Groveland Gallery - Gallery Profile

Groveland Gallery

25 Groveland Terrace

Mpls, MN 55403

612-377-7800

http://www.grovelandgallery.com/

Tell me about your gallery.
Groveland Gallery was established in 1973, making us the oldest gallery in the Twin Cities. We are located in a restored 1890’s mansion on Groveland Terrace, across the street from the Walker Art Center Open Field. We specialize in paintings, drawings and prints by regional artists with an emphasis on representational art. We represent the work of over 30 artists whose work includes a variety of styles from photorealist landscapes to expressionist figurative painting. 

We frequently include guest artists in our group exhibitions and host numerous events such as demonstrations and artist talks. The gallery includes three distinct exhibition spaces: the Main Gallery and The Drawing Room, which are located in the mansion, and The Groveland Annex, located in the carriage house behind the main building. Our exhibitions change eight times a year, offering our artists frequent opportunities to show their work. Collectors enjoy a large variety of work to view and collect throughout the year.

Who are three or four local artists who represent the quality and style of work you exhibit at your gallery?

Dan Bruggeman
Anne DeCoster
Jean Gumpper
Mike Kareken
Tom Maakestad
Rod Massey
Dani Roach

For Artists:
How do you prefer artists contact you regarding exhibiting in your gallery?

We enjoy looking at artists’ work and we review submissions periodically throughout the year. We prefer to receive information one of two ways:

1. Via mail: please send us a letter of introduction, a resume or CV, an artist statement, bio and a CD of images along with a self-addressed stamped return envelope.

2. Via email: please send us a letter of introduction, a resume or CV, an artist statement, bio and a either a link to your images on-line or a zipped file of jpeg image files.

What general advice would you give to artists trying to show in local galleries?

We suggest artists visit galleries before approaching them for representation. It is important to know if your work will be a good fit for the gallery before inquiring about representation. We also advise artists to ask the gallery staff how they prefer to receive submissions.


For Collectors:
What is the typical price range for works for sale in your gallery?
We have many works on paper in the range of $100.00-1,000.00 as well as paintings that range from $800.00-$15,000.00 The majority of work sells in the range of $1000.00- $5,000.00.

Do you have any advice for collectors looking locally to buy art?

Enjoy the pursuit! We suggest visiting several galleries, art centers and studios. Ask questions and avail yourself to the expertise of the gallery staff. We are happy to help collectors in a variety of ways: we can contact them when we receive new work that might appeal to them, we encourage collectors to take artwork home on approval to try it in their homes or offices, and we often visit collectors’ homes and suggest appropriate artwork for their spaces. We also are available to deliver and install artwork.

If by chance all of the local art galleries were having opening receptions on the same night, where else would you recommend people go to maximize their art experience?
Circa Gallery
Weinstein Gallery
Minnesota Center for the Book Arts
Highpoint Center for Printmaking
Grand Hand Gallery
Form + Content 

http://www.grovelandgallery.com/

Groveland Gallery Featured Interviews:

Meg Ojala - March 2014

Dani Roach - October/November 2013

Charles Lyon - April-May 2013

Abigail Anderson - July 2012

Justin Terlecki - February 2012

Robyn Hendrix - Watercolor

Seedlings 2, Watercolor on Paper, 10” x 13” 2010

Robyn Hendrix

Name: Robyn Hendrix
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Email: robyn@robynhendrixart.com
Website: www.robynhendrixart.com
MNartist.org profile: http://www.mnartists.org/Robyn_Hendrix
Twitter: @robynhendrix

Bio~
Robyn Hendrix is an emerging artist living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Robyn grew up in eastern Washington State and received her Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from Carleton College in 2005. She has lived in the Twin Cities since 2006.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
I work primarily in watercolor and drawing to create playful, delicate imagery of quirky organic forms inspired by nature and plant growth. I use synthetic Yupo paper for my watercolor painting, which doesn’t absorb paint in the same way as regular art paper and allows me to manipulate the watercolor after it has dried to create surface texture. The chalice shaped tree or seedling forms that appear over and over again in my work came from free association line drawing that I started doing in 2006. Ladders are another recurring element and those came out of some daydreaming in which climbing a ladder or jungle gym was a metaphor for the big “journey of life,” destiny, fate, or whatever you want to call it.

Recently I’ve had some big shifts occur in my own life in addition to the monumental events we’ve seen globally over the past few months, and I see those heavily reflected in my newest paintings. The little organic creatures that show up on the paper are interacting with each other in more dynamic ways, expressing fear, aggression, vulnerability, strength, hunger, empowerment, hope.

Incubators, Watercolor on Paper, 16” x 20” 2011

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?
The ambiguity of my designs is meant to allow room for a variety of interpretations from the viewer. Pieces that look like rocks might really be eggs, seeds, drops of water, or eyeballs. Plants might stretch their branches into the fingers of a hand crawling out of the earth or take the shape of a mouth gulping down the rain falling from the sky. I hope my paintings convey my quirky curiosity about this crazy beautiful planet of ours. I’m fascinated with nature and spend a lot of time gazing at the potted plants on my windowsill and walking around the city looking for weirdly shaped trees. I love it when you can see the tiny little bud forming on a plant that will eventually become a new leaf or stem.

Nature is so incredibly weird and mind-boggling. Just the simple fact that we all divide these tiny cells over and over to grow and heal, and digest food, or breathe the air, or photosynthesize, or whatever floats our boat in order to survive and procreate, kind of blows my mind.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
I’ve been repeating this mantra to myself lately: “Jump into the life you want to live.” Nobody really told me that, it’s just something I’ve been feeling really strongly lately. For a while I saw my life as something that would happen in the future, but I’ve kind of woken up and realized my life is NOW. So I decided to go live it.
Along those same lines, the “How to Steal Like an Artist” essay written by Austin Kleon is one thing I read recently that is absolutely spot on.

And just the other day at the Works Progress Give & Take event I had a conversation with Noah Keesecker from Springboard for the Arts who told me about the “punch the shark” motto that originated from a video by Nathan Ecklund. It’s a really powerful, useful metaphor for tackling the problems or tasks you dread the most by facing them instead of running away or avoiding them. Oh, and did I mention the incredibly inspiring Ted talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love?

I’m not sure any of those things count as direct “advice” but they’ve had a positive impact on me over the past month or two. Apparently I’m not as good at remembering snippets of things people say to me as I am at recalling videos I’ve watched on the internet. Sign of the times I guess.

Podlings 2, Watercolor on Paper, 8” x 10” 2011

Tell me about your working space and your creative process?
I paint at a table in my bedroom. Small space, but it’s my lovely little sanctuary. There are basically two stages to my paintings: putting down the initial shapes and design, and then after the paint dries using a sort of drybrush technique to texturize the watercolor. I’ve discovered that having several pieces in progress at the same time helps me out a lot. If I always have at least one piece already going, starting the next new painting is less intimidating. It’s a nice way to avoid the “white canvas” artist’s block and helps me keep up my momentum. Even if I get really busy and get out of sync for a week or two, I know I have something already started and can easily pick it up where I left off.

I keep a sketchbook and I do a lot of free association drawing in which I let go of any preconceived idea and just let the tip of my pen guide me to whatever that drawing wants to be that day. Then I take some of my favorite designs that come out of that and put them into the watercolors. Both the drawing and painting processes are about playing with a lack of control, since painting on Yupo is basically like creating puddles of color. You can control the shape by defining the outer edge, but you can’t predict exactly how the colors are going to blend together. Even when adding the texture, I purposefully keep my brush strokes a bit jittery and scattered, because the most interesting edges and color interactions come out of allowing for that spontaneity.

You know how they say you should talk to your plants to help them grow? I totally talk to my paintings in the same way. I ask them what they want to be, I apologize to them if I get clumsy and mess them up before they are dry, and I say “I love you!” to them over and over. Because I do. They are like my little babies, and when they get all dressed up in frames and get to go hang on a wall in a gallery, I feel like a proud parent putting her kindergartener on the school bus for the first time. All I can hope is that they stay safe, eat their carrot sticks, and make some friends.

Crushed, Watercolor on Paper, 8” x 10” 2011

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Jennifer Davis http://www.jenniferdavisart.com/
Barbara Harman http://www.barbaraharman.com/
Alis Olsen http://www.alisolsen.com/
Brenna Busse http://www.brennabusse.com/
Margaret Wall-Romana http://mwallromana.com/
Claudia Poser http://claudiaposer.blogspot.com/
Dan Bruggeman http://danbruggeman.com/

This one feels like a bit of a shameless plug because Dan was one of my advisors at Carleton. He has a great show up right now though at the Groveland Gallery Annex.

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
I am all over the place, trying to soak up as much as I can. I’m often at galleries like the Soap Factory, Susan Hensel, SOO Visual Arts Center, and Intermedia Arts. Co Exhibitions and Cult Status Gallery are both on my list of places I haven’t been to yet but know I need to check out ASAP. Stevens Square Center for the Arts has had some exhibits I’ve loved, and I wander around the Minneapolis Institute of Arts quite a bit too, always making a point to check out the MAEP gallery.

I’m also intrigued recently with the surge of less traditional art spaces such as Madame http://madameofthearts.wordpress.com/ and the Dressing Room http://dressingroom-aot.blogspot.com/. I can be found having conversations with great people at events like Give & Take, Salon Saloon or FEAST Mpls. Recently I’ve spent a lot of time doing paper-mache at Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater in preparation for the May Day Parade. I also get a lot of inspiration from theater and dance; I house manage for the MN Fringe Festival every year and see as many shows as I possibly can during the 9 day festival with my staff rush pass.

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

MN Original http://www.mnoriginal.org
MNArtists.org http://www.mnartists.org/
MPLSart.com http://www.mplsart.com/
Springboard for the Arts http://www.springboardforthearts.org/ (I was super lucky and got to be one of the artists who took their Work of Art workshop series for free last year via the Artist Development Project. Thanks MN Legacy funding! It was fantastic.)

FEAST Minneapolis http://www.feastmpls.org/

Works Progress http://www.worksprogress.org/

And of course, via all the great people & orgs I follow on twitter and facebook.

Smother, Watercolor on Paper, 8” x 10” 2011

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?
Fellow artist Eyenga Bokamba inspired me to create three artworks to donate for the Art 4 Shelter benefit which is happening this coming Thursday, May 5th 2011 at Circa Gallery. The artworks are only $30, anonymous until after you buy, and proceeds go to Simpson Housing Services. http://art4shelter.org

Four of my watercolors will be a part of the art exhibition at the Living Green Expo May 7-8, 2011 in the Fine Arts Building at the State Fairgrounds. Hours are 9am-6pm Saturday and 9am-4pm Sunday. http://www.livinggreenexpo.mn/expo-highlights/art-exhibition/

Looking ahead, I'll be showing a larger body of work September - October 2011 in a two-person exhibit with Deborah Splain at the Minnesota Women's Building in Saint Paul. This is part of the Women's Art Registry of MN Exhibition series and will be the largest body of work I've shown so far. http://www.thewarm.org/

What other local projects or organizations are you involved with?
I am on the exhibitions committee and am also one of the Facebook and Twitter contributors for the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota (WARM). I’ve been involved with WARM for 3+ years now and it’s given me the opportunity to network with fellow women artists at all different stages of their art careers in an empowering, non-intimidating way. The organization has a lot of room to grow, and a lot of energy. We just had a strategic planning retreat a few weeks ago that left my brain all abuzz with ideas about where we can take things. I’m tentatively working on planning a WARM-sponsored feminist art book/reading discussion group this summer, possibly on the Walker’s Open Field, so watch for news on that coming soon!

My day job is as a cook at Wayside Family Treatment center (http://www.waysidehouse.org/), and I recently connected with the Bridging Minneapolis project that was awarded the last FEAST grant. They are doing a mural project in our neighborhood with the 24th Street walking bridge and I am looking forward to being a liaison for our clients to participate in that.

Robyn Hendrix

Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association