A SOLO EXHIBITION BY JONNY THE REVELATOR
A SOLO EXHIBITION BY JONNY THE REVELATOR
Opening June 6, 2025 | MAIN GALLERY
on view at KCAC Galleries June 6th - 27th, 2025
HEAVEN IS HELL by JONNY THE REVELATOR is an exhibition that functions as a biographical survey of the artist’s relationship to erotic intimacy and grief. Personal fantasies and intimate encounters are abstracted and distilled into sensual forms that are alluring, but with a sense of danger. Jonny’s work combines leather, rubber, and chrome surfaces (both real and simulated) with hardware such as zippers, chains, and bondage gear. These materials allude to apparel and by extension, the body. Often including leather gear formerly used by himself or friends, the sculptures are imbued with a history of queer desire. Jonny embraces leather as a practice and a material, exploiting it as a vehicle for transformation. This transformation can be both physical and/or psychological. In addition to leather, horror films - especially of the body horror genre - inform the aesthetics of Jonny’s work. Both leather and body horror can provide catharsis and relief relating to past trauma. Jonny’s own recent gender affirming surgery, heartache, and loss are subjects that are eroticized by the artist to create alternative ways of processing grief. HEAVEN IS HELL asks viewers to consider the paradoxical nature of pain and pleasure and of experiencing freedom in bondage.
Jonny the Revelator is a multidisciplinary visual artist from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He uses his art to explore mechanisms of desire, pleasure, and transformation that are oriented within his experience as a queer and transgender male. His work consists of painting, sculpture, photography, and installations. He graduated from the University of Tulsa with a BFA in painting in 2011. Jonny has exhibited his art across the United States with solo exhibitions in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri. In 2022, Jonny graduated from the University of Arkansas with an MFA in Studio Art. He currently works and resides in Kansas City, MO.
Radiant Aberrance: Solo Exhibition by Sarah Knight
Radiant Aberrance: Solo Exhibition by Sarah Knight
Knight’s Artist Statement
Is all matter intrinsically queer in a state of transformation?
By blurring boundaries between stone, clay, and queerness, I hope to reveal the hidden power of the unidentifiable. As a transgender artist, my experience and practice embody the continual metamorphosis of the queer community. The work that results from my experimental ceramic processes allows me to build a queer reality that uses artifice and deception as a defense mechanism and reflective safe space. I recreate the earth’s entropic processes in a ceramic kiln, speeding up geological time. I fuse artificial conglomerates in steel crucibles with ceramic, studio scrap, melted rocks, glass, and sand. I recycle and reclaim nearly all my clay and materials as an act of sustainability. This process of queer alchemy is meant to highlight the divide between the natural and artificial. The dialogue my work has with the history of craft and tradition questions the role of clay as a material deconstruction of identity and value. My finished sculptures are immersive and confrontational, asking visitors to explore a queer unmapped space with fascination and reflection. My work questions if the divide between artificial and organic is worth upholding. By fusing both in the kiln, I work to dissolve cultural value systems placed on art, clay, and identity. Ultimately, my work expresses how queerness exists in spaces of aberrance and entropy.
Sarah Knight (they/them) is a transgender artist and arts educator living and working in Saint Louis, Missouri. They grew up in the San Francisco Bay area where they received their BFA from Mills College. They graduated with an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis. They have been awarded several residencies, including Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, Jentel Foundation, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and Fine Arts Work Center. Knight was one of two 2021 Whitaker Foundation Artist-in-Residence at Craft Alliance in Saint Louis, and their work has been shown in galleries regionally and nationally. Knight’s first solo exhibition, Crystal Queer, opened at Foundry Art Centre in Saint Charles in April 2022. Their second solo show, Queer Alchemy, opened at Northern Clay Center in October 2024. They recently received an Artist Support Grant from the Regional Arts Commission of Saint Louis to support the development of new work.
