NOW SHOWING
Along the Range | Douglas Ross
Showing October 2018 | MacRostie Gallery | Sponsored by Oak Hill Assisted Living
Douglas Ross’ exhibit “Along the Range” is inspired by the natural hues and scenes of the Iron Range throughout northern Minnesota. After a career as an artist and art professor spanning 50 years, Ross will exhibit paintings of the landscapes that captivated him in his youth, with scenes from across the Mesabi and Vermilion Ranges from Grand Rapids to Tower and Soudan, Minnesota.
Douglas Ross (Minneapolis, MN) earned his BA in History from Carleton College in Northfield, MN. He went on to Minneapolis College of Art and Design to earn his MFA. Over the years, Ross has been continuously inspired by the beauty of Northern Minnesota. He has had his landscape works featured in nearly 280 exhibitions since 1962, and will continue this tradition by displaying his paintings of the Iron Range at MacRostie Art Center in October.
I consider myself a landscape painter, but in approaching this project I will be very influenced by the 19 credit hours in geology that I completed in college. One of my second year geology classes involved a lengthy field trip to the range which is a memory that I carry with me to this day.”
Earthly Concerns | linda snouffer, nancy stalnaker - bundy, and david luke
Showing October 2018 | Minnesota Gallery | Sponsored by North Homes Inc.
Three different artists will explore environmental impact in this group show. David Luke uses photography and digital manipulation to make visible the imminent ecological transformations in Minnesota’s northern boreal forests due to climate change. Linda Snouffer’s interpretive printmaking captures the grass movement of prairie scenes and creates forest scenes with grasses melding into trees and back into prairie again. Nancy Bundy’s photography includes architectural remnants and artifacts from former mines as well as their surrounding landscapes. As a group, the works examine the juxtaposition between the protected and the vulnerable, the comfortable and the violent, the relaxed and the analytical.
Linda Snouffer (St. Paul, MN) is a botanical printmaker, inspired by prairies, forests, shorelines, and mountain ranges. She utilizes the actual pants for her print structures. Several her pieces have merited honors; early in 2017, she received a 4th place printmaking award. The St. Paul Art Crawl jury awarded her one of ten media awards in Spring 2017 and a District Spotlight award in Fall 2016. Other accolades include 2nd Place for Emerging Artists by the Paramount Center for the Arts Statewide Juried Exhibition (October 2016). Her work has been exhibited and sold in numerous Twin Cities galleries, art events, and retail shops, and was awarded commissions include works for the Women's Foundation of Minnesota, Ramsey County Library, and several Metro Area art collectors.In addition to making art, she is in the business of art, serving as an exhibit installation assistant in several Twin Cities galleries, and is a part of the program administration for the St. Paul Art Collective and Tangletown Art Crawl. Snouffer completed a two-year mentorship program with WARM (Women's Art Resources of Minnesota) in 2016 and continues to work closely with a mentor.
“My work begins with the foundation of sky.
The sky brings it all to life.
Ink washes representing sky, horizon, and foreground are poured on a variety of surfaces, such as tissue paper, Japanese Sumi paper, muslin, and organza. On the dried surface, I design intricate botanical print landscapes using common plants.
Multiple layers of pigment-infused fabric, tissue, and organza create an ethereal dimension. Leaf prints are far more than simple impressions. They are dynamic components transformed into new identities:
Grass blades and tassels become a prairie flowing in a soft breeze.
Banana leaves transition to a distant hillside.
Flower stalks turn into solid aspen trunks.
Grasslands in Minnesota inspired my prairie landscapes.
Strolls through nature preserves moved me to create woodlands.
Come. Take a walk with me.”
Nancy Bundy (Minneapolis, MN) is an artist, photographer and teacher. Her photographs and video art work have been exhibited nationally in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, American Film Institute, the Albright Knox Art Gallery, PH21 Gallery in Budapest and the New York Center for Photographic Art. For over 25 years, she has also contributed to the field of media arts education through her teaching, writing curriculum, conference presentations and committee work. She was honored with the two highest awards in visual arts k12 education nationally for her work in cinematic arts and photography: the 2008 Coca Cola Distinguished Teacher in the Arts Award from Young Arts in Miami and the 2009 Teacher Portfolio Award at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She was also a recipient of a Surdna Artist Teacher Fellowship. Two years ago, she left her full-time teaching position to pursue her personal work in photography. She holds an MFA from State University of New York through the Visual Studies Workshop Program and a BFA from the Memphis College of Art.
“My work begins with experiences in a place. I am on the lookout for the intimate details of culture that suggest a metaphor for the space and people that surround it. Often, these small parts are connected creating contradictions or visual associations. Sometimes, single images contain many layers of meaning and when enlarged alter the viewer’s perception of that reality.
I am intrigued with a “sense of place” – recently with the iron range where I lived and currently own a small cabin. There is a feeling of collision between past and present on the range: a tension between the way it was during the mining era and the way it exists today. Surrounded with history, the landscape speaks to me as I explore the visual beauty left behind.
The mixtures of colors found on the iron range draw me towards this landscape. I see colors that are not always associated with the image: objects in decay, in the earth or water, mining sites, on outdated playground equipment. These colors have universal, local or individual meanings associated with each one. Yet the term, color, also references the features of a place that lends a particularly interesting quality or character to it. In that context, other shades of meaning are implied...My work often reflects a fascination with artifacts and their relationship to humanity. Intrigued with making connections, I enjoy the cultural codes they create.”
David Luke (Minneapolis, MN) is an interdisciplinary artist and photographer. He received his BFA in photography from Indiana University and his MFA from Stony Brook University. Luke has taught photography and digital media at Normandale Community College (Bloomington, MN), The City University of New York (Brooklyn, NY), Molloy College (Rockville Center, NY), and Stony Brook University (New York).
His work has been shown at venues such as The Sesi Gallery (San Paolo, Brazil), The Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University, The DeVos Art Museum, The Museum of Anthropology at California State University, University of Minnesota, The Midwest Center for Photography and The Duluth Art Institute. Most recently, he was the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant for Photography (2016) and a Arts on Chicago Project Grant (2014).
“I am particularly interested in work that blends art, science, politics and cultural phenomena. My process of working can loosely be described as research and collection coupled with implementation. Visually, I am interested in making the overall arrangement or piece easily accessible by using a recognizable images and/or a simple way for the viewer to enter the piece. I adhere to the notion that my work should be enticing as both a visual object and an engaging sentiment…
“…Most recently, my work has turned to look at landscape as a way to understand the connection between humans and the land we inhabit. I want to draw connections between the two but also point more directly at the reliance we have on land and the potential dangers that are inherent to dependence. This work has used hard sciences as a base to depict my photographic vision of our changing ecological world.”