Painter Painter Painter

Exhibiting Artists:
Matthew Clara, Brad Geiken, and Matt Reimers Kill

In this tumultuous moment in history how do painters choose to continue painting? Why do they pick up brushes, palette knives and scrapers? When the balance of emotions, careers, and futures lays in jeopardy where do the progeny of painterly traditions coalesce?

Painter Painter Painter presents new work by three artists from the US and Canada in a venue featuring emergent developments in figuration, landscape and still life painting. It considers the foundational role of painting within the context of image-making by three artists who push the boundaries of their genres, remaining as fluid as the paint itself. This exhibition echos and builds upon the canonical from past generations while revealing a poignancy and mystery of the present.

About the Artists:
Matthew Clara is a painter from Thunder Bay, Ontario. He received his BFA with honours from Lakehead University, Ontario and his MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He is currently a fellow at the Royal Drawing School, London, UK. He recently exhibited at Soo Visual Arts in Minneapolis for the Suzy Greenberg MFA Juried Exhibition. His acrylic works utilize a unique technique to slow the paint from drying, greatly activating the surfaces. Often focusing on depicting nostalgia through dilapidated structures, Clara engages our curiosity in these real-life time warps. In the monotonous contemporary world, decayed and forgotten buildings stand out. Foliage and new life takes over these structures. Old payphones or one-hour photo kiosks evoke a sense of collective negligence, a once vital living space entanglement.

Brad Geiken is an artist living and working in Minneapolis. He is a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a recipient of the Jerome Foundation Fellowship. His recent series of paintings explore the passage of time and the transitory nature of life through portraiture. The artist employs traditional oil painting techniques such as glazing and scumbling, and also scraping and sanding to build images with a muted luminosity creating presence. "My hope is that the paintings I make will connect on an emotional level with the viewer. When it happens I feel the painting is successful, a step forward is made and process continues."

Matt Reimers Kill lives and works in West Saint Paul. He received his BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2012. The artist attended the New York Studio Residency Program in 2011 and the Relevant Artist’s Residency at Kimball Arts Center in Park City, UT in 2012. He works primarily with oils – against the paint’s limitations. Reimers Kill's application of paint is intentionally difficult and resistant, which is frustrating. Working in layers that are scraped and re-painted, his works are rendered repetitively with thickly smothered paint, like flesh which could be flayed off, creating wounded surfaces sculpted with trowels and palette knives. The artist considers this technique to be analogous to the violence lingering beneath society and it's psychologically reflexive impact.

Gallery Hours:
12-5pm Thurs, Fri, Sat