Kansas City, MO. Sept. 23, 2025–Kansas City’s role as a host site for FIFA World Cup 26 inspired a new exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The fifth exhibition in the museum’s KC Art Now initiative, Personal Best features six local artist-athletes at the top of their game. The exhibition focuses on commonalities found at the intersection of this dual identity such as physicality, dedication, and determination, revealed through work in a variety of media and a range of styles. Personal Best opens Oct. 18.
“Kansas City is renowned for being a place where a passion for sports and the arts runs high, so we are excited to bring them together in Personal Best,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Director & CEO of the Nelson-Atkins. “When these local artists featured in this exhibition are not flexing their creative muscle in their studios, they are challenging themselves physically and mentally through their athletic practices. Personal Best reveals how the seemingly distinct identities of artist and athlete can merge and how they can truly complement each other.”
The Kansas City-based artists collaborating with the Nelson-Atkins to realize Personal Best are: Kate Clements (glass installation artist and distance runner), Mike Lyon (post-digital printmaker, dojo leader and senior instructor of the Kansas City Shotokan Karate Club), Thea Wolfe (multidisciplinary artist and mixed martial artist), Kwanza Humphrey (painter and football player), Tj Templeton (interdisciplinary artist and distance cyclist), and Samantha Haan (painter and climber).
“Success in the seemingly disparate worlds of art and sports is rarely the result of a single moment of brilliance,” said Stephanie Fox Knappe, Sanders Sosland Senior Curator, Global Modern and Contemporary Art and Head, American Art and curator of this exhibition. “Instead, as these six Kansas City-based artist-athletes prove, it derives from countless hours spent embracing the grind of incremental process, conquering doubt, and learning from failure. Their achievements stem from the mental, physical, and creative stamina required to push beyond their comfort zones. Fueled by discipline and drive, the artists featured in Personal Best share an unwavering commitment to challenge yesterday’s limits and strive for continual growth—both in their studios and in their athletic pursuits.”
Kate Clements received her MFA in Glass from the Tyler School of Art & Architecture in Philadelphia and her BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute.
When she is not out for a run, she is in her studio at StudiosInc constructing delicate, large-scale installations comprised of kiln fused glass panels like the massive, 150-panel floating Arc de Triomphe, titled Acanthus, that is her contribution to Personal Best.
“Sometimes, you're just putting one foot in front of the other and you're doing the same thing over and over and over again,” said Clements. “And you don't necessarily see where you're going. But I never feel bad when I spend a day in the studio working, and I never feel bad after I go for a run. Both of them are very fulfilling for me. And even if it's not perfect, I'm still always glad I did it.”
For Personal Best, Mike Lyon has created five post-digital multi-color Mokuhanga-style woodblock prints using traditional tools manipulated by non-traditional means that include his computer and CNC router. His art and his athletic practice reflect his deep love of all things Japanese. The building that houses his studio is also the site of the Kansas City Shotokan Karate Club, where he is a senior instructor.
“I think I have a really good understanding of color,” said Lyon. “And I think in karate, I have a really good understanding. I have a good kinesthetic sense, and I am able to coordinate my movement and my intention in order to deliver my energy in a pretty efficient way.”
Thea Wolfe graduated from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle with a BFA in Painting and Sculpture. A multidisciplinary artist who also makes music and writes, she competed as a mixed martial artist in Los Angeles before moving to Kansas City. Her home studio is filled with cut up paint sample chips that she uses to create her mosaic-like, hyper realistic portraits of members of the mixed martial arts community, like the four featured in Personal Best.
“Martial arts and making visual art for me are about coming to understand myself and understand the world, especially wanting to understand people,” said Wolfe. “Both of those practices really push a person to look deeply at that, sometimes in really uncomfortable ways.”
Painter Kwanza Humphrey’s ancestral home is on the African continent, and through his work he reaches back in time to create a bridge with those who have inspired him and to whom he feels a deep connection. This includes the makers and wearers of the African masks he incorporates into his trio of paintings for Personal Best—including some from the Nelson-Atkins permanent collection, one of which will be on view in conjunction with his paintings. A former football player for Missouri Western State University, Humphrey continues to play when he isn’t painting in his studio at Interurban Art House.
“Football is a physical release, and painting is more of an emotional release.,” said Humphrey. “It’s an opportunity to observe everything around me, take it in, and come up with my own reflection on the world around me and deliver that onto my canvas.”
Tj Templeton is an interdisciplinary artist and long-distance cyclist. At his studio at the Bunker Center for the Arts where he is the artist-in-residence and serves as the curator, his collection of bikes share space with his art. For Personal Best, he combines both these passions in a multi-media installation that will take viewers along on one of his favorite 40-mile rides, while highlighting some of the parts of Kansas City of which he is most fond.
“Cycling feeds me in a way that my art does, but in a way that also gets me out of the studio and into fresh air and gets my heart pumping,” said Templeton. “They’re similar because they’re both like an expression. Places of comfort.”
A graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, Samantha Haan maintains a studio in the Holsum Building. There, she makes system-based works that investigate the building blocks of language using gestures drawn from shorthand. She has likened the process of making the two paintings she is contributing to Personal Best to the same sort of problem solving required for her to tackle a climbing wall—her sport of choice since high school.
“I think of my studio as a place for me to rest and recover, even though I’m working there,” said Haan. “I try to have a very healthy relationship within my art making practice so that it feels like rest and recover from work, or from rock climbing, or from whatever else I have to do in my day-to-day life.” As with the four previous iterations of the KC Art Now initiative, the Personal Best project team collaborated closely with the artists to ensure that their voices are foregrounded and authentically represented. Each artist authored labels for their work in the exhibition and are featured in a video compilation interview discussing their dual identities as artist-athletes and what “personal best” means to them in both areas. This video will be featured in the exhibition.
Photo credit: Dana Anderson
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City is recognized nationally and internationally as one of America’s finest art museums. The museum opens its doors free of charge to people of all backgrounds.
The Nelson-Atkins serves the community by providing access to its renowned collection of more than 45,000 art objects and is best known for its Asian art, European and American paintings, photography, modern sculpture, and Native American and Egyptian galleries. Housing a major art research library and the Ford Learning Center, the museum is a key educational resource for the region.
The Nelson-Atkins is located at 45th and Oak Street, Kansas City, MO. Hours are 10 am–5 pm Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 10 am–9 pm Thursday and Friday, closed Tuesday and Wednesday. For museum information, phone 816.751.1ART (1278) or visit nelson-atkins.org. Source: The Nelson-Atkins
