Brandon Forrest Frederick
01.28.2026 - 01.29.2027
For this project, Chicago-based guest curator Madeline Gallucci (’12 Printmaking) has partnered with artist Brandon Forrest Frederick (’11 Photography) to create a new work for the Artspace’s Project Wall.
In An illusive view in an illuminated field, Frederick builds on his ongoing interest in the natural world, beauty, contemporary states of being, and photography within our physical and digital lives. In Frederick’s image, he combines gestures of landscape and still life, alongside manipulations of collage and sculpture, then packages and compresses them within a single picture plane.
Frederick’s composition suspends time in multiple forms: where the hand has pressed and crumpled, and where gradient and light suggest a continuous space that is, at once, both flattening and infinite.
An illusive view in an illuminated field explores the collapse of distance between image and material, form and concept, where gradients become spaces of transition, play, and pause. The work resists the disembodiment of digital life, offering a tactile and organic counterbalance to our collective consumption of images online.
About the Artist
Brandon Forrest Frederick (b. Shawnee, KS, 1988) is an artist, arts organizer, and educator based in Chicago, IL. He received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2011 and his MFA from the University of Arkansas in 2024.
His artistic and professional practice is rooted in collaboration, community organizing, and experimental approaches to photography. His career began in Kansas City, where he worked extensively to support artist-led initiatives and grassroots creative communities that included co-founding and directing Archive Collective (2013-2017), an experimental photography collective that hosted exhibitions, publications, and public critiques aimed at expanding dialogue around contemporary image-making, and co-directing Open House (2017–2019), an exhibition program staged in a house under construction that presented over twenty site-specific installations, performances, and free educational workshops.
In addition to his independent projects, Frederick contributed to Kansas City’s broader arts infrastructure as a Program Supervisor and Community Arts Specialist at Imagine That!, supporting artists with developmental disabilities, and as a visiting artist for the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s Photo Scholars program. He was also a studio resident at the Charlotte Street Foundation and Drugstore Studios. His curatorial and collaborative efforts were supported by multiple ArtsKC Inspiration Grants, a Rocket Grant, and a Meow Wolf DIY Fund Grant.
Frederick has exhibited his work throughout the Midwest and nationally, including presentations at 21c Museum Bentonville, H&R Block Artspace, Charlotte Street Foundation, Candela Gallery, Royal NoneSuch Gallery, and Historic Arkansas Museum, as well as internationally at the CICA Museum (South Korea) and SÍM Exhibition Hall Korpúlffstaðir (Iceland). His work is part of the permanent collection of 21c Museum Hotel in St. Louis, MO.
Guest Curator
Madeline Gallucci (b. Greensboro, NC, 1990) is an artist and arts administrator living in Chicago, IL. She received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2012 and her MFA from the University of Chicago in 2020.
Gallucci’s career is deeply rooted in community engagement and artist-led initiatives developed during her time in Kansas City. After graduating from KCAI, she worked in Student Affairs from 2012–2018, coordinating campus activities, overseeing student housing, and shaping the on-campus student experience. She also taught in the Continuing Education Department, fostering a supportive environment for artists of all ages, including teaching painting studio courses for the PCAL summer program in 2018.
Gallucci was founder and co-director of Front/Space (2014-2018) with Kendell Harbin, a storefront apartment located in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District repurposed for non-commercial exhibitions, readings, workshops, research, and publishing projects. At Front/Space they produced over 35 exhibitions and events, including Hot Hands, an annual drawing fundraiser featuring 30 Kansas City artists. Gallucci and Harbin also served as inaugural guest co-curators of the KCAI Annual BFA Exhibition at the H&R Block Artspace, in 2016, and co-curators of Wild Wild Guest at Imagine That! in 2017.
Gallucci was also deeply involved with Charlotte Street Foundation—first as an intern while a student, then as a Studio Resident from 2012–2014, and later as a recipient of the 2016 Visual Artist Award. In 2017, she curated the first exhibition under her solo curatorial platform RADAR at La Esquina.
She also served as an active member and exhibitions manager of The Drugstore Studios from 2015–2018, where she coordinated pop-up events and resident meetings in the historic Westport building.
Gallucci presented her first solo exhibition at Plug Gallery in 2014 and has since exhibited widely at Kansas City spaces including 21c Museum Hotel, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Curiouser & Curiouser, Hotel Phillips, Weinberger Fine Art and Special Effects Gallery. Her work is included in the collection of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS).
Gallucci has also been shown nationally and internationally at Ivory Gate Gallery (Shanghai, China); Grunts Rare Books, Goldfinch, Produce Model, Patient Info, Weatherproof, Space & Time, and LVL3 (Chicago, IL); Dragon Crab Turtle Gallery (St. Louis, MO); G-CADD (Granite City, IL); Below Grand (New York, NY); Rebekah Templeton (Philadelphia, PA); Skylab (Columbus, OH); Terrault Contemporary (Baltimore, MD); and Pelican Bomb Gallery X (New Orleans, LA).
Gallucci is a recipient of the DCASE Individual Artist Grant, and has participated in residencies at LATITUDE (Chicago, IL), ACRE (Steuben, WI), Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco, CA), and Grin City Collective (Grinnell, IA).
Her ongoing curatorial platform RADAR supports artists through emerging and collaborative initiatives, with a specific focus on projects based in the Midwest. Under RADAR, Gallucci created Roommate, a temporary exhibition series featuring two artists in her two-bedroom apartment in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. The program curated one artist from her connections in Kansas City and one artist from Chicago. In November 2023, Gallucci showcased Brandon Forrest Frederick and Sara Grosse in an exhibition entitled The Athletics of Yes. In addition to her independent projects, Gallucci serves as Director of Marketing for EXPO CHICAGO and The Armory Show, both international art fairs acquired by Frieze in 2023.
About the Emily & Todd Voth Artspace Project Wall
Situated on the west façade of the building and facing the intersection of 43rd and Main Streets, the Artspace Project Wall is an ongoing site for temporary public art projects featuring selected and commissioned works by national and regional artists. Since its inauguration, the Artspace Project Wall has received important support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.