Tag Archive: painting

  1. C4W:2021 Artist Talk

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    C4W:2021 Artist Talk Features: Alondra Marisol Garza, Benja Wuest, Katie Robinson, Tchana Pierre & curator Cándida González.

    Our guest curator, Cándida González, and Gamut Gallery’s director, Cassie Garner, sit down for a conversation with C4W artists; Alondra M. Garza, Benja Wuest, Katie Robinson & Tchana Pierre to share about their processes, ideations and perspectives on current events. For Cándida, these selected works embody a form of elemental energy that invites us to drop down from the chaos into the essential foundation of existence as life twists & changes around us. These artworks all create roots in the state of being that we return to in order to help us make sense of the confusion.

    About C4W:2021 – Elemental
    Our annual Call-4-Work exhibition is not a show that influences what art should be. Instead, the chosen guest curator brings their unique perspective and interpretation of the submitted works ranging the full “Gamut” of visual media. Through our guest curator’s lens and perspective, this body of work presented the theme Elemental. The gallery will play host to works that contain the roots of all existing matter – earth, air, water and fire – the essential principles of existence to life, death and human connection.

    C4W:2021 ELEMENTAL ARTIST TALK
    Wednesday, September 22nd ,7pm
    $5     pre-sales ended at 3pm on 9.22.21
    $7door day of event,  FREE for members
    • Pre-sales have closed
    • Entry will be available at the door
    • Masks required indoors

    Alondra Marisol Garza is a Tejana/Chicana artist. She was born on the Mexican side at the Rio Grande Valley borderlands of Mexico and South Texas. She later became a U.S. citizen, obtaining dual citizenship as a Mexican American, and moved to the U.S. She obtained a BFA at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and recently graduated from the MFA program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the U.S., Mexico, and Italy.

    Benja Wuest is a Minneapolis based artist working professionally in the field of sculpture and installation. He was trained as a painter and was introduced to three dimensional art forms by studying origami while living in a monastery in Japan. Returning to Minnesota Benja continued his studies at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a concentration in print, paper and book making so that he could continue to work with paper and utilize traditional printmaking techniques on his sculptures. While utilizing two dimensional printing techniques for three dimensional artwork, Benja naturally became interested in three dimensional printing. Building his own printer’s and being on the forefront of technology, the subject matter of his work developed around science, technology and the digital.

    Katie Robinson (all pronouns) is a student of love, trauma, and transformation. Their academic, poetic, artistic, and community work is curious about and present with individual and collective harm, such that our wounds may be understood outside of a modernist-colonial paradigm. As an abolitionist, they are a servant to transformation that occurs at the levels of the psyche, the nervous system, and the intimate relationship. Katie’s academic work, as a PhD student studying Depth Psychology, with a specialization in Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology, Eco-Psychology and Indigenous Psychologies, has afforded them rigorous exposure to the harms of Western conceptions of mental health, as well as, in turn, a decolonial view of the psyche. They explore these concepts and many more as a co-host of the cute, critical and metaphysical podcast We Are Power Crystals, with Leah Garza and Jaison Perez. Katie lives in Minneapolis with their partner, cat, and dog.

    Tchana Pierre Born Leslie Nembo, Cameroon, 1999. The artist uses the alias Tchana Pierre, after the Cameroonian musical legend to alienate Leslie the artist from Leslie the chemist. Tchana Pierre uses art as a medium for storytelling. The artist’s works are inspired by his Christian upbringing in Cameroon, relocation to Nigeria to flee political violence in Cameroon in 2016 and subsequent relocation to the United States in 2017.

  2. C4W:2018

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    [bscolumns class=”one_half”]
    ARTISTS // Aaron Brand, Annie Hejny, Benjamin Wuest, Carla Rodriguez, Christopher E. Harrison, Christopher Palbicki , CL Martin, Derek Dwyer, Desi Moore, Elissa Cedarleaf Dahl, Eric Mueller, Erik Farseth, Grace Sippy, Jacob Docksey, James Schenck, Julia Wilson, Lisa Pemrick, Maggie Dimmick, Maxwell Mateikis, Meranda Turbak, Mic Stowell, Natalia Berglund, Nicholas Kovatch, Phaedra Odelle, Philip Noyed, Polly Norman, Roger Johnson, Terry Barczak, & Toni Gallo.


    From political statements to traditional expression, delicate intricacies to abstracted geometries, human intimacy to surreal landscapes – C4W: 2018 curated by Tara LaPlante presents a kaleidoscopic range of styles, mediums, and artists’ points of view. More than 120 artists participated in Gamut Gallery’s “C4W: Call for Work” this year, submitting up to 5 pieces each of a wide range of visual media, including: video, installation art, sculpture, experimental technology, photography, fiber, drawing, painting, and collage.

    While there is no predetermined theme for the C4W exhibitions, the guest curator brings their unique perspective and interpretation to the submitted works. LaPlante was particularly fascinated by the diversity of the submissions – a characteristic that embodies Gamut’s approach to programming, where we strive to run the gamut of various styles, content and media – and made her selections based on their high standard of work and distinct quality. “My vision is to immerse the viewer within the broad and bold strokes of these art forms together, saturated in the idea that diversity in itself can create strength, set intrigue, and act as the spark for conversation and humanity,” said LaPlante.  

    New this year, there will be two “Best in Show” awards. One will be selected by the guest curator and the other by opening night attendees. Both winners will be awarded $100 cash and Platinum Memberships to Gamut Gallery ($250 value). In addition to the opening reception, there will be other special events during the course of the exhibit: the 2nd annual Members Gala will be held on Saturday, November 10th; and, a screening of locally-produced short dramas will serve as the exhibit finale on Saturday, November 17th. Stay tuned to gamutgallerympls.com and our various social media channels for more information and special announcements leading up to the exhibit, plus more event details listed below.

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    OPENING NIGHT
    Thursday October 25th, 7-11pm
    $5 or free with Gallery Membership


    ANNUAL MEMBERS GALA
    Saturday November 10th, 7-11pm
    Libations, Dancing, Art & Live Music
    Admittance with Gallery Membership

    EXHIBITION FINALE
    Saturday November 17th, 7-10pm
    Screening of locally-produced short dramas presenters tba
    Curated by Jade Patrick
    $5 or free with Gallery Membership


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    ABOUT THE CURATOR
    Tara LaPlante is a visual artist, founder of the multimedia events brand Futra, and business manager for the motion graphics studio Immanent. Originally from Wisconsin, she graduated from Montana State with a BFA in Painting in 2000, and studied Art History abroad at Maastricht University in The Netherlands. After school she moved back to the Midwest to continue her creative endeavors. In Minneapolis, she co-founded the art collective Offbeat Gallery and record label Timefog, which was home to many international techno artists.

    Tara’s relocation to Los Angeles in 2009 formed a change in her vision. The fusion of dance music culture and visual arts became the source of inspiration for Futra. Founded in 2012, this multimedia experience brand features DJ’s, producers, designers, performers, and visual artists through releases, podcasts, club events, and art spaces. Since 2015, the focus of Futra has altered to generating large-scale, concept-driven, multimedia gallery shows. Her personal art is colorful, abstract, and ranges from expressionistic to minimal in style. She currently works in painting, paper collage, and textile arts.

  3. Beyond Structure

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    MINNEAPOLIS–March 23 through May 4, 2013, Gamut Gallery will show four emerging fine artists, as they experiment with abstraction.  Schuyler Huber curates Dan Souligny, Jarad Jensen and Cameron T. Bouwens to join him in creating exploitative new works, specifically for the Beyond Structure exhibit.  The artists work primarily in acrylic on canvas, incorporating screen printing and other media with varying levels of collaboration.

    All four exhibitors make a living producing art.  In this experiment for Gamut Gallery, they step away from the structure of the work they do for a paycheck, while also stepping away from the representational.  One draws inspiration from precision architecture, another from rusting rail road cars.  Their point of intersection lies in the use of pattern, perspective and spontaneity.

    Schuyler Huber currently works as a freelance painter, muralist and screen printer.  He is part of Black Collar, a professional design and screen printing collective.  His mural work is prolific throughout the Twin Cities and he performs increasingly as a live painter.  Huber began his studies at MCAD as a Comic Arts major.  Living and working in the Whittier, Seward and Pillsbury Neighborhoods exposed him to a diverse community of graffiti and mural artists.  Huber began to experiment with brushwork and abstract patterns, graduating with a degree in Drawing and Painting.  His current experiments have led him to calligraphy and sign painting.

    Dan Souligny is the founder of Black Collar, which is finding success as a local, independent business and artist collective.  He specializes in the screen printing that his business centers around, but experiments with incorporating diverse media into his own art.  His freelance work includes branding and marketing for Project Know, and artwork for local charities.  He earned a degree in graphic design from MCAD in 2009, where he also studied illustration.

    Jarad Jensen is a freelance designer and illustrator, working in still and motion graphics.  He has created work for organizations such as The Mayo Clinic and the MPLS collective.  His personal work employs painting as a vehicle to explore form and space, free from outside constraints.  Jensen spent design internships with Paper Darts Magazine, and notable, local illustrator Michael Gaughan.  He completed his BFA in Illustration last year, but spent the first half of his time at MCAD as a painting major.

    Cameron T. Bouwens is a freelance muralist and painter.  He recently translated this work into his own business: Ice Cold Industries.  He has worked for commercial business and individuals in Minnesota, California and Florida.  In 2012 he created a 100 foot mural at the Sarasota Chalk Festival and produced two solo shows.  Bouwens transitioned into fine art from his beginnings as a graffiti artist, honing his skills painting unconventional spaces.  His grandfather and great-grandfather were both sign and billboard painters, something that Bouwens now finds connection with as he works.

    Click here for pictures from the opening!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkX0sPhA4Zw

  4. Make. Believe.

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    MINNEAPOLIS–January 26 through March 9, 2013, Gamut Gallery will show photography, sculpture, taxidermy, painting, digital arts and costumery by Bethany Birnie.  This prolific collection spans her personal post-Iraq experience, in vignettes of reveries made real. Birnie creates daydreams from the blueprints of her imagination, in her upcoming exhibit: Make.Believe. Opening Night commences Saturday, January 26, at 7:00 p.m. with special live-modeling of Birnie’s sculptural costumes, each a blend of the demure and outrageous.  The continuing exhibit will be crowned by a unicorn skull of bone and mixed materials, installed along side projected therianthropic portraiture.  Another installation piece features lovingly memorialized animals that Birnie taxidermizes by hand.  The diverse collection also includes smaller prints for the beginning art collector.

    Make.Believe. depicts intense longings of a soldier, facing extreme conditions in Iraq.  Birnie’s aquatic series was forged in a sweltering humvee in Iraq; beneath full-body armor, she dreamt endlessly of swimming freely in water.  Her harsh eighteen-month deployment spent as a combat machine gunner, was the catalyst to her whimsical dreamscapes. Her experience as a soldier revealed how precious lives can be marginalized as expendable.  These deep realizations found redress in procuring animal roadway victims and conducting the intimate, autopsy-like taxidermic procedure.  The magic Birnie deals in gained a life of its own as she began to find tiny bullets in one squirrel and then another.  The bullet installation weaves reality and mystery together so effectively that the intention extends even beyond the artist’s reach.

    “The notion that I have the power to change the world around me, into whatever I wish, is my main inspiration. I’m driven by the fantastical moments, when my daydream has been seamlessly recreated and lives before me…  While on convoys to Baghdad, the utopia I would drift to was so vibrant and beautiful that when I returned home I began a mission to recreate it. Filled with friendly animals, brilliant colors and peaceful women, my daydreams embody the things I lacked in life, specifically on my journey as a female soldier.”

    Bethany Birnie joined the Army National Guard in 2002. As she began her Fine Arts major at the University of Minnesota, she was deployed to Iraq.  Upon returning, Birnie sought out a more structured degree.  She graduated in 2009 from the University of Minnesota, with a double major in Fine Arts and Strategic Communication.  She went on to complete a portfolio program at Miami Ad School in 2010. Later that year she was granted an Art Director internship in Amsterdam at the firm: One Big Agency. Since then she has worked freelance and as a full-time Art Director at two advertising agencies.  She is working currently as an Art Director at Space 150.  The Make.Believe. exhibit will be the debut of her personal works in a gallery setting.