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| Angela Strassheim - Breaking Up |
Opening Saturday, March 12, from 6-9 p.m., "Fresh" displays an assemblage of new works by an array of former solo exhibitors returning to the
Burnet Gallery. On the eve of the show, which celebrates the venue's first five years, it seemed appropriate (judicious?) to try to communicate with all of the ten artists featured.
In an attempt to be minorly objective, I asked the same three questions of them all plus an optional fourth about how their work has evolved since their initial Burnet outing. The six who answered my homogenous queries are presented here, in no particular order, for your reading pleasure with a few photos of the work, as well. Glean what you can here and then stop by the gallery for the real deal.
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The Questions:
1. When and why did you being to call yourself an artist?
2. How does Minnesota play a part in your work?
3. Who or what is influencing you right now?
*4. How do you see your work having changed or evolved since your original Burnet Gallery show?
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1. When I was 24 and I had my first NYC solo show.
2. My subject matter is not related to Minnesota.
3. Eve Democracy...
1. I still have a hard time telling people that I am an artist.
2. I tend to get more work done in the darkest months of the year. The sun can be a distraction.
3. I have been taking weekend road trips down south. I love the way people organize their lives on their front lawns. Everything is visible.
1. I started taking art lessons when I was five — it is the only thing I have done my entire life. I have always felt like an artist.
2. I am from MN and my whole family is here. Minnesota has been incredibly supportive of my work. I have received institutional support from the Bush, McKnight and Jerome Foundations, as well as the MN State Arts Board. In MN, I rely on my artist friends, am grateful for the art collectors that make what I do possible, and am really excited to be able to exhibit in places like Chambers Hotel and the MIA.
3. I just watched a documentary on Alice Neel, watching her move her brush across the canvas took my breath away. It was like watching Federer play tennis — a natural.
4. My solo exhibit in 2008 at the Burnet Gallery was an amazing experience. Since my work is a reflection on the Iraq War, it was truly gratifying to find a place for the project to exist while our country was involved in this ongoing conflict. So often an artist's work is never shown, or traditionally hasn't been shown during their lifetime. To have the work installed in the heart of Hennepin Ave, and speak to the city in real time, was incredibly meaningful to me.
1. I think in high school, I was making a commitment to considering myself an artist. Although I grew up surrounded by the art of my mother. As a child I think she would try to keep me out of her hair by requiring me to practice specific brush strokes over and over again. From that time there was always a need to express oneself through production.
2. Minnesota's landscape seeps into my work, at times consciously -- at other times unconsciously. I am walking every day and absorbing the changing seasons, but I am struck by the starkness of the winter lines. Minnesota quiet cold winters offer a time for introspective production. Lately I find a fire's flame a constant background as I make my work. The fire and the work almost become meditative.
3. How can one not be influenced by what is happening with the folks in the Middle East? It is truly amazing how these uprisings are happening. Information spread through Twitter and Facebook — these invisible networks yield so much power to the individual to organize and become a peerless force. Also I am enjoying some readings on the Age of Romanticism and going back further to some Jacobean plays.
1. 1987. I discovered then, that was who I was.
2. I live here.
3. Gravity, the Stones, my stomach and Hari Sreenivasan.
1. In 2000. It had to do with taxes and insurance and I had to call myself something and artist was most fitting as I had just left a forensic photography full-time position and I was freelance. I never called myself photographer because I have always seen myself as using whatever tools and or expressing art in my facets even though I am mostly known for photography. I think of myself as an artist that uses photography for expression.
2. I grew up in Minnesota. My family moved to Minnetonka when I was 16. After high school I went to a community college for several years and then spent four years at MCAD. Ten years later after my forensic career and graduate school I returned to teach at MCAD for three years. Minneapolis is where I call home even though my parents moved away when I was in undergrad. Minnesota is the place where my friends and colleagues are my family and I will always feel deeply connected to Minneapolis.
3. Judaism and Yeshiva studies.
4. My work took a huge turn in 2008 when I began photographing original origins of domestic homicide. I researched on-line, at libraries, and with neighbors at the end of 2008 when the rise in these crimes due to the economic stress escalated and I traveled all over the U.S. engaging with new residents of the homes and apartments that these crimes had taken place. I let go of photographing people for awhile and starting working in b&w. A solo exhibition of this work opens on March 17th at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
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Don't miss the equally "fresh" work of
Matthew Bakkom,
Allen Brewer,
Janet Lobberecht and
S. Catrin Magnusson, who are also a part of this art extravaganza.
"Fresh" @
the Burnet Gallery - 901 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis
Opening: Saturday, March 12, 2011, 6-9 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Daily, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Closing: May 1, 2011
Free and open to the public
