Author: Matfield Station

You are invited to a special viewing to celebrate Bill McBride’s new work Tallgrass Revealed a series of maps exploring the Flint Hills and Kansas. Please join us on Saturday, September 20^th, 2014, 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM at Bill, Julia, and Luke McBride’s home and studio, 640 KS Highway 177, Matfield Green, Kansas.

Tallgrass Revealed features seven pieces.  Six of the artworks start with maps of the Flint Hills, each 37” x 65”. Oil paint and mixed media on paper base map.  The seventh piece, Kansas – grassland, sections with roads on four sides, lakes, towns and settlements is a triptych, 11’1” x 65”. Oil paint on paper base map.

Bill says this about the series: “These maps explore the landscape of the Flint Hills and Kansas and are intended to reveal the relationship between the land and human settlement. They blur the line between cartography and art.  They are handmade and intended to enrich the underlying cartographic data with visual richness and depth evolving from a deep love of prairie. Painting maps is quite different from my work as a sculptor, yet the artistic intent is the same – to connect the viewer to the land and to express the idea that humans are an integral part of nature.”

Matfield Green is 60 minutes from downtown Wichita, 80 minutes from Topeka, 90 minutes from Manhattan, just under 2 hours from Lawrence and just over 2 hours from Kansas City. We will have drinks and snacks at the studio. Other Matfield Green art galleries will also be open and awaiting your visit.