Melissa Borman & Shannon Estlund

Rosalux Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibitions A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter and Night Vision, new work by Melissa Borman and Shannon Estlund. The concurrent exhibitions bring together the artists’ shared interest in investigating our physical relationship to the natural world. In contrast to traditional landscapes in painting and photography that typically feature commanding views and vast overlooks, the images in this exhibition reflect a desire to engage intimately with natural spaces. These photographs and paintings feature obstructed views, unexpected vantage points, and a close investigation of the relationships between environments and the figures that occupy them.

Melissa Borman - A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter
Six years ago, Melissa sustained an injury that instigated her interest in depictions of the body. She began researching images of the human figure in the landscape. After wading through historical and contemporary works depicting passive female figures, exposed to the elements and unnaturally posed against landscape backdrops, she set out to make images that critically engage conventional aesthetic associations between women and nature. With members of her community, including fellow artists, colleagues, and former roller derby teammates as subjects, she began making photographs of women and gender non-conforming people engaging with the natural world.

Melissa is a Minneapolis based photographer and installation artist. She earned her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Melissa has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Regional Cultural Center, Co., Donegal, Ireland, Filter Space, Chicago, Griffin Museum, Boston, the University of New Orleans St. Claude Gallery, New Orleans, and RedLine, Denver. She is a recipient of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Grant and Rochester Art Center’s Jerome Emerging Artist Award. Her multi-media installation What to Do When Lost in the Woods will open September 19th at the Schaefer Gallery at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Melissa Borman

Shannon Estlund - Night Vision
Shannon Estlund presents Night Vision, a series of paintings that take as their subject the forest at night. This body of work includes a suite of small paintings of the moon’s phases across a month’s worth of night skies. Larger landscapes depict the fading light of dusk reflecting off water or becoming diffused in the density of the forest floor. In several paintings, a partially hidden figure peers back at the viewer, fully in her element, like the protagonist of a fairy tale or myth. As a whole this series explores the mystery of the forest at night, the effects of the light illuminating the darkness, and the workings of imagination in these dark spaces.

Shannon Estlund is a visual artist living and working in Fridley, MN with her husband and two daughters. She received her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and her BFA from the University of Florida. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at museums and galleries including the Crisp Ellert Art Museum (FL), the Elmhurst Art Museum (IL), Soo Visual Art Center (MN), the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens (FL), and at the National Galleries of Scotland. Shannon has received several grants for her work including two Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grants and two Community Foundation Art Ventures grants. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings and Studio Visit magazines.

Shannon Estlund