dab neeg thiab ntawv (folktale and text) | ZENA VUE

Throughout this exhibit. I work digitally through the Adobe creative suite with their applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator. The dab neeg found in this exhibit takes inspiration from the book, Folk Stories of the Hmong by Norma J. Livo and Dia Cha, as well as popular Hmong movies from the early 2000s.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

Stories have always fascinated me as a child. I watched and rewatched Nuj Nplhaib Thiab Ntxawm(folktale featured in the exhibit) more times than I can count. I reenacted almost every single scene as an impressionable child and loved the story dearly. Some of my favorite children’s shows were Dragon Tales and Cyberchase, both story driven and magical in their own ways. From there, I became an avid reader as I learned the English language. From the Percy Jackson series to Alanna by Tamora Pierce, I was filled with the fantastical. Eventually as I stopped reading, I began noticing my own stories and revisiting Hmong folktales(dab neeg).

The current Hmong language used by Hmong-Americans is called the Hmong Roman Popular Alphabet, introduced about 70 years ago. Being children of immigrants, English was the priority to learn and Hmong eventually became secondary. Therefore, I have no formal education in Hmong. It is an instinctual language and I wish to preserve it in the limited ways I can. Having exposure to typography and hand lettering throughout university, I now approach Hmong as another way to express my art. I am not fluent but by connecting through art, I will continue to use Hmong. Finding meaning in dab neeg and ntawv, I strive to preserve Hmong language.

Throughout this exhibit, I work digitally through the Adobe creative suite with their applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator. The dab neeg found in this exhibit takes inspiration from the book, Folk Stories of the Hmong by Norma J. Livo and Dia Cha, as well as popular Hmong movies from the early 2000’s.

Bio

Zena Vue is a Hmong-American visual artist and graphic designer based in the Twin Cities. She is currently seeking a bachelor of arts degree in graphic design and creative writing. She mainly deals with an interplay of typography and illustration. Her practice includes both digital and analog techniques.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Zena Vue | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

The Dreaming | Hadley Marie Howard

Through large-scale mixed-media dreamscapes, The Dreaming explores the place where the artist’s hopes and dreams live; a place somewhere between real and imagined, past, and future.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

I

The creator of worlds
Blind

Enter a world entirely of my own
A world of dream entangled with reality
Only seen and understood when given a home

On a physical plane

That bridges the gap between reality and the imagined

So Breath in and let go
Leave everything behind
Follow each line and curve

Let each color and texture tug at your heartstrings
Feel and remember the steps you took
The steps that lead you here
And then take one more
Cross the boundary of space and time

Let go of reality

For this is the world that I have made
Where love is free and safety promised
Where pain and fear are buried
Beneath you

For you shall tread upon them as they pave the road forward

So come, come forward
In strength and dignity
With head held high

To stand upon all that would tear you down

And breathe
Release your chains of regret

And step forth into a world bathed in light and wonder
For this is the world that I have made and I see that it is good

Bio

Hadley Marie Howard is an artist based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received formal training at Augsburg University and primarily works as a graphic designer and multimedia artist. She uses digital software and a wide range of physical mediums to give life to ideas and make them a reality. With a BA in Graphic Design and a minor in Computer Science, she aims to expand her knowledge in the future and use all her skills to continue creating.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Hadley Howard | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

UNAPOLOGETICALLY ME  |  Jessie Hotchkiss

Hotchkiss delves into her own past to process the physical and mental vulnerability that can come from traumatic experiences. Through the use of hand-cut paper and light, she creates shadowbox scenes from past memories that explore these human experiences, and create space for acceptance within her own self.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

I believe that insecurities and guilt mask a lot of creativity and I want to express the beauty in those situations. True artistry comes out when you let yourself feel and let your body speak through your creations. That is exactly what I am aiming to convey by intricately putting these displays together. It helps process an event to its core and takes a lot of mental strength, but the end result gives more satisfaction than is imaginable.

I chose shadowbox art because I literally wanted to bring light to these situations. Not only did I want to use graphic design elements but hand-crafted components to put all of myself into the work. I wanted my creative process to be just as heavily demanding as the situations illustrated. There is no easy route when it comes to reliving the past. You either choose to face it head-on or run away. There is no other way I would want to confront these moments in my life than through art. No, that doesn’t make it any easier, but it is how I am able to accept the things that can’t be changed. At the end of the day, I am unapologetically me.

Bio

Jessie Hotchkiss is a working Graphic Designer based out of Coon Rapids, MN. Although her primary work is focused on digital work, her other interests include drawing and sculpting. She loves creating work based on human experience and expressing the events of others through storytelling. She’s achieved her BA in Graphic Design at Augsburg University located in the heart of Minneapolis, MN.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Jessie Hotchkiss | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

What do we do when IT’s all said and done? | CHRIS STEINHOFF

What do we do when it’s all said and done looks at the all consuming identity of being an athlete through a series of black and white photographs. Steinhoff’s portraits explore the displacement athletes experience when the sport that provided so much structure, relationships, and dedication is no longer there.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

Since my passion for photography and design has emerged, I have been drawn to the freedom of creation. I create work mainly using the mediums of photography and digital applications such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. I also use these applications to digitally manipulate my photographs.

My work is greatly influenced by my past life experiences and choices. I reflect on certain events or time periods to really understand my emotions and how those experiences have had an influence on me to this day. While creating my work, specifically photography, I focus on human interaction. Trying to become so comfortable with my subjects and models that I almost become invisible, letting the subject truly relax and let down their guard.

I have spent most of my life identifying and being surrounded by athletics. Living this double life brings a unique perspective to my work because I have been able to adapt to two very different cultures. My hope is to share my experiences with my viewers so that they can understand a new perspective or connect with my own.

Bio

Chris Steinhoff is a Graphic Design major at Augsburg University, currently in his senior year. Chris was born and raised in St. Paul, MN, and attended Como Park Senior High School. He primarily focuses on photography and design but has been exploring other mediums. For most of his life, Chris has identified solely as an athlete since he played baseball for 15 years.

Recently, Chris made the decision to step away from athletics and focus on other aspects of life. Chris likes to reflect on events and emotions he has experienced through his life specifically on when it was consumed with athletics. He believes this brings a unique perspective to the creative community.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Chris Steinhoff | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

Screenshot | Elena J Schaust

A series of acrylic paintings on panel, Screen Shot explores the tenuous nature of texting as a means to communicate impactful information.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

The use of modern text messaging to transmit impactful dialogue is worthy of consideration. A fascination with the implications texting lends to modern communication is at the core of my work with this series. I have built large wooden panels that are to-scale iPhones. Each panel is painted in acrylic, rendered abstractly, and informed by a text chain’s subject matter. Unexpected interviews while compiling text conversations furthered my suspicion that many people experience texting negatively, rather than positively. Each bubble of intimate conversation is hand lettered, a painstaking contradiction to real time texting.

Contemplating the implications of each conversation is a vital part of the process in this series. My own personal relationship to texting as a lifeline was highlighted in 2018 after months of hospitalizations for cancer treatments. It became evident very quickly that the sometimes-tenuous manner of texting could result in wildly varied outcomes. Emotional responses to language in art have historically captured my interest, lending perfectly to the tricky foundation texting can create in relationships. These paintings begin to grasp at the next evolution in human connection through written language.

Bio

Elena Schaust lives and teaches in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has completed her BA at Augsburg University as a studio art major, with a psychology minor. Elena has a long background in visual arts, stemming back to the late 1990’s as a professional photographer. Currently, she focuses her creative endeavors in painting. Elena has been intrigued by the complex way people use technology to communicate since the arrival of modern cell phones. This interest drives her to explore language as a means to convey impactful moments. Elena’s current series of paintings inspired by text message conversations were collected through interviews with friends and family.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Elena J Schaust | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

Out of Form is a collection of self-portraits, feelings, and thoughts. It is a direct reflection of Jones’s reality as a multi-racial, bi-sexual, bi-polar, schizophrenic woman.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

I’ve always used art to process my experiences and navigate my mental health. I thought my old sketchbooks would give me a definition of self, but I no longer knew the girl who made them. Out Of Form was created as an intentional act of self awareness. I focused on discovering my foundations from childhood through the use of primary colors and basic shapes and lines. I juxtaposed this exploration with figures that change in color, size and shape just as we shift to adapt to our experiences. As I continue moving through the various stages of life, I wonder how much choice we are truly afforded in who we become.

Bio

Justice Jones is an artist, educator and activist completing her final year at Augsburg University as a studio art major. Her passion for learning invites her to explore many different media. Justice practices community space-making, organizing, and activation as a Tactical Urbanism instructor’s assistant at Juxtaposition Arts. She uses foundational elements of fine art to explore and process her experiences and the idea of nature versus nurture as opposed to choice in who we become. Her work on Juxtaposition Arts’ mural team, her business, and Out Of Form, are all informed by these values and beliefs.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Justice Jones | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

St. Jerome in the Wilderness | Victor Sanchez

St. Jerome in the Wilderness is an exploration of a dream, a hero, a saint, a crisis, and reconciliation. Through pen and ink, pencil, acrylic, and digital graphic design, Sanchez investigates historical narratives to better understand human forgiveness.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

St. Jerome in the Wilderness is an exploration of a dream, a hero, a saint, a crisis, and reconciliation. My preferred working style is representational, my medium is pen and ink, pencil, acrylic, and digital graphic design. To invite you in the gaze and employ the narrative I’m anthropomorphizing the story like a children’s book, in an attempt to emotional connect with and slowly digest the hero and heron narrative.  Each character symbol is an interconnected explorer, they all have in common the responsibility to culturally ascribe, what and who is the hero and heron. The theory of this exhibit is not about the moment a crisis intersects with the hero and heron, it includes a lost personal object, material possession, spiritual relationships, and a reflection on redemption. Because the story of St. Jerome is a human way to connect a personal narrative with God and the dream, I used him to find redemption and reconciliation for the hero and herons of everyday. I continue to investigate historical narratives surrounding the stories of saints, and heroes from the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries to our current time, in hopes of broadening my understanding of human forgiveness. I’m on the lookout for refreshing views of common lives doing extraordinary things in ordinary ways for the world and their neighbors.

Bio

Victor Sanchez is a visual artist living and working in Minneapolis. He is currently at Augsburg University pursuing a BA in studio arts with a minor in art history. He has also attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a major in industrial design, the American Academy of Art for Illustration, and Bethel University in studio art.

Victor grew up in Chicago and Panama. He danced character, jazz, tap, and classical ballet at Ruth Page School of Dance and performed in the Nutcracker Suite, Giselle, Where the Wild Things Are, and Alice and Wonderland, and at Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater, Southern Theater, Pillsbury House Theater, First Avenue, and Illusion Theater. He has worked as an art director and illustrator for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, the Utne Reader, Minnesota Monthly, and Midwest Home and Garden magazines, and as a museum exhibit graphic designer, multimedia interactive designer, and model builder with Deaton Museum Services and the Science Museum of Minnesota. Victor’s healthy community mural can be seen at the offices of the Fairview Uptown Clinic in the Calhoun office building.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Victor Sanchez | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

Greater Than Face-Value | Emily Duesing

Greater Than Face-Value is a series of portraits that peel back the layers of each subject’s world with bright colors and graphic elements. The show offers a challenge to encounter those within our influence, including ourselves, with greater vulnerability and empathy.

Slideshow of Artwork

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Artist Statement

My work focuses on human landscapes. The portrayal of the subjects is realistic in form and stylized in color. This examination of the face and head becomes an investigation of human experience and connects to ideas about identity and adversity that exist outside the boundaries of the canvas.

For me, art is an intimate consideration of concepts that I cannot grasp any other way except to visually explore. The act of making becomes a prism to reveal layers of complexity in the subjects. I recognize the only thing I can change in my life is me. When I make art, I fearlessly confront some incongruence within myself. Therefore, my work is autobiographical, and portrait focused.

Emotion, as I experience it, is continually shifting and changing; it is impossible to grasp its totality all at once. I use my art to pull apart the facade that we present to the world and explore the fullness of humanity.  With the color pallet obscuring and revealing emotions, I illustrate what this changing emotional landscape could mean for myself and the viewer.

Bio

Emily is a two-dimensional portrait artist who investigates empathy through painting the figure. She has always had a fascination with the human face and what it can reveal to a viewer. Emily currently lives in Minneapolis and has her Bachelor’s in Fine Art from Augsburg University. Emily is focused on becoming a licensed counselor where she hopes to use art to facilitate healing.  Themes in her work include vulnerability, humanity, and redemption. Emily primarily makes work and her studio apartment or in the Augsburg painting studio. Emily has received several honors and recognitions for her work including the Normandale Purchase Award and Augsburg’s Fine Arts Scholarship, numerous juried shows, as well as a solo exhibition and artist talk at Gallery 720 in Minneapolis.

Virtual Mock-up

Due to COVID-19 the show in the physical gallery space has been delayed. Here is a virtual representation of what it will look like in the Gallery720 space.

The post Emily Duesing | Senior Show appeared first on Art Galleries.

MArch 11- 28, 2019

Gallery 720, Christensen Center

SENIOR SHOW
LINH DAO

Bio

Linh Dao Le Thuy is a Graphic Design and New Media double major at Augsburg University. She attended college in Japan for 3 years and then transferred to Augsburg. Her interests lie in the trans-disciplinary of media and art, especially in how art can be a form of cross-cultural communication. With that, her study and research focus on the connection between the art’s visual representation and the audience’s perception.

Artist Statement

Power of Language is a project that consist of an event from the International Education Week in November at Augsburg University. I designed the project as a way to celebrate and appreciate the beauty of language. I believe language is a part of a person’s identity, and art is about people. Living in a globalized society, as individuals, we must learn to embrace differences and find common ground for harmony. There are more than 6,000 spoken languages in the world, and even more dead languages. Among those spoken languages, some languages have very few people whom are still using it. Language is also culture, and it needs to be reserved as well as respected.

I started this project in May 2018. It started out as an idea for a language celebration workshop for the Augsburg International Student Organization that I was in. Then as I planned and thought about the visual aspect of this project, I wanted to expand it. To me, art is communication. I want my audiences to experience the Power of Language and recognize their own identities, as well as call for their appreciation to other languages around the World.

The event was on November 2018 with the participation of over a hundred students on the Augsburg University campus. There were workshops about the linguistic knowledge of different cultures and countries, and I successfully distributed 100 shirts to the students to spread the ideology. To make the design more visible, I currently run multiple social media strategies to capture attention and involvement of the community. I recapture the process of Power of Language on the left side of the exhibition, and on the right side is the visual representation of language.

This project will show how design is a trans-disciplinary media, and how art is about connectivity, as I believe that the beauty lies within the people. This exhibition happens because of the people who participated in it, physically or virtually, then calls out to the uniqueness of individual identity: language.

Images of Exhibition

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February 25 – MArch 7, 2019

Gallery 720, Christensen Center

SENIOR SHOW
TYLER HALL

Bio

Tyler Hall is a graphic designer and photographer from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. He is a student at Augsburg University studying graphic design. He has learned photography himself and has been practicing for almost 10 years.

Artist Statement

In this series of collages I explore the idea of change over time. I use photos of significant places that hold value to my childhood as the base of these collages. I began visiting and photographing these places and extracting things from them in Photoshop. All other images are stock photos that were found on the internet. These places have changed and look much different now; the collages are set up as a comparison between the look of these spaces then versus now. The associations of these significant places are represented by portraits, colors and objects from my memories. These things are placed in my “then” side of my collages. To represent the “now” side, which for me is emptier and less dynamic, I’ve edited the photos to look aged. This series is a nostalgic experience that explores how things change over time and the memories we hold onto from our pasts.

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