Gwen Avant, Gregory Klassen
to
Overture Center-James Watrous Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy 201 State St., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
press release: Solo exhibitions by Wisconsin artists Gwen Avant (Madison) and Gregory Klassen (Milwaukee) will be on view beginning Friday, May 20, at the Wisconsin Academy's James Watrous Gallery, located on the 3rd floor of Overture Center for the Arts in Madison. Details are as follows:
May 20–July 3, 2016; Opening reception (free and open to the public): Friday, May 20, 5:30–7:30 pm, with informal gallery talks by the artists at 6:30 pm.
Wed-Thurs & Sun noon-5pm; Fri-Sat noon-8pm. Also open by appointment and by chance.
EXHIBITION DESCRIPTIONS
Gwen Avant: Either Way
Gwen Avant describes her approach to painting as spiritual alchemy. She begins with a gut feeling, transferring her emotions and visceral reactions into color and marks. “I start as if in a wrestling or a boxing match. I take jabs at the paper or at the canvas with the thoughts and feelings inside me: ‘I don’t know;’ ‘I’m afraid;’ ‘I don’t understand.’ Confusion, struggle, grief, difficulty begin the process.” Quieting herself, Avant responds to the results on the canvas, making visual choices that transmute raw expression into images that communicate acceptance, beauty, and peace. “I let the unconscious bring forth the image; I try to listen, I’m trying to learn. In the end, the painting itself still holds some charge of the difficulty, the emotion or struggle it began with. But the whole is acceptable, perhaps beautiful. My hope is that the viewer can, by looking at the work, get a sense of acceptance … of being okay with what is difficult or can’t be understood.
Born in northern Minnesota, Gwen Avant has been drawn to quiet mark-making her entire life. She earned an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has exhibited her paintings, sculptures and installations in Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York, and has her work in many private and corporate collections.
Gregory Klassen: Heliotropism
Trained as a painter, Gregory Klassen has become interested in creating environments that reflect his fascination with natural processes. His approach to painting emphasizes the action of materials, underlining paint’s interaction with, for example, gravity or evaporation. Klassen’s first serious departure from tradition was to immure his work in compost bins, allowing the canvas to be stained, digested, and shaped in collaboration with organic material and microbes. Most recently he has been exploring other ways of integrating art production with natural forces, working directly with plants, soil, air, and water. At the Watrous, Klassen will be exhibiting large-scale photographs of his living pieces and, a few surprises from his studio experimentation.
Throughout his career, Gregory Klassen has sought to examine the criticality of chance and fortuity in the creation of image, and the ways in which natural process, harnessed and overseen by the artist, can be converted into "abstract works of breathtaking realism". Klassen received his BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1990 and continued his training in painting and drawing under Gerhard Richter at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany. Greg's work has been exhibited around the world, including at Rosenberg Gallery in Zurich. Most recently, Greg's work has focused on sculpture and the ways in which the techniques and discipline of drawing and painting can be brought to bear in a three-dimensional space.