The Spirit of Place: Rooted in the Flint Hills

January 24- February 28, 2016

 

 

 

 

 

“The Spirit of Place: Rooted in the Flint Hills,”

Tom Parish’s monumental photographs of arched caves 

and

Jim Cook’s large-scale paintings of his original home, his “roots,” the Flint Hills.

Member Preview  |  January 23, 7 pm     
Opening Reception  |  January 24, noon to 5 pm    

Closing Reception  |  February 28, noon to 5 pm

   

Tom Parish has spent several years researching and tracking down more than 300 arched-roof, man-made caves that dot the landscape of the Flint Hills, the area he has called home for most of his life.  He has documented each of them and has developed techniques along the way which have enabled him to capture luminous 360-degree images of 60 of their fingerprint-like interiors. Parish describes the result as like “splitting open geodes, revealing the beauty hidden inside.” Learn more about his work documenting Kansas’ man-made caves at http://www.flinthillshelters.com and his work with the Chapman Center for Rural Studies at http://www.k-state.edu/history/chapman.

James Pringle Cook, a native son of the Flint Hills, has lived in Tucson since graduating from art school some 30 years ago.  He has enjoyed an eminently successful career as a painter, traveling and exhibiting widely, but most years he repeats a ritual, returning to the landscape of his youth, to paint and “fill [his] heart with the spirit of this place …revisiting and reevaluating his earliest aesthetic insight.” The scale of his paintings is a tribute to the breadth of the land he loves, and the paintings that he has lent to the exhibit provide an impressive context for the subterranean crypt-like cavities in the ground that are the subjects of Parish’s work.  James Pringle Cook is represented by SouthWind Gallery, Topeka, KS. www.SouthWindArtGallery.com     www.jamespringlecook.com

We are grateful to The Volland Store Fund, SouthWind Gallery, Topeka, KS, and Alma Creamery LLC whose sponsorship has made this exhibit possible.