Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Through 8/20 | Kansas City, MO

Found in Translation

An exhibition currently on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art delves into the concept of change and transformation

These works exist way outside of the box. In fact, forget the box altogether. An exhibition currently on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art delves into the concept of change and transformation, and the complex nuances that can be discovered as artists take these ephemeral ideas and transform them into tangible works of art. Found in Translation: Explorations by 8 Contemporary Artists, running through August 20, highlights the unique perspectives of eight first-generation Asian American artists living in or near the Greater Kansas City, Missouri, area.

Noriko Ebersole, Self-Portrait Diary: One-a-Day Drawings for 10 Years, 2003, 2005-2013, graphite, charcoal, color pencil, conté and ink on paper, dimensions vary. Courteasy the artist. Photo © 2022 The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

“Found in Translation is informed by the artists’ individual experiences with immigration and their varied personal narratives in traveling from their home countries to Kansas City, but it is also about so much more,” says Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell CEO and Director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. “It reflects their perspectives on the world and is expressed through a wide range of styles and media.” Found in Translation is co-curated by Ling-en Lu, curator of Chinese art, and Stephanie Fox Knappe, Samuel Sosland Senior Curator of American Art.

Among the artists featured in the exhibition are Heinrich Toh, Hong Chun Zhang, Hye Young Shin, Kathy Liao, Noriko Ebersole, Priya Suresh Kambli, Shreepad Narayan Joglekar and Yoonmi Nam. They hail from countries such as Singapore, China, South Korea, India and Japan.

Ebersole’s Self-Portrait Diary: One-a-Day Drawings for 10 Yearsconsists of 3,652 self-portraits of the artist with daily notes on sketchbook paper. “I drew myself every single day for ten years,” she says. “My process was at the end of the day; I looked back on the day and took out one of 31 pencils and headed to the mirror. I started by creating rules such as not drawing backgrounds; drawing only my face but not my neck or shoulders; not carrying the work over to the next day; [and] not trying to draw myself beautifully—just draw what I see as it is.”

Continuity, by Zhang, depicts the twisting branches of a tree devoid of leaves. Its deeply complex root system, however, juts out toward the viewer in physical space—situated parallel to the ground, similar to the way the roots of a real tree would grow. “My work Continuityreflects on the connection between my past and present. I made a 5-foot-by-16-foot Chinese scroll painting of a family tree. The roots represent where I came from and my Chinese heritage. The tree trunks/figures imply the new home I created in the American Midwest. The branches symbolize [how] my family tradition has continued to grow and pass on to my daughter,” says the artist. “This piece combines traditional Chinese fine style ink painting technique with new Italian fabric called ‘Alcantara,’ which provides me with more flexibility to create layers of detail on a large scale.”

Heinrich Toh, From the Roots...That’s Rarely Seen, 2022, monoprint and paper lithography on Rives BFK paper, dimensions vary. Courtesy the artist. Photo © 2022 The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.dimensions vary. Courtesy the artist. Photo © 2022 The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Kambli’s Buttons for Eyes is constructed through experimentation with the artist’s personal archive of photographs and artifacts brought with her from India, and emphasizes a personal narrative. “In my work, I have always striven to understand the formation and erasure of identity that is an inevitable part of the migrant experience,” she says, “exploring the fragmentation of family, identity and culture.” —

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