Surelle Strike | Artful Stories

EVENT DATES
Opening reception Friday, March 8, 6-9 at SuperCharged Printmakers Studio in the Casket Arts  Building.
681 17th Ave NE #119
Minneapolis, MN 55413

Artists Talk on Saturday, April 6th from 9:30-11:30. Donuts, coffee and tea and great conversation. Please join us as we get to hear about Surelle’s story telling through her gorgeous paintings.

Gallery Hours
The show is on view from March 2- April 25, 2024
By appointment and on 2nd Saturdays.

 ARTIST STATEMENT
Our lives are made of stories. Many famous male fairy tale writers would pay the local women to tell them the stories they knew. Women would use story telling as a way to pass the time while working on crafts like knitting or needlepoint, housework, and childrearing. Women would use these tales to escape into fantasy, but often story telling was used as a way to teach morals, and to share life or death advice. Fairy tales would be filled with love, and disappointment , warnings about types of men that a women may encounter, quiet recipes for ending an unwanted pregnancy. They were filled with the realities of both tragedy, and hope. My paintings depict women who are in the midst of navigating their stories, or re-writing them entirely. They are re-imagined as more than incapable children, or damsels in distress. The fairy-tale of the female experience, is represented by multifaceted characters, and symbolism. Symbolic plants, animals, and needlework are small details I enjoy weaving into my stories and images. My work is modern day storytelling, with female characters who are deep and complex. They are not to be overlooked in order to favor the prince or the plot. I work in an array of mediums: watercolor, gouache, and acrylic. I have also been exploring printmaking, with linoleum blocks. This medium has brought me back to many classical fairy tale illustrations, and in a way allows me to simplify my work, to much more illustrative and gestural elements. Acrylic painting has been my preferred medium in the last few years, as it dries quickly and allows me to use washes of color to build a painting. Finding ways to combine both my love of printmaking and my love of painting is my hope for the next year.