Jesse Matthew Petersen: ANTIBODIES:
ARTIST STATEMENT
We are each a contortion of our ideals, and constructions of others’. Put-ons on pedestals. We’ve been framed. It stinks inside this box. Guilty of disassociation. One person’s uniform is another’s costume; all dirty laundry. Concealed carrion, ready for the reveal. Impenetrably skin-deep, amplified by materiality. What’s underneath? Power to the peephole. Societal fluidity will follow that of gender, guided along by the unseen hand of pandemic. Resiliency is never determined without force. Seek mindfulness in the maelstrom. Shape-shift thru fascist grip. May this disfigurement be sensual, body-positivity the antibodies. A reminder for the remainder: we all test positive for weirdness. Make yours willfully, wonderfully wild.
I dedicate this exhibition to the memories of the artists Christian Nielsen and Matthew Bergen, rest in love.
Jesse’s artist talk was streamed live on Zoom on Sept 22, 2020. A sign of the times during COVID-19.
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Barbara Held and Benton C Bainbridge
“Held and Bainbridge’s duo pairs acoustic and electronic sound with analog image.
Their live shows and studio work are composed using Eurorack video modules and
a small Moog synthesizer modulated with acoustic flute sound.
Held is a classically trained flutist and composer who lives and works in Barcelona,
Spain. She has commissioned and performed a very personal body of new
repertoire for flute by Spanish and American composers.
Bainbridge is an artist who makes media art with his own custom systems. He is
best known for visual performances, solo and in diverse collaborations.
In addition to the exhibition opening, Held will perform a solo concert of her
historical repertoire on flute and prepared devices, accompanied by a discussion
on her work at 4 p.m. March 22 in the Performing Arts Center’s Ruth Gant Recital
Hall. The program includes works composed by Held as well as works composed
specifically for her by 20thcentury composers Alvin Lucier and Yasunao Tone”.
St. Cloud State Today.
ADAM CAILLIER AND MICHAEL MOTT
SURF ZONE
OPENING- JANUARY 26TH-MARCH 2ND
Adam Cailler and Michael Mott│ statement
Our projects, like most things, begin tangentially in overheard conversation or ill
conceived dime-store poetry, and proceed in a fashion akin to all varieties of
underfunded research where passion is the currency: a manic making-do. We jot
things down, make blind drawings, and speak slowly onto magnetic tape. In
working together we know that we each have, at least, a mildly approving audience
of one.
One past project involved identifying and collecting instances of eroticism in
domestic architecture. We began by acknowledging that haunted houses wear their
haunt on their sleeve, and can be readily identified by an attuned eye. From there,
we were pleased to deduce that all houses are haunted by a something-or-other,
poetry, God, the ocean, whatever.
Finally, the imagination struck out in the desire for new categories: we began to
realize that the erotics, the degrees of vibratory friction with which some lives are
rich, can become visibly manifest in certain domiciles. We defined erotics as
unashamed idiosyncrasy, be it flamboyant or subtle, but always incongruous. Then
it was just a matter of research: driving the metaphysical streets and hard looking.
We presented our findings in a book draft splayed out on a wall, as a potentially
endless photographic series. This is typical of our process: a hunch, excitement,
conversation, thesis, accost the world with our eyes, fabricate truth, present our
findings, retire.
LANDER BURTON, GREGORY GRAHAM, AND KELSEY OLSON
PERSON. PLACE. THING.
LANDER BURTON
Lander Burton│ bio
Born, lives, works in Los Angeles, California
Gregory Graham│ bio
Gregory Graham lives and works in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He received his MFA from
the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and his MA and BA from the State University of
New York at Albany. Graham has been the recipient of numerous awards, including
grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board.
The artist has exhibited nationally, including the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock;
Centennial Art Center, Nashville; Honolulu Academy of Arts; Pratt Graphic Center, NYC;
Spirit Square Art Center, Charlotte; University of Oregon, Eugene; and the Visual Arts
Center of Alaska, Anchorage. In addition to exhibiting prints, drawings and paintings, he
has also screened short films at the Riverview Theater, Minneapolis and the Paul and
Sheila Wellstone Center, Saint Paul.
KELSEY OLSON
Kelsey Olson│ bio
Kelsey Olson is from Montana and lives in Minneapolis. She makes photographs that
combine analog and digital processes, and also makes paintings. She recently completed
an internship at Misako & Rosen gallery, Tokyo, and last year with David Frohlich
published a zine of artists writings and collages titled XPNDR. Olson has previously
exhibited at the Rochester Art Center, GAS GALLERY in Minneapolis, and Party at My
Parents House in Prior Lake, MN.
GEORGE FARRAH
COLBY LANE PAINTINGS
OCTOBER 4TH – NOVEMBER 3RD
George Farrah│ bio
For me, this series of paintings have become a meditation on my childhood and
adolescence, the joys, pains and dangers of it. Also, this subject matter is expressed in
the context of present day Internet and smart phone colors.
Something direct, visceral, in your face, like the experience of early life, happening to
you so quickly, you often can hardly keep up with it or half understand it.
The style of painting in these paintings could be labeled, “New York abstract school”. I
wouldn’t be offended.
One could also say, that the images in these paintings are at times difficult to make sense
of or get your head around. I wouldn’t be offended by that either. I find myself not
trusting things that are not larger or more complex than I am. Things that began
functioning as propaganda for any point of view. You could argue anything can become
that. I find myself agreeing with that. With the exception that in our particular time and
space and visual/cultural environment, never has the image had more dishonesty and
intelligent beauty to bear as a signifier, and grief and trouble for us, as the ultimate
signified.
Thus, my personal argument for abstraction, beyond what I naturally love and find
myself doing and not being able or interested in doing anything else, at least at this time.
As Phillip Guston so beautifully puts it:
"There are so many things in the world – in the cities – so much to see. Does art need to
represent this variety and contribute to its proliferation? Can art be that free? The
difficulties begin when you understand what it is that the soul will not permit the hand to
make."
It was fun and hard work to make these paintings.
I hope you enjoy them. gjf
ALYSSA BAGUSS AND MATT YAEGER
IN-BETWEEN HERE AND THERE
AUGUST 24TH-SEPTEMBER 22ND
ALYSSA BAGUSS
Alyssa Baguss│ bio
Alyssa Baguss’s practice explores mediated natural environments
through drawing processes. Her work has been exhibited in the
Twin Cities and regionally, including Augsburg College Christensen
Center Art Gallery, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Soo Visual
Arts Center, and Rosalux Gallery. Baguss has worked as a
teaching artist and artist in residence with the Minnesota Center for
Book Arts youth programming, Minneapolis Public School system’s
Art for Academic Achievement residency programs, and with
various art organizations in the Twin Cities including the Walker Art
Center, Weisman Art Museum, the Rochester Art Center, and
Public Arts St. Paul.
MATT YAEGER
Matthew Yaeger│ bio
Matthew Yaeger was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, grew up in Saint Cloud, Minnesota,
and calls Minneapolis, Minnesota home. He attended Saint Cloud State University and
graduated with a B.A. in creative writing and B.F.A. in fine arts in 2012. He finished his
M.F.A. in painting and printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University in the spring
of 2015. His work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions including Untitled 9
at the SOO Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, NEXT, at Page Bond Gallery
in Richmond, Virginia, A Painting Show, at the Gallery Vault in Saint Cloud, Minnesota,
Southern Hospitality, at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, Happy Hour, at
Art Helix in Brooklyn, New York, Fresh: New Artist 2015, at Southeastern
Contemporary Art Gallery in Hammond, Louisiana, and most recently was part of a two
person exhibition, The Other Window with Emil Robinson at Wave Pool Gallery in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
FABULISTS an Installation by John Fleischer, Kiehle Gallery, 2014
FABULISTS
When __________ created __________, whom s/he formed alone, without a companion, s/he said: It is not good that __________ should be alone. And therefore s/he created __________ also out of the ground and the two began immediately to contend with each other for superiority.
__________ said: It behoves thee to be obedient; I am to rule over thee. __________ replied: We are perfect equals, for we are both formed out of the same material. So neither would submit to the other.
Seeing this, __________ pronounced repeatedly the name of __________, and instantly flew away through the air. __________ then addressed __________ and said: __________, whom thou gave to me, has departed, has flown away from me through the air.
__________ immediately dispatched __________ to bring back the fugitive. S/he said: If __________ consents to return, then open the path; but if not, mark the body with blackened arrows and close forever the gate.