For a place in constant motion, Kansas City artist James Woodfill created this series of works that imply motion, and encourage us to reconsider our surroundings. Somewhere between painting, sculpture, functional design, and animated abstraction, these works shift our experience of this place into one of anticipation and discovery. 

A hotel exists uniquely between private and public, home and destination, local and transient. Into this environment, Woodfill’s room-sized exhibition is crafted from  ordinary materials, yet encourages an extraordinary experience of place, by tuning our perception and heightening our awareness of our own movement through this space. 

About his previous work Stations, Woodflll said, I’m trying to make an artwork “that hovers between a Constructivist painting and a fireworks stand.” Tuning Field gets closer to flickering between a Storage Wars blind reveal and a stop-motion film. It is an experience that bridges our patience for subtle shifts in perception, with the movement of things, alongside our own exploration of this building and the city that surrounds us.

This work directly gauges the distance between the anxiety of the unknown, and the joys of surprise. As you look at, and more importantly move around, these things, you might ask — What is its use? How do I move? What kind of place is this? 

A hotel is a place that can change our perceptions of a city. An artwork can change the city.

– Hesse McGraw, partner and curator, el dorado inc

Woodfill is in residence at the hotel studio during the exhibition to produce new stop-motion films of the sculptures. Additionally, Kansas City-based artist Daniel Chase is working in the studio to produce new works as part of a long-standing dialogue with Woodfill.