Three States Reveals Aims of the New Joseph Nease Gallery

Whirl Signal iPad, James Woodfill

Thursday we shared a few moments from the ribbon-cutting at the Joseph Nease Gallery. James Woodfill's Wayfinding exhibit had failed to completely find its way here at the time, but there was enough in place for early visitors to grasp the caliber of Duluth's newest gallery space. Saturday afternoon Joe and Karen Nease officially opened their doors for the public opening reception.

This first show was titled Three States, a reference to the three geographical regions the featured artists hailed from. The artists getting top billing were Matthew Kluber of Iowa, Kathy McTavish or Minnesota and James Woodfill of Missouri. A dozen other artists, however, were also represented throughout the gallery.

James Woodfill has been a painting professor at the Kansas City Art Institute from 15-20 years. A 1980 grad he entered into a commercial art career before getting into studio art. His works demonstrate an interdisciplinary approach that in this particular show features movement and light kinetics. Interestingly, all three featured artists incorporate the same central concept but with totally different outcomes. Woodfill's gallery installations have received national recognition in numerous publications including Art In America, the New Art Examiner and Sculpture Magazine, among others.

James Woodfill

The artist whose work you encounter upon entering the gallery is Matthew Kluber. The first eye-catching piece, titled No Place Like Utopia, is the one featured in Thursday's blog post with it's sequence of photos depicting Kluber and Mayor Larson engaged in conversation. Another large piece title Parsing the Lingo is comprised of alkyd on aluminum. Then there are a series of small gouache paintings on Arches watercolor paper. When you visit his website it's apparent that the Iowa artist is fascinated with color and light.

A captured moment in time from ticket by Kathy McTavish

Kathy McTavish, the third featured artist in this show, has assembled her composition, titled ticket, in an isolated room in which code-generated animations are being projected on the walls along with random numbers and sounds, a visual-sensual experience generated via wireless network, chrome browsers, projectors and the cloud. While different from Chance, the current Tweed show, it has many similarities and seems to raise some of the same issues, while toying with the same fascinations. 

In addition to the three featured artists, the JNG also showed 1-4 works by a dozen artists in a variety of media that included oil, acrylic, gouache, photography, crayon & ball point pen, and solid-case earthenware with slip. The 25 pieces were evenly distributed throughout the gallery in such a manner as to almost be deceptive. That is, a visitor to the gallery might easily assume there aren't that many pieces here, but then the spaciousness surprises you. This hall here, that room there, with nothing competing and all pieces getting their deserved attention. 

Here are the other artists with work currently on display: photographers Raissa Venables and Tim White, Warren Rosser, Peter Granados, James Brinsfield, Marcus Cain, Heidi Pollard, Eric Sall, Don Kottmann, Warren Rosser, Carey Esser and Eric Sall. 

And here are some additional views:

Blue Hall, by Raissa Venables, Archival Pigment Print, 2009

Several Woodfill sculptures

Before moving to Duluth with his wife Karen, Joseph Nease, a civil engineer by profession, ran a gallery in Kansas City devoted to cutting edge art. They call this gallery Joseph Nease Gallery Version 2.0, integrating the many lessons they learned from their first gallery experience. One feature of the new space is that some of the walls are on wheels so that gallery configuration does not have to remain locked in a single patten.

The gallery brought on board a curator, Amanda Hunter, to assist in managing all the behind-the-scenes matters that others might take for granted. This particular show, Three States, will remain installed until early January 2018.

* * * * 

To Visit the Artist's Websites:
James Woodfill -- https://woodfill-archive.herokuapp.com/
Matthew Kluber -- http://www.matthewkluber.com/
Kathy McTavish -- http://www.mctavish.io/

Better yet, visit the gallery in person: 23 West First Street, Duluth MN