: $2700.00
Studio Number: 200A
About the Piece: : The title conjures a mountain, but the original sketch was an attempt to create a visioual equivalent to a crescendo on an Art Blakely tune. There is a line for each instrument, rhythm, color, and the interweaving of instruments in a revelatory buildup.
In this year’s annual Resident Exhibition, Celebration, artists of the Zhou B Art Center Kansas City were invited to consider a simple yet profound question: What do you celebrate?
From this prompt unfolds reflections on self, heritage, community, resilience, and expression. Each artist was asked to contemplate where celebration lives within their lives and practices. Is it found in the quiet victories, the milestones, the rituals, or the everyday joys that keep us connected to our humanity?
The resulting works span a spectrum of emotion and form: some exuberant and loud, others tender and introspective, but all share a common thread: the honoring of life in motion. Whether through identity, memory, culture, connection, or transformation, each artist reveals how celebration becomes not just a moment, but a practice of being present with what is sacred, fleeting, or deeply personal. Celebration reminds us that art itself is an act of joy and resilience and a way to honor where we’ve been, who we are, and the beauty of our continued becoming.
Anita Easterwood, Bryan Boone, Bryce Holt, Charlie Tebow, Crissi Rice, Don Wilkison, Emmalee Rathsam, Galina Pikheeva, Janine Carter, Jean McGuire, Jenny Johannsen, Kayla Traxel, Kenya Martin, Kim Alexis Newton, Mark Raddant, Melissa DiPeri, Milton Lovell Christian, Misty McNally, Mol Mir, Nam Nguyen, Oli Carioti, Phyllis Jenkins, Shayna Strahm, Susan Walter, Zachary Bendrick
Name: Kenya Martin
Title: Ubuntu Elegance
Size: Men’s Medium
Medium: This exclusive two-piece men’s wearable art set features a custom Ankara tunic paired with wide-leg green trousers.
Price: $1,300
Studio Number: 316