Thyen-Clark featuring work of Katie Knoeringer and Maria Del Pilar Arrieta

Jasper Community Arts is pleased to present the work of two artists, Katie Knoeringer from Paducah, Ky., and Maria del Pilar Arrieta from New Haven, Ind., for the months of November 2024, December 2024 and January 2025 at the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center.

The two-person painting and collage exhibit will feature a variety of figurative and geometric 2D artwork.

Katie Knoeringer’s painted paper collages are based on observational drawings that celebrate visual moments in the immediate environment.

“When I incorporate the figure, rather than having a person pose for me, I prefer to watch someone moving spontaneously. When I approach a new subject, I make a lot of gestural drawings and representations of the space in my sketchbook. I construct my collages directly from the drawings,” she said. “The collage, while not a copy of the drawing directly, is informed by it and cultivates its vital spark. In this game of telephone, absent from the subject, color becomes exaggerated and specificity varies.”

“In a screen-heavy world, I luxuriate in the analogue process of translating a drawn image into little slivers of paper. The collage accumulates slowly, much like the lived experience if we allow ourselves to be truly present. Negative and positive shapes are equivalent powers that play off of each other. If I’m making a chain link fence, I cut the diamond shapes in between the fence wires as I’m making the fence itself. Working this way allows for small anomalies to happen, like a green shrub that bleeds over into a building,” Knoeringer added.

Maria del Pilar Arrieta’s love for the arts started young. Her passion extended into adulthood and she followed it as a career.

Arrieta stated, “I make art because it lets me express my feelings and transmit my ideas with the world through my paintings depicting the essence of humanity. For me, making art allows me to represent individualism and expressions of the self, conveying people’s way of existence in the contemporary time. I am inspired by my heritage and my culture.”

The portraits in Maria’s paintings unfold expressions to reveal the human side of who we are.

“I am passionate about finding the beauty in people from their way of living. I feel my paintings are a unique way to find identity and I enjoy seeing that we are made of the same culture. The schemes of the Latino communities let me pursue a cultural thematic because as a Latino woman, I am intrigued by people’s sense of reactions and emotions and everyday experiences of how we live. I like to capture feelings of nurturing, companion and humanity because I want my paintings to speak those expressions that suggest a stage of living to find the uniqueness and the inspiration of humankind. The expressive figures in my paintings merge in a setting of abstraction, to create a
background in the context of geometric elements used as patterns. The figures represent people from the Latino community and the abstract elements are derived from and suggest the culture in which they live. The colors and patterns in the background are inspired by the art of the ancient Pre-Columbian culture which I want to integrate in my work to elevate the idea of culture which, will help me to express a theme,” says Arrieta.

Katie Knoeringer received an MFA from Louisiana State University, along with a BS Art Education and BFA from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

Maria del Pilar Arrieta received a BFA from Indiana University with a concentration in oil painting.

The two-person installation exhibition will be on display from November 7, 2024 through January 26, 2025. Both artists will attend the First Thursday Reception this Thursday, November 7th to give a Gallery Talk.

The First Thursday Receptions will take place on Thursday, November 7, 2024, December 5, 2024 and January 2, 2025 from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm.

The galleries at the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center, located at 100 3rd Avenue, Suite A, Jasper, IN 47546, are open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, Saturday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and Sunday from noon to 3:00 pm. School groups, clubs, and students are welcome. Admission is free. Donations appreciated.

For more information, please call 812-482-3070. Jasper Community Arts is a department of the City of Jasper. JCA is supported in part by Friends of the Arts, Inc., the Indiana Arts Commission, The Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana, and the National Endowment for the Arts.