THE FAIR UNKNOWN

Reception: Saturday, October 4, 1 – 5 p.m.

September 2 – October 23, 2014

Using thick layers of resin and fragmented fashion magazines, Josie Lewis creates intricate dimensional collages that reference cellular biology, starscapes, kaleidoscopes, and explosions.

Artist Bio

Josie Lewis was raised in northern Minnesota on the shores of Lake Superior in an octagon shaped house. Her work has been widely exhibited in the Twin Cities area and nationally. She has an MFA from the University of MN and currently lives in North Minneapolis with her husband and daughter.

Artist Statement

I make semi-sculptural slabs of epoxy resin and found paper collage. I use cut fashion magazine images that are intricately layered between multiple pours of resin. My attraction to these magazines consists of a complex push-pull of distaste mixed with formal relish. Like an archivist, I dig, sift and edit. The magazine is milled into a kind of analog pixilation wrought by my scissors and utility blade. I seek to draw attention to the source material while simultaneously damaging it almost to the point of elimination. The glossy magazine becomes a glossy and heavy slab; shredded, exploded, inside out and backwards. I am administering a its rebirth to a more perfect object: solid, definite, personal, precise and terribly permanent. The resin slabs are seductively handmade and aggressively beautiful.

Hours:ĚýM – F, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Sat. & Sun. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

THE FAIR UNKNOWN – Studio Tour

“How did you make that?”

Josie Lewis hears this a lot. At first glance, her work is a large, glossy mosaic of colors and abstract shapes. Coming closer, it reveals itself to be a series of layers – clipped images that combine to create something that might be found under a microscope (intricate and lifelike) or perhaps a telescope (celestial and expanding). And suddenly we are lost in wonder.

This ponderous moment, suspended in thought like pieces of paper in resin, is the result of both a meticulous process and an intuitive hunt and response. On her studio’s table, stacks of magazines stand in the midst of small pieces of “found treasures” through which she digs, looking for the right color, image, or pattern—anything that inspires her.

She starts, typically, by looking in Vogue Magazine, not because of the content but the quality of the pages. The paper from these and National Geographic holds up the best throughout the creation of her work.ĚýThe fair unknownĚýoriginates in the former, 12 copies of the same issue from 2013. Within a wooden and aluminum mold, she pours black ink, a layer of resin, and waits 24 hours. Then a layer of magazine forms, a layer of resin, and wait… repeating this layer by layer until a patchwork form emerges over the course of 8 – 15 layers. Sometimes an idea is clear from the beginning, while other times the piece works itself out as she goes.

With a drawer full of scissors and another of Elmer’s glue sticks, Lewis thinks of this process as “reordering something that already exists,” cataloging Vogue through another perspective. Through the destructive act of cutting, the magazine is demolished and revived, transforming it into something redeeming and life-giving.

To those watching as she works, the process is clearly meditative. Small bits from an ocean of glossy pages carefully congregate, sit, and move around the composition, coming together to create a greater whole.

Lewis started out painting at the University of Minnesota. Gifted with a knack for technical skill but frustrated by a lack of voice in her work, she began cutting her work apart. Discovering an interest in the surface of the paint, she created collages in secret, experimenting with the resin she saw her sculpture friend using. The urge to create work that had been whispering to her now had a voice. She found the new medium, materials, and a symbiotic relationship in which the materials informed the work and vice versa.

Now, Lewis would be in the studio all the time if she could, but life intercedes. Usually found working on her current series in sporadic bursts throughout the day and after her little one goes to bed, she holds to the advice she gives artists of any stripe or level of expertise: The more you make work, the better you get and the easier it is to find what you like. Time is essential. Spend time making work.

Next, Lewis looks forward to casting objects in resin and also returning to paint, exploring its surface and the gradation of color. In the meantime, she loves the reactions people have to her work, especially kids. “It’s like a firework mixed with a flower mixed with a machine.” The material gives people an entry point to engage in the work. We are familiar with and thrown off by the material. The depth, the trick, the illusion engages people as they come closer. And from the pages of what we feel we know, we respond in common, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

www.josielewis.com

THE FAIR UNKNOWN –Ěýimages

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CLOSE TO HOME: A Visual Journal

August 25 – October 23, 2014

Reception:ĚýFriday, Sept. 5, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Artist Talk & Demonstration:ĚýTuesday, September 9, 12-2 p.m., Adeline Johnson Conference Center, adjacent to gallery, first floor of Oren Gateway Center

An almanac of observations in watercolor and ink paired with original text explores the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Artist Bio

Tara Sweeney was born in Minnesota and lives in Saint Paul. She has worked in the Twin Cities’ visual arts community for over thirty years. Her distinctive body of work explores figure, identity, and sense of place. She is associate professor and art department chair for Augsburg College, where she has been teaching since 1991. Prior to this she was executive art director for Minneapolis –St. Paul Magazine and an award-winning book illustrator and designer. She earned a B.S. in Studio Art and a B.S. in Textile Design from the University of Wisconsin (1978), and an M.F.A. in Visual Studies from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (1997). Her work has been widely exhibited and is held in public and private collections.

Artist Statement

Combining art making and writing is integral to this intimate series in watercolor and ink. To be honest, I didn’t intend to continue for six years when I began “Close to Home” late in November of 2009, but it was so much fun that it acquired a life of its own. I don’t consciously try to find subject matter. I wait until something captures my attention. The more ordinary it is, the better. Each entry begins with drawing and writing from direct observation. Reflection also plays a crucial role. To tell my stories I stay inside the lines if it works and invent freely when something else works better. It requires that I pay close attention and stay open to possibility until the process of observation, memory, and invention feel complete. Creating this way is messy, surprising, and deeply satisfying.Ěý

Part of the Fall Art Tour!

Hours:ĚýM – F, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Sat. & Sun. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

CLOSE TO HOME: A VISUAL JOURNAL – studio visit

Tara Sweeney has two studios: a formal space for large scale, solitary work; and just about anywhere else she can create smaller scale drawing, painting, and writing in her visual journal. This includes places like her garden, kitchen table, neighborhood, the city, the banks of the Mississippi, a farmer’s market, and music in the parks. At the moment, she is working in her front porch at an old farm table where two objects have her attention, alongside a pot of tea, and life outside the open windows.

Working on an almanac-style visual journal of around 70 entries for her upcoming exhibition, she is in completion mode. But drawing and writing for this series began in 2008 and has proceeded throughout the seasons for nearly six years. One long ago November morning, while making a journal entry in bed, Tara spilled ink on the page and the sheets. It was the start of writing about the “messy, but real stuff in life.” She stopped trying to find subject matter and started letting it find her by closely observing the everyday objects and rituals that caught her attention.

The finished work is a combination of ink and watercolor drawing and original text in a reflective voice. Part prose, part poetry, each entry spreads across two 8.5” x 11” sketchbook pages and includes the spiral binding. Her process starts intuitively and proceeds organically. When something begs to be sketched, she trusts her instincts and begins. Today she is completing text for a drawing of Russian nesting dolls begun the day her grandson was born. Frequently a drawing is completed first and the text is then drafted longhand in a project notebook. Holding up five notebooks from this past year, she says, “I overwrite and pull out what I need when I need it.” She moves on to the next drawing when inspiration strikes and eventually returns to revise and hand letter the text for each entry, sometimes months or years later. “Life happens so I have to be flexible and place mark. It allows me to be present to the moment of inspiration and also to bring work to completion by using the increments of time I have.” Enough was completed on that busy day that fifteen months later she revises the text and discovers a connection between theĚýmatryoshkaĚýdolls and a missing family story that defines the origin of her grandson’s name.

After 15 years of leading undergraduate travel programs inĚýplein airĚýsketching to France and Italy, Tara has honed her skills for drawing and painting on location. But until the “Close to Home” visual journal series she had never really kept a consistent sketchbook here in Minnesota. Six years later the results are ambitious and original. She jokes about her process, “I have a high tolerance for ambiguity.” But she is very serious about sequence when it comes to completion. On the table sits a calendar listing all the entries with notes about what each needs for completion. “At this point I work chronologically.” She explains that it helps pace the effort and focus required, “That way I don’t finish all my favorites first and leave the tough ones for the end.” In May 2014 she calculated that finishing three entries per week would prepare the series for her solo exhibition opening at the end of August. However, after an unexpected trip to Paris for her son’s marriage, and planning to host their Minnesota party in her backyard, it’s now more like five entries a week. “Oh, this one is actually done,” she exclaims, drawing a big X through the date. “The list keeps me honest.”

Releasing an intimate body of work like this is both exhilarating and terrifying.Ěý“Creating an intimate series like this is essentially agreeing to be naked,” she explains. Through experience, she has grown used to the challenges of making really personal work visible, but it is still terrifying. “I have great support in family, friends, and gallery directors.” Plus, she loves making this artwork. When asked what has kept the series going for this long she says without hesitation, “It’s fun. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had creating. Maybe it’s because I am letting my artist and writer work together for once.”

Connecting with others has also motivated her to complete the series. It was exhibited in progress in January 2013. She notes that the viewer response was a complete surprise to her. “I never expected people to stand in the gallery and read every word.” They did, and then shared stories with each other that the artwork triggered.

The objects and rituals that inspire Tara’s artwork are ordinary but the insights she reveals are anything but. We recognize ourselves in this work. It’s this bridge between the personal and the universal that makes the work so engrossing. Browsing through the intimate seasons of her visual journal entries, we share the humor, the pain and sorrow, the joy, the gratitude, and the hope that inspires this work. We are, as the title suggests, close to home.

CLOSE TO HOME: A VISUAL JOURNAL – images

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