About the Exhibition

Many Cities, One Providence— Kansas City Catch-All brings to Providence College Galleries three distinct artists with interconnected practices from the state-straddling city. Incorporating past and present elements of Kansas City’s built and natural environment, including its refuse, capitalist spectacle and Midwestern sensibility, the work of artists Cory Imig, Stephen Proski and Emily Sall showcases simple abstraction as inherently tied to pragmatism and small-scale ingenuity. From diagrammatic installations comprised of found and transformed materials (Imig) to folk-inspired painted canvas tapestries (Proski) and small-scale, hard-edged abstractions painted on small wood panels (Sall), each artist’s contribution is the result of rigorous working methods and visual vocabularies inspired by a town known for its cheery disposition and relentless tenacity.

Many Cities, One Providence is an exhibition series offering Providence audiences idiosyncratic glimpses of innovative contemporary artists working in cities around the world. The series stems from Providence College Galleries’ interest in cultivating relationships with artists, scholars and arts communities from around the world in order to draw connections between the city of Providence and other American and international urban contexts.

Kansas City Catch-All is organized by Jamilee Lacy, PCG Director and Curator.

About the Artist

Cory Imig is a conceptual sculptor and installation artist who was born and raised in the Western suburbs of Kansas City, Kansas. She now lives and works between Kansas City, Missouri and Champaign, Illinois. She has attended residencies at The Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont (2008); Charlotte Street Foundation Urban Culture Project Studio, Kansas City, Missouri (2011); ACRE Artist Residency, Chicago, Illinois; (2013) and Art Omi, Ghent, New York (2015). Her work has appeared in numerous exhibitions across the U. S., including the Charlotte Street Foundation Project Space; Hardesty Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma; ACRE Projects; and the Kansas City Art Institute. She was a 2012 fellow in the Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellowship Program where she worked with leading regional and national curators, critics and academics. Imig holds a BFA from the Savannah College of Art & Design and is currently completing an M.F.A. in sculpture from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Stephen Proski was born in the Bay Area, raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and now lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri. He is a visually-impaired painter who utilizes thrown away bits of information to choreograph both visual and aural artworks. Proski has shown locally in Kansas City at 50/50, Bunker Center for the Arts, and Epsten Gallery and nationally at Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Red Fox Gallery in Bedford, NY, Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts in Saint Louis, MO, and internationally at the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He has been featured in local publications such as KC Studio Magazine and The Kansas City Star, as well as nationally in NEA Arts Magazine and Temporary Art Review. Proski holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Emily Sall is a painter and installation artist living and working in Kansas City, Missouri. Her work has been exhibited at Dolphin gallery, Leedy Voulkos Art Center, Jan Weiner Gallery, Monarch Gallery, fakespace, Grand Arts, and the H&R Block Artspace, and in publications including The Kansas City Star, The Pitch, and Review Magazine. Sall was an Urban Culture Project Studio Resident, and earned a Charlotte Street Award in 2007. She holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Installation Images

Exhibition Images