‘Anne Austin Pearce: Leaving Alone’ to Open Sept. 30 at Daum Museum

An exhibit by Anne Austin Pearce will open at 11 a.m. Sept. 30 at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art on the State Fair Community College Sedalia campus.

The exhibit will remain on view through Dec. 19. Pearce will give a gallery talk at 6 p.m. Oct. 26 in the museum; the event is free and open to the public.

Pearce has constructed a collaborative and interactive setting where visitors are encouraged to create their own images from reproduced fragments of her compositions. She is well known for her ink and acrylic paintings that feature layered, biomorphic forms and dazzling, saturated color. Her overlapping abstract shapes, resembling psychedelic amoebas, complement her goal to work at the intersection of art, literature and science.

The exhibition introduces a monumental, free-form mural inspired by the myth of Icarus. Other components are influenced by authors Margaret Atwood and Virginia Woolf, while a central structure references a natural history museum.

Pearce, whose studio is in Kansas City, was born in Lawrence, Kansas (1968), and studied art at the Kansas City Art Institute, Brighton Polytechnic and the University of Kansas. In 1993, she received a full scholarship to James Madison University, where she received her MFA in drawing and painting. In addition to being an artist, Pearce is a professor of art at Rockhurst University in Kansas City and director/curator of its Greenlease Gallery.

Her work is included in the collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and the Spencer Museum, among others. Exhibitions include Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas; Corcoran School of Art and Design, Washington D.C.; and the Drawing Center, New York City. Pearce’s first museum show was at MDC’s Museum of Art + Design in Miami in 2013.

Anne Austin Pearce: Leaving Alone is presented at the Daum with funding from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. Additional support comes from Katherine A. Menefee, season underwriter; Barbara Schrader, season underwriter; Mr. and Mrs. James O. Cooney, exhibition sponsors; Steve Ellebracht, exhibition sponsor; Sylvia Hopkins, exhibition sponsor; and Sylvia L. Thompson, exhibition sponsor. All programs are supported by State Fair Community College and the members of Daum Museum of Contemporary Art.

Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call (660) 530-5888 or visit the website at www.daummuseum.org.

In the photos:  Anne Austin Pearce, Never Ending Things: Black Sea #1, 2017; ink and acrylic on paper; 42 x 42 in.
Anne Austin Pearce, Never Ending Things: Blue Sea #2, 2017; ink and acrylic on paper; 42 x 42 in.
Anne Austin Pearce, Icarus (detail), 2011-17; ink and acrylic on paper; dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art.