A group exhibition that explores the varied artistic processes of seven upcoming artists based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Exhibition Dates
August 6 – August 31, 2012
Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

Public Reception for the Artists
Friday, August 10 from 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm

Where
Quarter Gallery
Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota
405 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis
Parking availably nearby at the 21st Avenue ramp, hourly or event rates apply

Accessibility
The Regis Center for Art is wheelchair-accessible

Cost
All events at the Regis Center for Art are free and open to the public

Artists Included in the Exhibition

Benjamin Brockman
David Dobbs
Alfonso Fernandez
Frank Haehnel
Jessica Hirsch
Lauren Klabunde
Ashley Monk

Curator
Alexis Kuhr, Department of Art Chair, Associate Professor of Drawing and Painting

Exhibition Description
The Quarter Gallery in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota presents A Process of Transformation. This group exhibition explores the varied artistic processes of seven upcoming artists based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The mediums of transformation include: photography, film/video installation, printmaking, painting, and sculpture.

Artist Biographies


Benjamin Brockman
Benjamin grew up in northern Idaho and central Oklahoma, where his interests in art and storytelling were kindled by spending time watching his parents work in theatrical scene shops, painting large backdrops for plays and musicals. These interests led him to study art and drama in High School, and later in college at Oklahoma State University, where he discovered a passion for woodcuts and intaglio, and graduated with a BFA in Studio Art. Benjamin also studied film production at North Carolina School of the Arts, but returned to his fine art roots, and is currently seeking a MFA in Printmaking at the University of Minnesota. He is also Arts Editor of The Fiddleback literary journal.

David Dobbs
David Brian Dobbs was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin and has continually repeated the same word since he learned how to talk, “Why?”. He has been a working artist all of his life, producing graphic novels, paintings and short films in his early career. He received his BFA in Studio Art, BA in Art History, and MFA in Painting from the University of Minnesota. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and has a passion for learning new languages and cultures. “I am both the teacher and the pupil. We can change and grow together. Communication is the lifeblood of change and change is the only constant in the universe.”

Alfonso Fernandez
Alfonso was born in Mexico City but spent his childhood growing up all around South America and Spain. When he was a kid his family did not have any money to buy art supplies, so he used to search the vast and various little towns where he lived and found posters to use as paper, and anything he could find to draw with was good enough. “In those days, my brother and I were true free artists. There was nothing distracting me or standing in my way in terms of free expression.” He continually strives to harness that same, unadulterated spirit in his paintings. His art encompasses the personal experiences of his life as a base for the lens through which he observes and expresses current and past environments in which he lived. His work has been shown locally, nationally, and internationally.

Frank Haehnel
Frank is from the Southside of Chicago, Illinois and is currently pursuing his BFA in Sculpture at the University of Minnesota. His work has been shown in local galleries such as the Nash Gallery, Gallery 13, and Midway Contemporary Art.

Jessica Hirsch
Jess Hirsch lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Minnesota. Her work spans from delicate graphite drawing to large-scale sculpture. She is co-founder of Homeschool, a nomadic art gallery based in Portland Oregon, and co-creator of the Portland Healing Project, a healing workshop series and online resource for artists and low-income families to find affordable healthcare through alternative medicine.

Lauren Klabunde
Ever since taking her first high school photography class, Lauren has been infatuated with film photography. After earning college credits through the International Baccalaureate Visual Arts program at Rufus King High School in Milwaukee, Wisonsin, Lauren completed her photography education at the University of Minnesota with a BDes in Architecture and Art. She started experimenting with the Holga camera and multiple exposures after taking an eye-opening photography class with instructor and artist Jeff Millikan. Since then her work has transformed and evolved from pure documentation to expressions of movement, memory and reactions to the built environment that surrounds her.

Ashley Monk
Ashley Monk is an emerging filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She also works in new media and installation, and is a member of the Minneapolis Art on Wheels collective. She is currently pursuing a BIS in Global Studies, Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, and Art at the University of Minnesota. Her work has been shown locally, nationally, and internationally.


Artist Statements

Benjamin Brockman
The stories I choose to tell are rooted in a projected mythology based partially in fact, but inherently fictitious in nature. Drawing from fiction, the works of old masters and contemporary studies of the aftermath of Chernobyl, I have developed a series of works that are as much a political agenda as they are a fantastic prophecy. I have adopted a number of methods, employing time-honored print media along with digital media and web content to devise a formally reflexive statement about our species continuously teetering on the edge of its own extinction. At its core, my statement is a warning to men and an omen for the creatures that inherit our waste. Prints, video and new media work in tandem to impart a sort of prophecy, foretelling a proposed calamity, and of the decline of human civilization in its wake. Through my work, I venture centuries down the road, to a future without men, in which the Rabbit are king and nature’s bounty is unfettered by the constructs of our race.

David Dobbs
We are in a constant state of re-contextualization. Memory is not a permanent thing, but a fluid, always changing state of being. This is not only an individual experience, but also a collective one. I believe art, and culture in general, to be an evolutionary process. Each object or artwork created is both unique and unoriginal. All of my work, in its essence, has been about change. The change of creating feathered wings out of steel or jet engines out of wood. Transmuting an abstract concept such as time into a physical distance on the canvas. Employing entropic processes of wearing down markers or paper rulers to my current series about the way each one of us is a modifier of cultural elements. The change that happens every day in our collective consciousness and unconsciousness. The only constant in the universe is change, and I have chosen to not only embrace change, but to devote my life to examining it.

Alfonso Fernandez
My style, while always evolving, is a hybrid of street art and abstract expressionism in conjunction with an antiquated style in landscape art. The subject matter of my work is heavily influenced by my natural surroundings. Living in the city, I am inspired by general pop culture but more specifically the sociological state of the city (race, class, etc.). Through the use of symbols as icons and the incorporation of lettering, I am weaving social commentary and reflections intertwined with the urban landscape. I also achieve a juxtaposition of the natural and urban worlds; pigments that I make myself from flowers create soft, gestural washes which when used along with the crude shapes and lines of spray paint and thick texture of oil paints, creates a unique dialogue of aesthetics. As the subject matter of my work pays homage to the urban and human condition and the places and people I’ve encountered, my flower pigments pay homage to the earth and the imperfect freedom of nature.

Frank Haehnel
The materials in our world are always born and reborn in a process, which is constantly changing and evolving through the eye's of the artist working with them. The "Process" to me is the ability to see beyond what is obvious and imagine a way to combine and extenuate the characteristics of the materials at hand whatever they may be. To give something a new life or "rebirth" as something new for the world to absorb is what strive for through the "Process" which I call Art.

Jessica Hirsch
Photography can pause the moment and suspend it in space for evaluation. It captures the transition between reality and the supernatural and gives us a glimpse of the mystical. The work I have been investigating through my photo practice is capturing the transcendent moment, a second of sacred space, and a possibility that our beliefs are false. I look for the split second where the body can defy laws of nature, the object can animate magic, and the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Lauren Klabunde
I use photography to express my observations, interpretations and reactions of the world around me. With my bicycle’s maneuverability and the built environment as subject matter, I am able to explore parts of the city that most people can’t or choose not to. This shapes how I see the city as physically and emotionally personal but at the same time public. The unique characteristics and imperfections of the Holga camera creates an aesthetic that evokes nuances of space, time and movement in memory and dream-like states. The work I create motivates my curiosity and provokes me to participate in everyday life experiences of new people, places, and activities. I deeply relate to its process, playing on its strength of versatility and what some consider its weaknesses of blurriness and light leaks. I want my viewers to absorb this unique way of seeing things and let it consume their previous knowledge of the subject matter, stirring up new and unknown ways of seeing and understanding reality.

Ashley Monk
My work is meant to provoke a conscious thought process about the intentional relationships and visual dialogues within my films and photographs, and between the subtle details, which create ironies, inconsistencies, or provoke emotions. The prominent attention to detail and movement in my work creates these subtle ironies and hidden dialogues within the shots, while the movement and editing in my films creates rhythms which build or question the relationships between and within images. My work is often self-reflexive, exploring the role of the artist and filmmaker, or the production/construction of images, representations of reality, social relations and dynamics of power, and through my practice I try to deconstruct or problematize these images, representations, dynamics, relationships, and ideologies.



Department of Art Mission
The Department of Art provides an introduction to the practice of art for all students as well as immersive training for emerging artists. We promote creative expression and conceptual development through a broad range of art disciplines and practices. Initial experiences emphasizing traditional methods are supplemented at intermediate and advanced levels by experimental processes. We offer courses in painting and drawing, photography, sculpture, ceramics, and experimental media (EMA). Students pursue their work in our state of the art facilities, mentored by our faculty, all artists recognized in their fields. http://www.art.umn.edu/