2020 Graduate Exhibition: If it’s true, it’s true. But it’s

NE Sculpture | Gallery Factory presents a pop-up show featuring four recent art graduates from Hamline University and University of Wisconsin-Stout as they come together to exhibit new work. The featured artists are Evan Altenburg, Anthony Clementi, Margaret Coyne, and Jared leClaire. This show is offered in support of students who lost exhibition opportunities due to the COVID-19 crisis. This show is curated by Allison Baker (Assistant Professor at Hamline University) and Kelly O’Brien (Associate Professor at UW-Stout).

ARIST STATEMENTS & BIOGRAPHIES

Evan Altenburg (work pictured on right side of header image) is a visual artist and designer based in Minneapolis MN. He earned a BFA from the University of Wisconsin Stout in 2020.

Artist Statement: My work envelops space with light in attempt to submerge the viewer. Light and reflection exist to guide us into crevasses of the psychical architecture. While color, distorts our physiological sight and understanding. The objects I make are structural and empirical, leaving conceptual comprehension to be perceived.

Anthony Clementi (work pictured center top of header image) is a multimedia artist and designer based in Minneapolis MN. He earned a BFA from the University of Wisconsin Stout in 2020.

Artist Statement: My work aims to reconnect to our shared human history that is based in magical thinking. In our post enlightenment work we have been encouraged to think about the world and our lives in a logical and sensible manner. This way of thinking is limited and encourages us to think of the world in a narrow manner. My practice and my work evade singular meaning and purpose. By making work within a magical paradigm my work is open to exist free of reason, and have an open-ended effect on myself and anyone that encounters it.

Margaret Coyne (work pictured on left side of header image) is a sculptor and printmaker from Saint Paul. They are graduating from Hamline University with BFA in studio arts.

Artist Statement: My work is an exploration of mental illness through self portraiture, using sculpture and printmaking. These abstracted portraits come from a need to recreate a sense of nostalgia and remembering the past in a skewed way. I work with the figure and objects, allowing each piece to become a portrait of an emotional state, rather than relying on physical likeness. Each piece explores a different perception of the same experiences, using deconstructed figures to personify that uncertainty and distortion.

Jared leClaire (work pictured center bottom of header image) is a visual artist based in Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stout with a BFA in Contemporary Sculpture. leClaire’s practice utilizes installation and performance art as a way to navigate and express presences in our ever-undulating world.

Artist Statement: The work I make is the mimicry of cultural and social currents. I identity and replicate the feels produced by living in the 21st century. These feelings of weight, submergence, and illumination are qualities of presence in current culture. The joining of visual weight and stillness in the work generates awareness of oneself and the feelings produced by modern life.