Nease News: Two Openings In Two States

When Karen and Joseph Nease moved to the Northland a couple years ago you knew right off that they would become a welcome addition to the Twin Ports art scene. Artist/painter Karen Nease, finding inspiration in the natural beauty that ebbs and flows around us, was quickly at work on her first Northland show. Husband Joe, meanwhile didn't waste any time doing the essential footwork necessary to locate the ideal space for a new gallery. The Joseph Nease Gallery in Kansas City had gained the attention of national art magazines and in a relatively short time established itself as a serious player in the region.

Well, the Neases are in the Northland now, and it is with pleasure that I share this blog post announcing Karen's new show at the Kruk Gallery in Superior, and the premiere show in the new Joseph Nease Gallery in Downtown Duluth. Anticipation is running high for both these events.

As Above, So Below.
Karen Nease Opening at the Kruk

Superior, Wisconsin - The Kruk Gallery, University of Wisconsin – Superior presents As Above, So Below. The exhibition features a new body of artwork from Karen Owsley Nease’s wave portrait series. Exquisitely painted, and dramatic, these oil paintings portray the waves as powerful, elemental forces. They are monochromatic in palette, ranging in size from small studies to the full size of a wave. The breaking multi-faceted waves create strong patterns of light and dark drawing the viewer closer. As Ann Landi describes, “ … this artist builds up her pictures in glazes until the surface reaches a seductive luminosity. “

Karen Owsley Nease is a contemporary landscape painter whose “…seascape painting draws from the traditions of Western landscape painting, and subverts those traditions as firmly as it refers to them. By doing so it encourages us to retune our way of perceiving the non-human world which surrounds and supports us,” states Ruth Henriquez. Throughout her career, Nease’s artwork has sought to extend the meaning of landscape beyond the Western European tradition. She achieves this by presenting the power of the waters with no reference to humans whatsoever except for the viewer’s own reaction. Her paintings present the forces of nature as entities in their own right, inviting the viewer to see the subject in new ways.

Nease's artwork has reference points in her own efforts toward habitat restoration, American transcendentalist landscape painting and the work of more recent artists such as Neil Welliver, April Gornik and Vija Celmins who are similarly engaged with both the landscape and its use as subject matter for formalist experimentation. Almost photo-realistic when viewed from afar, the paintings become more painterly and abstract as one approaches. From the catalog essay by Ann Landi, “the wave series keeps viewer pleasurably off balance, flirting with abstraction…”

Karen Owsley Nease, artist, states, “I am thrilled at the opportunity to introduce this new and ongoing series of artwork to the Northland. The Kruk Gallery is an ideal space to present my large scale wave paintings and it is important to me that this work can be seen at such a lovely space at the University of Wisconsin – Superior, whose programs play an important role in the protection of Lake Superior which is so nearby.”

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, October 5, 2017, 5-7pm
Exhibition dates: October 4 – October 26, 2017.
Gallery Hours:
Monday - Wednesday 12:00 - 6:00 pm,
Thursday 9:00 am - 6:00 pm,
Friday 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

Three States
Joseph Nease Gallery Opening in Duluth

It is a little less than a month before Joseph Nease Gallery opens with its inaugural exhibition Three States on October 21, 2017 with Matthew Kluber, Kathy McTavish, and James Woodfill. If you are unable to make the opening the show will run through January 6, 2017.

So what is Three States?

Art critic, Dave Hickey once suggested “that all an artist needs is to decide where to live, how to live and what they want their art to look like.” Similarly, as a gallery, all you need to know is where you want it to be, how you want it run, and what you want the work you show to look like. Thus, we are in Duluth, Minnesota, with a thoughtfully run gallery showing artwork that we want (you) to see.

In our inaugural exhibition titled Three States, we feature artists from three states with work that is related by motion, technology and finally formed by the space it occupies. Each of these artists, Matthew Kluber (Iowa), Kathy McTavish (Minnesota), and James Woodfill (Missouri) share these commonalities, but through painting, projection, motion, and vantage point options give distinctly different viewer experiences. Matthew Kluber is an artist whose “painting (projection)” work investigates the intersection of painting and digital technology. Kathy McTavish is a media composer, cellist and installation artist whose work blends data, text, code, sound, and abstract, layered moving images. And James Woodfill, an interdisciplinary artist whose work is focused on direct experience through the composition of objects, occurrences and site.

In order to fully introduce the gallery during this inaugural exhibition, we also will be showing at least one recent artwork of each of the artists with whom we are currently working, including work by James Brinsfield, Marcus Cain, Cary Esser, Peter Granados, Rachel Hayes, Don Kottmann, Heidi Pollard, Warren Rosser, Eric Sall, and Tim White.

For more information, Follow the New Joseph Nease Gallery on Facebook.

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TONIGHT
Don't miss tonight's Opening Reception for IN SITU in the John Steffl Gallery at the Duluth Art Institute, on the fourth floor in The Depot.

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Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it!