Story by Bridgette McAuliffe, Staff writer
Photo by Bridgette McAuliffe/The News
Artist Kevin Kao gave a presentation to students about his experiences, work and his collection “Innuendos” on Thursday, Sept. 13.
Kao is a native Californian, now residing in St. Louis, who specializes in ceramics. He said that each artist’s experience of finding their path is a bit different.
“Being a gay, Asian man, growing up in Orange County is really a land of fantasy, a land of plastic,” Kao said. “What’s interesting is I always find myself coming back to the sense of what is real, the sense of taste, and what is valuable and not.”
Kao said that being part of this culture of artifice and plastic has shaped his world view.
“I remember always feeling uncomfortable at the heart of it,” Kao said. “In a lot of ways, the work that I make is a direct extension of the uncomfortability of the body, particularly as a queer man of color but also trying to fit into these expectations of desire, taste, perfection and beauty.”
Kao said that the idea of sexuality and seduction has always been present in his work. He graduated from college with a degree in animal behavior and was interested in how humans relate to animals in perceiving sexual attraction. He used artwork of “hybrid animals” as a metaphor for a hybrid body to talk about his idea of being a cultural hybrid.
As he continued his work, he began folding in parts of his own Chinese heritage and culture, using symbolic animals such as rabbits for luck.
“A lot of my relationship with the figurative work is looking at them as self-portraiture,” Kao said. “I look at them as selfies, as fragments of the larger identity.”
In both his earlier works and his collection on display at Murray State, Kao said he always finds himself drawn to seduction.
“A lot of my work is pretty sexual,” Kao said. “I know where they come from, but I’m much more interested in what viewers perceive inside themselves. In this newer body of work, I find myself more interested in seduction and surface fetish. Some forms are a little more direct than others, but some are kind of hidden and I enjoy that unknowingness.”
Artists talks like the one given by Kao are a recurring event in the art department.
T. Michael Martin, director of University Galleries, is responsible for deciding which collections will be on display at the Murray State art galleries. Martin said he tries to bring a diverse group of artists to the university because of the diverse art programs at Murray State.
“The galleries are an extension of what they’re doing in the classroom or a classroom themselves,” Martin said. “I want them to see where this can go, how it can be displayed and how an audience can interact with it.”
Martin tries to pull both regional and national artists so students can access work they wouldn’t typically be able to experience.
Antje Gamble, assistant professor of art & design, said that there is typically about one gallery show per month.
“It gives them a variety of voices,” Gamble said. “It also allows us to show the importance of listening to other professionals in the field. Sometimes it’s artists, whether working in advertising or galleries, just to show students the other things they can do when they graduate.”