Johnny McKee and Kipp Normand create a ‘Circus Circus’ at the Harrison Center

Johnny McKee (left) and Kipp Normand

Johnny McKee, whose artwork is featured in the June exhibit at the Harrison Center titled Circus Circus, grew up in Peru, Ind. In the 90s, McKee was a gymnastics tumbler in the Peru Amateur Circus. The town, which has a rich circus history, houses the Circus City Festival Museum and the Circus Hall of Fame.

McKee’s connection to the circus allowed him to take photographs at the Peru Amateur Circus in 1996. At the time he was enrolled at the Herron School of Art & Design. He used a number of these photos as a basis for his digital prints, acrylic paintings, and mixed media work in the current exhibition. 

One of these photos is the basis of a digital print titled “The Young Americans.” 

The print features the titular circus troupe —  six of them up on high wires. Their forms present like brooding clouds in a sea of raw umber. Like his recent starscape paintings, he draws the viewer in by creating atmosphere and mystery rather than by sharply focusing on details. In a mixed media work, titled “High Casting” he paints a layer of acrylic on top of the digital print, creating another layer of abstraction. 

The painting relates to his father.

“My dad, when he was a young man, he was in the very first high casting act that was brought to Peru,” McKee said. “His brother was the first guy in the circus to ride the bicycle across a high wire.”  

“The High Flyers” by Johnny McKee

(The term high casting defines the bodily contortion which circus troupe members often perform on aerial apparatuses.)

Putting together First Friday exhibitions at the Harrison Center as of late has been something of a high wire act, according to Kipp Normand, whose work is the other half of the “Circus Circus” exhibition. Normand, who also helped program the show for the Harrison Center, also said that Independence Day weekend is not an ideal time for an art exhibition as many people are out of town.

“A lot of times  many artists don't even want to do a job,” he said. “So back a while ago we were trying to figure out, well, who are we going to get for July?  At that point, we didn't have vaccinations or we didn't know who was going to be open.”

Without knowing what exactly July First Friday was going to look like, Normand and McKee went for broke anyway.   

“So Johnny and I, we’re like peas and carrots,” Normand said. His approach, he said, was to do something “crazy.” “People are just in the mood for something fun,” he said. “‘We thought, ‘How are we gonna fill the space?’ We figured out, we’re just going to throw everything at it, we're going to take risks, we're going to be a little dangerous, we're going to have the circus inform our whole approach to this show.”

Normand didn’t join the circus as a young man like his friend McKee. But, when he was growing up in Detroit, MI, his neighborhood wasn’t far from an amusement park. “I just adored them,” he said.

Normand’s assemblages and collages in Circus Circus will have a familiar feel to anyone who has visited the Museum of Psychphonics in the Murphy Art Center in Fountain Square, which he curates. Normand is a lover of history and an historian, and he spends a lot of time in garage sales and the like looking for items that will fuel his art.

His assemblage “Fairest of them All” which is an ornately framed mirror, exemplifies his approach. The upper half of the space contained by the mirror frame is a collage featuring the black and white photograph of a woman, likely a circus performer, in a tight corset and with tattoos all over her legs. 

You could admire the collage that is part and parcel of this work, or just admire yourself.

Because the Harrison Center has multiple art exhibitions and performances opening any given First Friday, it is always something of a circus. Alongside Circus Circus, an exhibit by Beth Guipe Hall and Josh Betsey titled The Magnificent Midway was opening in the Speck Gallery. Gigi Salij’s exhibition of paintings Sideshow was hanging in the Gallery Annex. There were several other exhibits as well, including Gary Gee’s “Atmosphere”. (Gee is known for his work in multiple mediums inspired by hip-hop culture and graffiti.)

 While Normand had a rather grandiose vision for what his collaboration with McKee in Circus Circus would entail —   he wasn’t able to complete everything he started that he wanted to fit in —   he was not displeased with the end result. 

“Let's just say that we learned to juggle a lot of tasks,” Normand said. “We approached this gallery in a way that we have work in here for sale, but we've also created an environment. We want our being here to make people happy.” 

The work hangs through July 30.