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Elena J Schaust | Senior Show

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Art work by Elena

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

Give your feedback about the show, support an emerging artist.

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.

Justice Jones | Senior Show

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OUT OF FORM | JUSTICE JONES

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

Give your feedback about the show, support an emerging artist.

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.

Victor Sanchez | Senior Show

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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

Give your feedback about the show, support an emerging artist.

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.

 

Emily Duesing | Senior Show

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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

Give your feedback about the show, support an emerging artist.

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.