Kurt Hippauf - Painter

Kurt Hippauf

Kurt Hippauf

Mpls, MN

Email   KurtHippauf at ignudi.com

http//www.Ignudi.com

Bio: After many years away I have returned back to my roots. Though I never totally stopped painting it was a somewhat casual relationship. My understanding of painting has never been deeper.  Painting is a journey; A metaphor for life.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this

different from past projects?

First and foremost all my work is about paint and the process of painting.  I believe that before anything a painting has to be a good painting.

Rather than trying work out issues on a canvas I’m doing much more preliminary work trying to get at the kernel of things.  I’m currently working on some studies for two new pieces and as always striving to improve my technique.

Are you showing anywhere?

I have a piece with Altered Esthetics show “Dangerous” at the Twin Cities Trapeze Center in St. Paul. http://www.alteredesthetics.org/gallery-events/exhibitions.  My work is featured. (8/1/14 - 8/24/14).

How did you decide to become an artist?

There was really no deciding.  From my earliest recollections being an artist was pretty much a given.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

Two things:

1.       If it’s just OK it might as well be bad

2.      Get out of your own way

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work?  How do you market yourself?

Only on occasion do I actually sell a piece and then it mostly word of mouth. I exhibit more for validation than monetary gain. Quite honestly I give more away than I sell and I like to see a painting go to a good home. I have a website www.ignudi.com (that sorely needs updating), some work on

www.mnartists.org.  and respond to calls for art.  I’ve had several pieces shown with Altered Esthetics over the past couple of years.

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy? 

I think these people are beautiful painters

http://www.samanthafrench.com/ 

http://www.michaelkareken.com/ 

http://www.clintonrost.com/

Also for a while last year Altered Esthetics was holding a critique group

which I found very engaging.

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

We would go where the day would take us and look for art where it is not usually found.  A crumpled piece of metal, an open cupboard, a road with patches, a flattened paper cup, a cardboard box.

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, 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? 

I check these out regularly

http://painters-table.com/

http://artdaily.com/

Lately I’ve been perusing online museum collections.  I think the Met is by far the best.  They have very high resolutions so you can get real close.

http://www.metmuseum.org/ 

And though not specifically “art” I read Arts and Letters Daily at

http://www.aldaily.com/

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

Better painting. Freer, splashier, looser. Better color, more poetic

Image List

1. Levant Plays Gershwin        36 X 36         2011

2. Stories From My Father       46 X 30         2011

3. The Erechteum                    48 X 36         2013

4. Pergamon  Variation            36 X 25        2013

5. The Delphi Charioteer         36 x 24         2014

6. Capitol Dome                     28” x 30”       2014

7. Image of Kurt Hippauf

Kenneth Steinbach - Drawing and Sculpture

Kenneth Steinbach

The Machine in the Ghost. Installation view.  2010-2013  Unique carved and polychromed wood, about 2600 individual elements.  Wood for the work was stolen from the grounds of the museum of the childhood home of Charles Lindbergh in Little Falls, Minnesota.

Name:  Kenneth Steinbach  

City/State:  Shoreview, MN

Email:  kennethsteinbach@gmail.com

Website:  kennethsteinbach.com

MNartist.org profile:  http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=11586

Bio~Kenneth Steinbach is an artist who uses a variety of media and approaches, but works principally in sculpture.  Recent exhibits include The New Forests of Thoreau’s America at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, and Still There at the Gallery at Fox Tax in Minneapolis.  He has shown throughout the United States, including exhibits at the Phillip Slein Gallery in St. Louis, and Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Los Angeles, and Circa Gallery in Minneapolis who has represented his work for the past seven years.  He has work in numerous corporate, academic, and individual collections including Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis, and NYCAMS in New York. Kenneth Steinbach is the recipient of two Minnesota State Arts Board grants and two grants from Bethel University in direct support of his work and research.  He is Professor of Art in Sculpture at Bethel University in St. Paul, and a member of Form + Content Gallery. 

Kenneth is currently working on a body of research investigating the cognitive and creative habits of mid career artists.  He lives in Shoreview with his wife Kari, and daughter Harper Leigh, and two impossibly enthusiastic wiener dogs.

The Machine in the Ghost.  Detail view.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

I am continuing a series of drawings and sculptural works that explore the shifting of narratives and memories attached to materials, objects and locations.  Many of those works use materials/objects with very loaded histories- wood taken from the grounds of the Lindbergh House in Little Falls, Minnesota for example, or slate chalkboards from an abandoned schoolhouse.  I am also continuing a 10 year series of works using epoxy resin, in which dozens of ink drawings are suspended in layers of epoxy resin.  For the first time I am using the figure in the resin works, and engaging ideas related to geography and exploration. The upcoming show at Circa Gallery will feature these drawings, as well as multiple sculptural works using slate, drawings on ivory piano keys, and slate from an abandoned middle school. 

How did you decide to become an artist?

When I started studying art in college I realized that I responded to the physicality of making work.  The resistance of the materials allowed me to focus on specific themes and concerns for a longer time and allowed for an expressive gravitas that other art forms did not.  I have never really considered doing anything else.

For Pierre Menard, Author of the Don Quixote.  

Found and carved wood.  Dimensions variable.  2010.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

Try everything.  Which, interestingly, is the same advice that you might give someone if you were trying to drive them crazy.

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work?  How do you market yourself?

I am represented by Circa Gallery in Minneapolis and also belong to Form + Content Gallery, a cooperative gallery, in Minneapolis. http://www.formandcontent.org

My website:  Kennethsteinbach.com

Untitled (Lindbergh House #6).  

Ink drawings suspended in layers of epoxy resin.  30” x 60” x 1.5”

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

The writing of Louise Erdrich (http://birchbarkbooks.com/), Kent Meyers (http://kentmeyers.com/), and Tim O’Brien (http://www.illyria.com/tobhp.html).  Also Annie Proulx, who is not from Minnesota but should be.

Aesthetic Apparatus:  http://aestheticapparatus.com/

Lex Thompson:  http://www.lexthompson.com/

Megan Vossler:  http://www.meganvossler.com

Michael Kareken:  http://www.michaelkareken.com/

Jay Heikes:  http://www.federicaschiavo.com/Artists/Jay-Heikes

Jennifer Danos: http://jenniferdanos.com/

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

Assuming that I could bend time and space, we would spend the day hitting all the small town museums across the state.  They hold such fantastic assortments of art, history, artifacts, local oddities, civic records, donated collections.  All of it cheek by jowl in a completely unfiltered way, with terrific interactions and cross references.  Some of the most engaging exhibits around, with enthusiastic staffs- many of whom volunteer just for the love of the museum.

Memoria Animus:  Granville Falls.  8” x 13.25”.  

Scrimshaw on used elephant ivory piano keys. 2010/2013.

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, 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? 

I generally find more artists off the grid, by attending openings, exhibits, and talking with other artists.  MNartists (http://www.mnartists.org/) is also a main point of reference, a terrific resource.

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future? 

I have a solo exhibit at Circa gallery in Minneapolis opening Sept 21^st, 2013.  http://www.circagallery.org/exhibits/

I am also curating a show titled Orders of Possibility with Paula McCartney, Lex Thompson, and Sonja Thomsen at Form + Content Gallery, opening in early December.

Untitled (Lamb’s Ear #2).  Waterjet cut chalkboard slate.  42” x 72”.  2012.

What can we expect to see from you in the future? 

As part of an academic research project, I am currently interviewing a large collection of mid career visual artists to determine the suite of creative habits and activities that are engaged by high functioning artists. At some point I hope to present my findings to the creative community in Minnesota in a series of dialogues or workshops.

Kenneth Steinbach

Circa Gallery - Featured Artist

Gallery Profile

Samantha French - Painter- Minnesota ExPat

Samantha French

Mn to Brooklyn, NY

Name:  Samantha French        
Location:  Brooklyn NY
Website:  www.samanthafrench.com
Facebook Page:  facebok.com/samanthafrenchart1
Etsy Page / Retail Page:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/SamanthaFrench

Why did you leave Minnesota?

I left the year after I graduated from MCAD. I had friends who lived there (NYC) and it just seemed to be the right decision for me at the time. I was looking for a change of pace and NY was it. 

Tell me about your new city of residence?  

How to describe NYC? It is a completely different way of life than the Mid-west (which has its pros and cons). It is a very driven city and has created an environment for me to whole heartedly focus on my art career. 

How has your art changed since moving from Minnesota?

Growing up in such a beautiful area had a big impact on my work. New York City is beautiful in its own way, but there is something so serene, floating in the tepid water of one of Minnesota’s many lakes, just you and nature. No sirens, no trash, just quiet and calm. My paintings have changed in that they are frequently based on pools now, and some reflect more of a Southern California/mid-century aesthetic, but my memories and the feelings I get thinking back about those childhood summers are still there. They’ve just been slightly adapted, more idealized maybe. Also, pool waters allow for better reflections, which now play an important role in my painting. I consider myself a figurative painter, but the reflections and refracted light add an abstract quality to the work. Having the figure as a reference point allows me to focus on those abstractions that the reflections in the water provide. Along with the contrasts they bring to the work, discovering how the two things react with one another, such as how the light bouncing off the skin mimics the ripples in the water, is very fascinating to me. 

If you come back to Minnesota for one weekend and you need to see your old favorite places, where would you go to see art? 

I love stopping back at MCAD, they always have something interesting up in the Main Gallery and if not you can usually find some inspiring student work up in the halls. I have work in inventory at Groveland Gallery and they have such an array of artists you can never go wrong seeing what they have in exhibition (or in their inventory). They have really cultivated a strong group of artists. I would also stop at Soo Visual Arts Center! Their shows are always engaging and since they jury the artists in you can see installations one month and realistic paintings the next. If I have the time I would definitely make a trip to the Walker and MIA. 

Who are some of your favorite artists still living in Minnesota?

Michael Kareken:http://www.michaelkareken.com 
Sarah Wieben: http://sarahwieben.com 
Melissa Loop: www.melissaloop.com  

I could go on but I’ll keep it at three. 

If you could transplant one aspect of the Minnesota arts community home with you, what would it be?

Minneapolis has such a wonderful sense of community throughout all the arts it is a very  supportive place to be an artist. 

Do you have any exhibits to promote now or in the near future?

I have a solo exhibition at Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis up until July 7th, 2012.  


After that, a show at the Todd James Gallery in Provincetown, MA July 15- Aug 11th along with a group show at Stark + Kent Gallery in Palm Springs, CA.  Lots of other exciting events in the works after that!

Simon Huelsbeck - Painter

Simon Huelsbeck

Name: Simon Huelsbeck
City/State: Rochester, MN
Email: Simon@simonhuelsbeck.net
Website: Simonhuelsbeck.net
MNartist.org profile: Simon Huelsbeck
Facebook page: Simon Huelsbeck

Bio~
I currently live in Rochester MN with my wife and two year old son. I teach painting and classes at the local college.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

I’m currently working on a winter show that will be opening at the SooVAC on Nov 5th. The work has a great deal of lovingly rendered winter landscapes frequently with twists. The paintings have violations in the space and on the surface. There are also images that are integrated into the landscapes: stray parade floats, balloons, my son etc. Most of the work is really small just a few inches in either direction. I have also used, wood, rubber, and resin to make these lush white almost sculptural frames.

"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?

I hope the audience gets a sense for the preciousness of the simple and everyday moments that make up our lives. My life is passing and guaranteed to end. I want to preserve little bits of it and make it sacred

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?

Work hard and often.

Tell me about your work space and your creative process.

By far my favorite space to work in is the outdoors. I am a visual person and the world stirs my imagination and my. When the work comes inside I twist it and violate it, and labor over it. At the moment my basement studio is covered in resin, rubber, and white paint. Its incredibly inadequate- as is my garage/shop.

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?
Roxanne Jackson http://www.roxannejackson.com/
Sara Belleau http://www.sarabelleau.com/
Ruben Nusz http://www.rubennusz.com/Art/rubennusz.html
Joe Sinness http://joesinness.com/
Michael Kareken http://www.michaelkareken.com/Michael_Kareken/Welcome.html

He’s not an artist but I do love the work done by our local curator Kris Douglas:
http://www.rochesterartcenter.org/ (Rochester Art Center)

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

Minneapolis Institute of Art http://www2.artsmia.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Midway Art Gallery http://www.midwayart.org/
SooVac Gallery http://www.soovac.org/
Rochester Art Center http://www.rochesterartcenter.org/
Franklin Art Works http://www.franklinartworks.org/
Walker Art CEnter http://www.walkerart.org/


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?

http://www.mnartists.org/
http://www.artinfo.com/
http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/
http://www.artnews.com/
http://www.artnet.com/
http://www.artslant.com/
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/
http://artobserved.com/

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?

"Point of Roughness" at the SooVac Gallery in Uptown, Mpls, MN From 11/5/2011 through 12/3/2011. Opening Reception 11/5/11 from 6-9pm.

I will be doing an ambitious and comprehensive installation at the James Wegner Gallery in the Spring and and a sabbatical show at the University Center Rochester Art Gallery in Fall of 2012.

Margaret Wall-Romana - Painter

"Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)" 46" x 131" oil on wood panel, 20l0

Margaret Wall-Romana

Margaret Wall-Romana
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Email: m.wallromana@gmail.com
Website: http://mwallromana.com/
MNartist.org profile: http://www.mnartists.org/Margaret_Wall-Romana

Bio -
I grew up just south of San Francisco, and have a BA from UC Davis, and an MFA in Painting from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. I lived in NYC for 5 years after school, making bad abstract paintings and getting no place - but loving it! - before meeting my husband and moving back to California. I showed with a wonderful San Francisco gallery, Bucheon, from 1995 until 2009, when it closed. In 2005 we moved to Minneapolis. We always thought it would be fun to live someplace where it snows, and we haven't changed our minds.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
I currently have an MAEP show up at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, through April 3rd, on which I focused all last year. I like the challenge of making big paintings, and having such a beautiful gallery to myself was an opportunity to go to town, size-wise. Now I think it might be nice to scale down a bit. I've been thinking about and working on some pieces that reference (in non-traditional ways) the 17th century Dutch "game piece" genre, as well as thinking about some different, more modestly sized (and perhaps non-rectilinearly-shaped) pieces. I've surprised myself by thinking I might be ok with working on 2 different bodies of work at the same time, something I've never done before. That's all I can say right now - time will tell.

Detail - "Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)"

"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?
I'd like my viewers to be surprised to find that engaging with a painting can be an absorbing, immersive experience. In the centuries before the moving image, people knew that paintings could provide a visual experience capable of transporting and thrilling them. We know how to surrender to the screen-based arts, and we love to do so, but do we still know how to surrender to paintings? Do we realize what feelings they are capable of provoking?

Unlike a movie, which ask us to invest a set amount of time, a painting releases us (if it ever had us in the first place) when we turn and walk away. But if it's the painter's ambition, I think the act of looking at his or her painting can share some kinship with watching a moving image. I want my work to invite sustained viewing, and if people do spend the time required for the paintings to unfold and reveal themselves, I want them to feel like they've gone someplace, experienced something very particular that could only be gotten at through that exact experience, and through the spending of actual time. And if the viewer were to notice that having the experience required a register of looking that felt a bit like the one we give ourselves over to when viewing screen-based arts, I'd like that a lot.

"Towards and Away" 46" x 116" oil on wood panel, 2010

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
1. Most valuable, hardest to learn from grad school:
When a painting is at an impasse and you can't get it to work no matter what you try, 9 times out of 10 it's because you're holding onto a beloved spot/area/thing that you are really proud of having made. You love love love that special spot and refuse to give it up even though it's killing your painting, and you tell yourself lies about it and spend tons of time working around it and trying to make it fit and guess what it never will, so get over it! (What, like you're incapable of painting another beautiful spot like that? Bite the bullet, you weenie, your special spot must be destroyed! Cut the darn thing out and frame it if you love it so much, fer cryin out loud!)

2. Most valuable of the easy lessons: Varnishing will improve your painting by 10 to 20 percent. (So true!)

3. Most wounding, yet true, lesson from a fellow student: "What you know about color would fit on the head of a pin! Are you ever going to do something about that?" (Ouch. And yes, I think I will!)

detail 2 - "Towards and Away"

Tell me about your work space and your creative process?
Workspace: I've painted in lofts/garages/basements and bedrooms, but I now have a dedicated studio at home in South Minneapolis.

Creative Process: I paint in oils on wood panels that eventually get bolted together by 2's or 3's. When I start a body of work, I can't foresee what it will grow into. Over the course of a year-and-a-half to two years I slowly find out what I'm really interested in. Year one is the polymorphous phase. If during that time I claim to know that any configuration of 2-3 panels will remain together, that will turn out to be a lie.

For instance, the left-side panel of a given piece may turn into the right-side panel of a different piece, only maybe upside-down and sideways. The panels pair up, get painted on as one, and break apart to pair with others and be painted on as one - many times over. Five weeks before my MAEP show opened, I had a crisis with one of the paintings, which I had convinced myself was 98% finished. I took the panels apart, turned them sideways, 86-ed one of them and then substituted another that I had previously rejected. After putting those panels together and painting some more, I ended up with a very different (and finally satisfying) work. I hardly ever make a painting where something crazy like that doesn't happen.

I have a costly way of making paintings in that I often spend a good chunk of time painting something in great detail and then painting over it. (When I say "something" I mean area/field as well as thing.) In truth, that kind of sacrifice might be the most important thing in the development of each piece. Often it's not that the image/area is wrong, but that I am not smart enough at that point to recognize it.

detail 1 - "Towards and Away"

Things happen on the painting because other things don't feel right - everything's connected to everything. During the process, which could be described as one of accretion, the paintings are like compost piles of paint-incidents and images layered on top of each other, and images can be resurrected from below the picture plane to rejoin it again through scraping and sanding.

Something painted a year ago may suddenly appear next to something painted yesterday; it's quite wonderful and surprising. So sanding and scraping are subtractive and additive processes, and when I'm lucky this adds up to an interesting feeling for me, and the viewer, of the painting having captured some kind of time.

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

I was lucky to be included in ARTmn 2009, at the Hennepin County Central Library, and I fell in love with some of the other artist's work. Interestingly, they're sculptors.

Alison Hiltner: A mind for the potential of materials like no other! http://www.alisonhiltner.com/
Sam Spiczka http://www.sculptorsam.com/index.html
Karl Unnasch http://www.karlunnasch.com/

Sam and Karl and I found intriguing resonances between our works and practices, and have put together a proposal for a 3-person show called "Landscaptures: Dissect, Salvage & Reassemble". We're currently looking for a venue for it.

I've become fond of Peter Happel Christian's work - his show "Ground Truth" is in the MAEP gallery next to mine right now. http://peterhappelchristian.com/

Amy DiGennaro's work is amazing. http://amydigennaro.com/Drawings.html

Michael Kareken's MAEP show last year was my favorite Twin Cities painting show.

http://www.michaelkareken.com/Michael_Kareken/Home.html

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
For current shows (Spring 2011), you just go where the work is! I'm not venue-driven - I tend to go out specifically to see a single show, and that could be anywhere. As for museums, I gravitate towards the MIA because of my interest in the broad history of painting, but the Walker has a beautiful collection and interesting shows when I'm not longing to see "Old Dead Guy" paintings. I like to visit paintings over and over, and having a concentrated, solitary experience with the permanent collection at MIA, where if one work of art/artist makes me think of another, I can follow that thread right then… well, that's super energizing. Also, the reference library there is a fantastic place - I'm not sure everyone knows about that.

Lastly, if I want to celebrate an excellent art experience in town I might like to finish it off by going bowling. Bowling, of course, is the painting of sports.

"Painting Painting with van der Weyden" 58" x 75" oil on panel, 2009

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?

Besides your site, I like the following:

James Elkins'(author of my favorite book about painting: "What Painting Is") essays on The Huffington Post are fantastic, and reader comments are often of surprising quality and thoughtfulness.

MNArtists : http://www.mnartists.org/
The Highlights: http://thehighlights.org/
Two Coats of Paint: a great site, with a long list of painting blogs

http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/p/about.html
Notes on Colour Mixing http://www.notesoncolourmixing.blogspot.com/
Art Scene: -subscribe to their newsletter, it's great. http://www.artscenecal.com/
MPR's Art Hounds http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/ongoing/art-hounds/

MPR's State of The Arts http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/

Quodlibetica http://www.quodlibetica.com/

detail -- "Painting Painting with van der Weyden" 58" x 75" oil on panel, 2009

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?
As I said, I'm hoping to find a venue for the 3-person show with Karl Unnasch & Sam Spizcka, which I'm very excited about. And since my long-time San Francisco gallery, Bucheon, closed in 2009, I'm without representation, so I'll be trying to do something about that.

2011 "Best Interview"