UofM MFA OPEN STUDIOS 2010

Designed by Ben Garthus & Juana Berrio. Special thanks to Peter Haakon Thompson for his left-handed writing.

The MFA students of the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota are pleased to welcome the public to their annual Open Studios.

On Friday March 12th from 6-9 pm, visitors are invited to see the work of 37 MFA students. Graduates will present their recent and ongoing work in the context of their studio practice, which include Painting & Drawing, Sculpture, Ceramics, Photography, Printmaking and EMA (Experimental & Media Arts).

The MFA Open Studios event will offer an inside look at the development of creative work within the environment of a three-year MFA program. This event is a rare opportunity to preview work in progress and have informal conversations with the artists.

The Open Studios event will take place in:

Regis Center for Art - East and West Buildings
405 21st Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Contact: Juana Berrío
berri016@umn.edu
MFA Candidate

DOWNLOAD AND PRINT THE INVITE WITH THE MAP:
PDF-invite-open-studios.pdf

DO NOT FORGET TO VISIT THE MFA STUDIOS IN BOTH THE EAST & WEST BUILDINGS AT:

Regis Center for Art
405 21st Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55455

DOWNLOAD AND PRINT THE INVITE WITH THE MAP:
PDF-invite-open-studios.pdf

MFA Studios map at Regis Center for Art:

Studios Located on the East Building second floor:

Painting & Drawing
Sculpture
Ceramics

Studios Located on the West Building:

Photography (second floor )
Experimental and Media Arts (second floor)
Printmaking (first floor)

Campus Map:

Click on the blue link below the map for directions:

View Larger Map

Jennifer Anable
Ceramics
anabl001@umn.edu

Maneli Aygani
Drawing/Painting
aygan002@umn.edu

Tonya Balik
Drawing/Painting
bali0024@umn.edu

TJ Barnes
Experimental and Media Arts
barne306@umn.edu
www.neighborhoodartonwheels.org

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I am a mixed martial artist.
Cutting my head with fever.
Casting marks with bloody lips.
Drunk on connection.

Juana Berrio

"Background," 2009.
Video installation using proof-of-life videos of hostages
held by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)
from different T.V. channels, bed sheets, and stumps; no audio.

"Inhale Exile Inhale", 2010.
Video installation
(MFA Thesis Project, April 2nd, 2010)

Elisa Berry
Sculpture
berr0140@umn.edu
www.elisakariberry.com

By combining and reconfiguring forgotten and exploited materials and places, my art envisions new possible realities. I think that art must simultaneously captivate and confront its media-saturated viewers; it must call them out of the realm of the virtual toward a reality that cannot be fulfilled in the work of art but must be enacted within the fragile materiality of everyday life.

Benjamin Brockman
Printmaking
brock205@umn.edu

"I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have about life and my
way of translating it." - Henri Matisse

Yousif Del Valle
Sculpture
delva006@umn.edu

David Dobbs
Drawing/Painting
dobb0021@umn.edu

"Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me
less." -Charles Lamb

In the D=rt series, I measure the amount of time I am drawing on a
piece, then multiply it by what I approximate the rate of my drawing to be,
measured by how much I have drawn in a minute. This allows me to get an
approximate distance for each piece and creates a new system for measuring
time. Time thus becomes a distance traveled instead of just an abstract,
relative concept. The wave pattern produced is an illustration of light,
how light is both a particle and a wave. I use light in many different ways
in the illustration of my work, whether it is using black marks on a white
canvas to play with light in a visual sense, tricking the brain into seeing
colors where there are none, using reflective paint to bounce light off of
the surface, or using similar colors to my canvas with my marks, so that
the marks are only visible in certain lighting. The process of making these
repetitive marks becomes a meditative act and then links the spiritual with
the physical.

david donovan
Printmaking
donov096@umn.edu

Imagine if a place had an alter ego. Picture what that might be. Ask yourself, what makes a house a home? What if objects had secrets they were itching to tell? Does a stains memory differentiate between happiness and anger. Is the history of events in given place etched into the walls and objects? This is the creative inspiration driving my art. I find myself intrigued with the phenomenology of space and how it can affect the psyche of an individual. I exaggerate and exploit this essence with sound and light installations and manipulate its objects it orders to render the space within the particular context I'm representing. While doing this I tend to mix the objects of my art, the things that have developed a history in my repurpose of them, with the found situations and realties society lives with but tend to ignore or right out refuse to acknowledge. The subject matter I find my self most interested in deals with notions of the mentally ill and poverty and their implications on family structures. Lately my work has been dealing with subjective double syndrome, schizophrenia, counterpart theory and how the subjective experience of a place can blend with these things, cresting in a sense of certain uncertainty. It is a paradoxical place, one of forgetting and remembrance, one of delusion and clarity, one of psychosis and sanity.

Ben Garthus
Sculpture
gart0092@umn.edu
http://www.bengarthus.com/

Jason Gaspar
Drawing/Painting
gasp0032@umn.edu

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Mel Griffin
Ceramics
griff451@umn.edu

As human beings, we carry our memories, thoughts, and emotions into every space we enter. In so doing we define and assign meaning to our surroundings. My work is a reaction to the manner in which I perceive and organize space in my own life as well as to the order and disorder of cultural place. I am investigating the manner in which physicality, understanding, memory, and mood combine to create meaning in both everyday and imagined environments.

Both biologically and cognitively, humans are intimately linked to the natural world and to our perception of its presence in our surroundings. We base our sense of beauty on the essence of natural form. We interpret nuance and fellowship through encounters with single animals, and find significance in our relationships with other species. Animals and plants add texture to our daily language as we process the world through narrative and metaphor.
In my work, animals serve as both playful and solemn metaphors for my own interactions with the environment, as well as those of the people around me.

I believe that the capacity to empathize can be developed through attentive engagement with daily landscape, and that the health of that landscape can affect the health of our minds. I use imagery and metaphor, line and clay, to capture the viewer's emotional interest and to rekindle her sense of wonder and discovery. Functional pottery is unique in the depth of its participation in its owner's life, becoming a part of her personal and intimate sense of place and home. My drawings seek to inspire this same familiarity and are approachable, nostalgic, playful, and open to emotional participation.

Erin Hael
Experimental and Media Arts
hael0002@umn.edu

I am interested in the "elimination of the audience," in the words of Allan Kaprow. My interest in participatory work and constructed situations is to create a social interaction among people. I look to create a situation in which the viewer becomes the performer, not out of feelings of obligation, but of a certain instinctual notion.

Chroma Key Karaoke

On a visit to Japan last year, I took note of the videos that had played in the background of the monitors while a performer would sing in a karaoke room. Often times, the same videos would play for different genres of music; metal, folk, disco, pop etc... I thought
a lot about the personalities of those choosing the songs. Often times, these videos would fit with opposing genres of music. I began to play with green screen and wondered what might change if the singer was able to transform through experimentation with video. Here, the subject was asked to wear either a blue or green sweater if they wanted to sing. A video playlist was run through the program and the sweater was keyed out, revealing the video underneath.

Erin Hernsberger
Photography
herns001@umn.edu
www.erinhernsberger.com

I am interested in bodies and our attempts/desires to manipulate or alter them in some way. I am interested in food and its relationship to the body, both in a formal/physical sense and conceptually. I am interested in experimenting with reactions of disgust and repulsion coinciding with beauty and attraction.

Sam Hoolihan
Photography
hool0005@umn.edu

Link to video by Sam Hoolihan :
http://mediamill.cla.umn.edu/mediamill/embed/23741

"Learning is permanent for all of us regardless of age. Curiosity feeds the
desire to know. The call to teach stems from the pleasure of transmitting
life: neither an imposition nor a power relation, it is pure gift, like
life, from which it flows. Economic totalitarianism has ripped learning
away from life, whose creative conscience it ought to be. We want to
disseminate everywhere this poetry of knowledge that gives itself. Against
school as a closed-off space, we must invent nomadic learning."
- Raoul Vaneigem
in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, E-Flux Journal May 2009

Rachel James
Printmaking
james332@umn.edu

Jonathan Kaiser
Experimental and Media Arts
jkaiser@umn.edu
http://jonathankaiser.com

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Korla Luckeroth
Ceramics
lucke033@umn.edu

I construct three-dimensional landscapes out of clay.
This piece is about 13" accross and is titled, "White Barn of Birtha."

Avigail Manneberg
Drawing/Painting
amanneberg@umn.edu
www.avigailmanneberg.com

"Berlin ABC-Book" dialogues with identity issues personal and familial,
national and religious, in a city so vibrant and multicultural today, yet
still so burdened by history.

Andy Mattern
Photography
amattern@umn.edu
http://www.andymattern.com/

"I use photography as an organizing tool to compose and collect objects and spaces. Through a process of physical arrangement and digital editing, I create images that reflect my own need for control and a particular sense of order."

Lindsay Montgomery
Ceramics
montg182@umn.edu

GiGi Mullins
Experimental and Media Arts
mulli105@umn.edu
http://turquoisethemovie.com/gigimullins.htm

Jennifer Nevitt
Drawing/Painting
nevit002@umn.edu

Joshua Ostraff
Drawing/Painting
ostra044@umn.edu

My most recent work is landscape painting that has in it the duality of two places. They Interface significant locations and moments of my far past to specific locations in my more recent past. Landscape painting for me is about my interaction with a particular place. Interrelating with a landscape is not only key to my process but it informs me. It direct and drives form, color, and compositions as significant to the specific location I am working with. I often find or recalculate my ideas and questions as my time in that space develops. What drives my process are questions. The most significant thing art can do in [a given society] is allow people to ask important questions. In a very broad sense art has been a vehicle for artists to ask big questions and make imperative statements. Statements that help us rethink who we are. It is not important to me to be original in my art. What matters is that I am authentic. But what is the authentic me? Landscape painting for me at this time is being used to engage this question that seems to be elusive and change with time.

Ethan Rowan Pope
Drawing/Painting
pope0050@umn.edu
cell: 715-781-1085
popebrothersart.com

My drawings correspond to a style which I call "composite photorealism" or "imaginative photorealism." Instead of drawing from a single source photo as other photorealistic artists do, I draw from a multitude of photographs integrated into what I consider a more creative, imaginative, and personal image, thus permitting photorealism to merge freely with the imagination. I develop my drawings through a series of increasingly organized drafts, and I engage in an intensive process of producing and selecting photographs for my drawings, and these photographs impart veracity and "believability" to the imagined realities I create. Although my photographs could stand by themselves as artworks, I use them as a means to an end -- the finished drawing itself. I place an emphasis on time-intensive craft in my work because I'm most gratified by such technical and psychological challenges.
Currently, I'm exploring the theme of storytelling, narration, and drawing from literature. I'm passionate about Franz Kafka's literature, and I'm working on a series of drawings based on Kafka's stories. Thus, the themes in my work overlap with Kafkan themes, which explore family relationships, the relationship of the artist to society, sickness, death, and the navigation of systems of power and bureaucracy.

Laura Primozic
Ceramics
primo006@umn.edu

In 2006, Laura visited Alaska where she experienced icebergs and glaciers for the first time. These beautiful, monumental and pristine natural wonders have since become the inspiration for her artwork. She has continued her research by participating in a 15-day expedition to the east coast of Greenland in 2009. Laura also researched the impact our culture has on these Arctic landscapes. She participated in a seminar concerning Science and Policy of Global Environment Change at the University of Minnesota. She has extended her interest into society's mass consumption of natural resources, and its effect that it has on icebergs and glaciers. Laura's intention is to teach us how we might see the causes and consequences climate change has on our environment

Areca Roe
Photography
treon001@umn.edu
arecaroe.com

At the heart of my artwork is an examination of the breakdown of our connections with the natural world--with natural rhythms, our environment, our food, even with our bodies. Our experience of nature has been tamed and simplified, and also increasingly mediated by man-made objects that serve to create barriers between ourselves and our
experiences of the world. In my work I use imagery from nature to explore this retreat from the natural world, and to question and strengthen my own connection back to nature.

Chad Rutter
Sculpture
rutt0044@umn.edu

Using a wide range of media and the traditional road trip as a point of origin, Chad Rutter addresses places and symbols of the contemporary American landscape (both physical and ideological, epic and banal) with an eye toward history. Through texts, drawings and paintings, photo composites, wooden structures and appropriated artifacts he explores the
rhetoric of nation building and the culture of its preservation.

Robin Schwartzman
Printmaking
schwa966@umn.edu
http://robinschwartzman.com

My creative research examines the production of leisure space, more specifically in the creation of artificial, idealized versions of reality. Encouraged by imaginative childhood memories and recent experiences as an amusement park employee, I create exaggerated fantasy worlds of contemplation and escape.

Drawing inspiration from carnivals, theme-parks, cartoons, children's books and playgrounds, these large-scale multimedia scenarios teeter the boundary between alluring and menacing. I utilize recognizable imagery, color, light and audio interactivity to spark the imagination.

My most recent installation, The Lonely Tree, is an immersive three-dimensional scenario inspired by cartoon landscapes. I combine sculpture and interactive technologies to promote exploration and discovery. Characters and events respond to touch, sometimes unexpectedly, with sound, scent and motion. By stimulating a variety of senses, I facilitate a new reality to this obviously falsified world.

Two of my most recent collaborations, Cake Celebration and the FantaShanty, are transcendent rooms encrusted from floor to ceiling by handmade sculpture and found objects. These spaces become sugar coated false realities saturated with color, texture and detail designed to over-stimulate the senses.

Ginny Sims
Ceramics
simsx117@umn.edu
www.ginnysims.com

Always thinking of the idea of function, I create hand-built and wheel-thrown works that are designed to enhance our cooking, eating and gathering experiences. I am interested in our relationship with food and how we regard the space of the kitchen. Lately I have been focusing on the still life and how objects and arrangements create a narrative of our experiences in the heart of the home and beyond. I'm interested in how our perceptions of history, family and identity can be shaped here. My own experiences growing up in the South and the rituals and traditions in which I was taught, and observed, rendered that space for me as a place of magic, metaphor and sorrow.

Meng Tang
Experimental and Media Arts
tangx194@umn.edu

How many universes are we living in? How many dimensions are there in this universe? Is there a forth, even a fifth dimension? Is there a way to see what's outside "reality"? Is cyberspace a real "space"? Does time exist in cyberspace? If yes, does it in sync with the time in "reality"? If not, what time is it? Is time real, or it is completely an illusion? If we cannot use time to measure movement, what else can we use? Is dream real, a replay, another universe, or Déjà vu?

"Qian Kun", an ancient Chinese cosmology concept, refers to "heaven and earth", "male and female", or "this universe". In Chinese astrology, there are five fundamental elements ("Wu Xing"): Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. These are five "changing states of being", five "permutations" or five "metamorphoses of being". Another important part of Chinese astrology is the cycle of the twelve Zodiac animal signs or Earthly Branches. They are in order as follows: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar. Five elements multiplied by twelve signs equals sixty years of a life cycle, and then it replays.

What divides life cycles? What divides reality and dream? What divides heaven and earth? Is it time? How can time divide space, how can time be measured? What does a light year measure: distance, or illusion? Can we put a universe in a single atom? Can we explain the universe in a nutshell?

Can these questions be answered by cosmology, astrology, metaphysics, or dream? Can geometry; mathematics; computer programs, or art reveal the boundary? Can we live by order, discipline, communication, or faith?

Jessica Teckemeyer
Sculpture
jteckeme@umn.edu

jessicateckemeyer.com
http://vimeo.com/9257249

"Between Life and Death", 2009, Installation view, bathtub, milky
liquid, electronics, video, rear-projection screen.
A clawfoot bathtub is filled with a milky liquid. Air bubbles rising from
an unseen source interrupt the smooth surface randomly a few times a
minute. Above the tub, video featuring Moon Jellyfish float slowly in and
out of view.

"Portal I", 2010, video, acrylic, paint, wood, 16" x 16" x 6.5"
"Portal I" manipulates the viewing experience. The viewer peers like a
voyeur through a peephole to reveal video of a fluther of Moon Jellyfish.
The jellyfish move about in a slow, sensual matter. These alien-like
creatures appear fragile, but have venomous tentacles. The videos serve as
metaphors of strength and beauty.

"Abstracted Reality", 2009, video, balloons, silk, metal 46" x 46"
x 23".
Within a silk dome, pearl balloons are used to abstract the projected
imagery. The translucent nature of the materials allows the video to
permeate all sides.

The physical spaces we encounter are invested with symbolism and metaphor and are thus much enriched for this interplay between fantasy and reality -
a process of enrichment of place that also enriches self,
and offers to all who encounter a rich place to live 'creatively'. ~Sarah Menin

Through sculptures and video installations, my work explores the ways humans connect to the physical world. Our culture places a significant emphasis on speed, layering of information and the complexity in the everyday. These cultural trends cause me to question the contemporary landscape and structure. In response, I create unexpected environments that slow the viewer to give them opportunity for introspection, as well as meditation.

The imagery and materials explore themes of attraction, repulsion, fragility, sensuality and abstraction. The work is monochromatic, quiet and intimate. By placing a clawfoot bathtub in the gallery and inflated structures in the landscape, the re-contextualization offer encounters distinctly separate from reality. I investigate our relationship, not only to objects, but also to animals. My process often involves observing and shooting video of animals in captivity, particularly aquatic life. I am drawn to the translucent, gelatinous body of the jellyfish and the elastic, shape-shifting body of the octopus. Both creatures have alien-like qualities that are activated through sensual movement. As a whole, the work is the catalyst for questioning perception of objects, places and encounters.

Peter Haakon Thompson
Photography
pht@umn.edu
www.peterhaakonthompson.com
www.the-a-project.org
www.neighborhoodartonwheels.org

Teach Me Your Language
wood, paint, chalk
2009

Sign is placed in public area, sidewalk, empty lot, I wait for
voluntary language teachers; has been used solely in the Cedar-
Riverside neighborhood. Project grew out of my realization that I was
often around Somalis (in the University/ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood
and my home) but did not know how to say anything in Somali. Has been
successful in engaging Somali residents in teaching and conversation.

Conversation Tent
10' diameter, 4'-6' high, canvas, pvc, rope, wood
2009

Designed to be set up easily indoors or out by a group of people to
create a space for conversation. Comes with visual instructions on set
up procedure. Users work together to decipher instructions and set
tent up.
Also has title card that reads,
"Use this tent for conversations, one on one or with groups. Talk
about whatever you wish but undertake the activity with intention and
thoughtfulness."

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I.C.E. Expedition
Kick sled, tent, flags
February 14-15, 2009
Wood, steel, canvas, cord, paint, found skis, pvc

I consider my main medium to be conversation. I use my art as a method and means for pursuing my curiosity about the world and interest in people. I am inspired by Allan Kaprow's idea of a "lifelike art" over an "artlike art". Some consistent themes to what I explore: language, overlooked places, creating place, conversations with people I don't
normally get to talk to and the expansion of what art can be. I believe that art can provide a service and can function as a possible guide for how to live in the world.

Bart Vargas
Sculpture
varg0108@umn.edu
bartvargas.com

Bart Vargas is from Bellevue, Nebraska. For over a decade, he has been exploring the artistic potential of trash and recyclable materials. Using pattern, repetition and form, he builds paintings, sculptures, and installations that blur the identity of these everyday materials, transforming them into playful, thought-provoking objects. Vargas wants his creations to act as artifacts and evidence of the early 21st century, and hopes to do so by using materials that are no longer needed or valued in an era of limited resources and extraordinary consumption and waste.

Vargas received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2007, and is currently attending the graduate sculpture program at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis. Vargas has exhibited nationally, and his work can be found in many private, public and corporate collections throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.

Jasmine Wallace
Ceramics
walla269@umn.edu

Josh Winkler
Printmaking
wink0167@umn.edu
www.joshkwinkler.com
www.joshkwinkler.blogspot.com

the middlewest & otherwise
color woodcut
39"x52"
2009

mega folk fauna & the death of mammoths
woodcut and lithograph
30"x36"
2010

Human paradise in the desertlands
color woodcut
23"x35"
2010

My images and texts emphasize the growing disconnect between Americans and the land, the physical shaping of the land with highly specialized earth manipulating machines, and also the quirky human objects and curiosities of the landscape that highlight human presence on the earth's surface. Travel, personal experience, and direct observation inform the work. I relate my perceptual encounters in the landscape to art histories, literary narratives, and histories of humanity in the western world.

A current body of work is titled Monuments, Miracles, & Mega Folk Fauna. These woodcuts and lithographs conglomerate human anomalies along the land into fabricated epic landscape scenes of activity and guilty pleasure. By emphasizing the disturbing intricacies of our daily landscapes, these scenes arouse satirical questions of the role of the human animal and its omnipotent grasp over the earth and its resources.

Human paradise in the desertlands depicts an Acadia of human pleasure in the arid Mojave Desert region of California's Central Valley. Fiberglass folk fauna & the death of mammoths considers the overkill extinction theory of late Pleistocene mega fauns in relation to their fiberglass monuments in South Dakota. The land diorama lures the natural history museum outdoors to iterate the man-taming of nature where no size is too large and no beast is too strong.