KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Art is popping up around Kansas City showcasing Chiefs pride and highlighting cultural diversity.
Phil "Sike Style" Shafer tells KSHB 41 News he "got the picture" and painted a mural for the Week 5 Chiefs vs Bills game that now sits in the Power and Light District in downtown Kansas City.
“This game is very significant, and Chiefs need all the hometown support. And you know, it's kind of good luck,” Shafer said.
Shafer says the goal of this piece was not to only honor his city but to show how versatile art can be.
“Artists are kind of seen as like we can be sports fans and artistic as well and bring your design with the fans and the teams together. I think it’s really awesome,” Shafer said.
Not too far away from the Power and Light District, Paul Dorrell, president of Leopold Gallery and Art Consulting, and other artists took a different approach putting together a state-of-the-art collection inside the club level at Arrowhead Stadium — consisting of pieces he describes as “not literal.”
“They have enough representational art, meaning portraits, bronze or oil paintings in the Hall of Fame — that’s been handled. The Hunts and I agreed that this should be a contemporary collection, and that’s the direction we wanted to go in,” Dorrell said.
Now celebrating 30 years into his career, Dorrell says this collection was by far one the biggest to date.
“We didn’t know how we were going to survive the first year or the second year or the third year," Dorrell said. "By the fifth year, it began to get easier, and we managed to survive it very well.
"Things took, and I was angling for contracts like this 30 years ago, and I landed many of them, actually — Washington DC, LA, but the Arrowhead contract working with the Chiefs and the Hunt family, and so many people out there, it’s one of the biggest in my career today."
Dorrell says this collection does more than just meet the eye but honors the cultural diversity of Kansas City.
“All communities are made up of diverse races and diverse sexes," Dorrell said. "I’ve never felt like I can do a big collection, whether it’s for corporate or for a stadium or hospital. But only bringing in artists of one race, I think the collection every time must reflect the diversity of the city of the region in which I’m working."
The point of this collection is to honor the work of local artists and inspire young artists in the Kansas City area while making sure people get the big picture of who the KC community is.
“It allowed me to help this region flex its cultural muscles and really show how much sophistication artistically, and otherwise, resides here," Dorrell said. "This is not a flyover city any longer, and it's not a backwater any longer. It shouldn’t be seen that way by the people who live here or people outside the city, and collections like this go a long way in correcting that misinterpretation."
To catch a glimpse of the collection inside Arrowhead Stadium, be sure to visit the Leopold Gallery Site.
