Solo Exhibition Program

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Paper (Ex) Change at Echo Arts

March 25, 2013 in Altered Esthetics, Exhibitions, Gamut Gallery, Kate Renee, Solo Exhibition Program | No comments

Paper (Ex) Change group exhibition at Echo Arts seeks to explore how we alter and use paper as a medium and as a tool to exchange ideas, communication and information between people. The participating artists, who work in a variety of media, are coming together to explore the way paper impacts their art work by using the theme of traditional anniversaries; the first anniversary theme being paper.

Julia Helen Rice, Sarah Theisen, Kristy Childress, Marnie Erpestad, Mark Elton, Mary Foot and Kate Renee mark their one year anniversary of working together by exploring paper as a media and tool to create, communicate and interact through art. The artists first met through the 2012 program cycle of Altered Esthetics’ Solo Exhibition Program, facilitated by board member and program developer, Kate Renee. This group of artists decided to continue to work together and collaborate by fostering creative work and creating a supportive atmosphere for one another. The artists plan to continue to work together by exhibiting in consecutive annual exhibitions based on the anniversary theme. Next year, the group will base their art on the second theme of anniversaries, cotton.

Many of the works exhibited in Paper (Ex) Change will have an interactive aspect to the piece. Viewers can come interact with these paper themed works on the opening night of the Saint Paul Art Crawl at Echo Arts Gallery. The reception begins at 5pm.

Marnie Erpestad will have large photographic works which explore the personality of letters. She invites the viewer to compose the proceeding lines of the letter by building off of the words on the person before them.

Mary Foote builds her piece on a framework which gives the viewer simple instructions to follow. The viewer will then be asked to post publicly what they have made on a website.

Kate Renee has exhibited her traveling installation The Bad Fortune Cookie in two prior exhibitions including Food Fight at Altered Esthetics and Imaginarium at Gamut Gallery. This exhibition allows the viewer to literally take the art off the wall and take home a wooden fortune cookie that has a funny, sarcastic, sassy, paper fortune. Kate also will be exploring the concept of capsulated dreams. She asks the viewer to consider and recognize their own goals and provides an opportunity for the viewer follow their own dreams.

Julia Helen Rice creates a game of visual art telephone. Using paper drawings as the medium she will be initiating a participatory art piece that highlights how human communications and relationships are colored and shaped by our individualities. This individuality often causes misunderstandings and misperceptions but these misunderstandings and misperceptions are exactly what lead to innovation and creativity. This piece demonstrates how all the misunderstandings led to new and interesting works.

Mark Elton will be exhibiting an oversized comic called Macrocomic. He explores how stories, ideas and messages can be told when the vessel is released from the need to be compact. Elton’s Macrocomic will be anything but a mini comic. Through his piece, Mark will explore the written and visual storytelling potential when we reconsider size.

Kristy Childress has mixed media drawings of landmasses and snowforms connected with threads. She explores the physical and the mental space between ourselves and others and the connections that we hold on to.

Work will also be featured by artist Sarah Theisen. The exhibition will be at Echo Arts during the 2013 Saint Paul Art Crawl. The gallery space will be open to the public during the Art Crawl April 26-28th 2013. There you can meet the artists and interact with their paper themed pieces. The exhibition will be up April 26th – May 17th 2013 and is located at Echo Arts Gallery 275 East 4th Street Suite B200 Saint Paul, MN. Gallery hours are on weekends during the exhibition: Fridays 4-8 PM Saturdays 10-8 PM Sundays 12-4 PM 

Extra Extra Read All About It: Beauties Behaving Badly Receives MN State Funding

January 21, 2013 in Accomplishing goals, Altered Esthetics, Bloomington Theatre and Art Center, Gamut Gallery, Imaginarium, Kate Renee, Local Artist Interview, Painting, Prairie Center of the Arts, Press and Promotions, Solo Exhibition Program | No comments

Below is the official press release announcing funding for Beauties Behaving Badly. Feel free to share, print or publish the material below as you wish.

Bloomington, Minnesota, January 9th 2013-The Minnesota State Arts Board posted their Artist Initiative Grant recipients and included emerging artist, Kate Renee. Kate plans to continue her acrylic series titled, “Beauties Behaving Badly,” which explores new views on the roles of traditional female characters.

These large graphic works interpret classic characters from childhood movies and literature in a misbehaving and non-conventional light. The paintings will challenge the comfortable views of classic youth and children’s media. While including a serious and feminist note, these works are large, bright and are also humorous in the visual manner they are created. One of Kate Renee’s finished works, created during her 2011 artist residency at the Prairie Center of the Arts in Peoria, Illinois, demonstrates her humor through a large chested Ariel from the Little Mermaid. With her small shell swimsuit and silicone implanted breasts, the title simply states, “They Help Me Float.”

Kate Renee will begin creating eleven new “Beauties Behaving Badly” paintings to complete her series and will be exhibiting them in a solo exhibition in the Twin Cities. In addition, she will be printing an exhibition specific catalogue to accompany the show. The grant funded project will begin on March 1st 2013 and conclude February 28th 2014.

Kate Renee has been a professional artist since 2008 and has focused on acrylics. She creates lowbrow paintings that feature characters, people, pop icons, and animals with big eyes and bright colors. She adds touches of humor through her sarcastic and ironic titles. Through her work, Kate seeks to explore character development and storytelling through art. She was recently seen exhibiting in the metro alongside artist, Brett Early at Gamut Gallery in November 2012. Both illustrative painters, the pair showed a variety of characters and creatures in the show, Imaginarium. Gamut comments, “Renee [and Early] represents a bourgeoning esthetic that is transitioning from books, media, pop iconography into the realm of galleries. [She] remains true to the wonderment and jovial perspective drawn from childhood…as well as bold use of color and line, trading texture and detail for contemporary design and eye grabbing imagery.”

Currently, Kate Renee is a protégé in the Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM) Mentor Program. She is working alongside artist and mentor Jill Waterhouse for two consecutive years to develop her arts career. Kate has worked with Altered Esthetics since 2010 and developed the Solo Exhibitions Program during her internship. For the following two years, she mentored and taught sixteen artists professional and business skills needed for the arts world. Kate has also worked for Michael McGraw’s blog, Local Artist Interviews. This blog site seeks to allow artists to promote their work through artist written interviews. Kate has worked alongside Local Artist Interviews to build gallery relationships. She has also written numerous blog articles on the site to further assist artists with promotional skills.

Kate Renee has been a volunteer for the American Swedish Institute, and has worked at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Larson Gallery and taught workshops at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center.

Pictures include, “They Help Me Float,” and Kate’s recent exhibition, photographed by Marc James Imagery, at the Fine Line Music Café December 2012 for the Holiday RAWk! event. There she exhibited the six completed “Beauties Behaving Badly” works.

High resolution images available upon request. For more information, please contact Kate Renee at katerenee(at)katerenee.com

-END-

 

Kate Renee is a fiscal year 2013 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Altered Esthetics’ Solo Exhibitions Program

July 23, 2012 in Altered Esthetics, Kate Renee, Solo Exhibition Program | No comments

Its that time of the year again! Altered Esthetics is accepting applications for the third annual Solo Exhibitions Program. This program is designed for emerging artists seeking help and guidance through career development assistance and a guided solo exhibition. It is taught by me! I created this program in 2010 and designed it while I was an Assistant Gallery Intern at Altered Esthetics.

To date we have had 6 community partners including Spring Street Tavern, Maude Salon, Sweeney Todds, the Q.arma building, Bicycle Theory, and Northeast Community Chiropractic. They have been big supporters of Altered Esthetics, the Solo Exhibitions Program, our artists and the arts community in general.

Here is Jennifer Stano’s solo exhibition which was hosted in 2011 at Spring Street Tavern

We have also been very fortunate to have had two good group of artists graduate from the program as well. We had past intern Katie Parr and two of our resident artists Marnie Erpestad and Margie Gamache participate in the program. This year we are fortunate to have one of our 2013 artists participate through a grant supported project.

We are still accepting applications. The great thing about this year is that the application fee is waived! It is completely free to apply to the program. This program lasts one year. Artists receive an in depth look into the runnings of an arts non-profit gallery, board structure, participate on committees and learn valuable career skills along the way. This year the artist have learned about goal setting, exhibition planning, giving and receiving critiques and more. We also had the artists head on over the the St. Paul Art Crawl and Art A Whirl during April and May.

 

This program is a great combination of small group collaboration and discussion and a window of opportunity to jump head first into a more focused and fulfilling arts career. Interested in taking the next step in your art career? Deadline is July 31st 2012. Please head on over to the AE website to learn more information.

And a very very special thanks to Amber White (Janey) and Summer Scharringhausen who helped me with this program from the start. Amber spent her internship as Assistant Gallery Director focusing on building this program. She spent a lot of time and focus on writing a Jerome Foundation grant to fund the Solo Exhibitions Program. Summer was the Gallery Director who guided Amber and I through the AE internship program. She spent many hours helping us write grants and develop this program too. I would like these two women to know how thankful I am for their continued support and assistance with the Solo Exhibitions Program.

A) Hire Me or B) Join My Program

August 22, 2011 in Altered Esthetics, Kate Renee, Solo Exhibition Program | No comments

I’m a very busy girl…always trying to participate in the arts community. In addition to my own personal art career, I help teach emerging artists developmental skills and tools to help them with their career. In 2011, I launched the Solo Exhibitions Program at Altered Esthetics (AE). Altered Esthetics is a non-profit community-based art gallery and arts advocacy organization located in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. We believe artists represent a voice of society and our mission is to support and expand a vibrant arts community. The gallery is located in the Q.arma Building.

2012 AE board

So here is a bit of background on this program. I began to work on creating a program at AE that provides artists with a solo exhibition. During my Assistant Gallery Director Internship in 2010, fellow intern, Amber Janey, and I worked
on two grants to help fund the program. Since then, I have been busy designing the program curriculum. Each month I teach my artists a different arts business related topic: career planning and goal setting, time management and organization, portfolios, grantsmanship, critiques, framing, social networking, and professional practices.

How do these business topic meetings differ from the workshops that Springboard for the Arts offers? Well I took every Work of Art workshop Springboard offers (which by the way I recommend), and trust me, the AE meetings are different (because I designed each one). There are also a few that Springboard doesn’t offer such as professional practices, framing and critiques. My meetings are a combination of working with artists personally for their own studio practices and exhibition preparation, we have group discussions and group work, and I have pre and post meeting worksheets so artists can continue to think about and work on these arts topics outside my meeting. We also have a variety of activities which change for each meeting but have included: demonstrations, videos, and yes, even coloring and crafts!

In addition to these monthly meetings, I assist artists with working on creating, planning and implementing their solo exhibition. Altered Esthetics’ has partnered with various locations around the metro to host our solo artist’s exhibitions. This year we are very lucky to have Bicycle Theory, Spring Street Tavern, Maude Salon and Sweeney Todd’s as our 2011 partners. We are also excited to announce that NE Community Chiropractic will be joining us as a partner!

Me! The Director of Solo Exhibitions

So, how can I be so young and teach other artists how to be an artist?
I have been a professional artist since 2008 but I have been creating art my entire life. I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BA in fine arts, art history, and a minor in design, and I have worked with various galleries in the Twin Cities. I was an intern at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and I also worked as a gallery attendant at the Larson Art Gallery. I like to volunteer at the American Swedish Institute as a museum receptionist, and recently worked at Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

 Suction Cup Me Baby!

My personal work history includes printmaking, pottery, black and white photography, and collage, but primary focus is with acrylics where I designs graphic paintings that feature my characters with witty titles. I also focus on life drawings.

On the side, I create completely handmade hard-bound books and I sell the books on the craft website, Etsy. I also had the chance to consign a variety of her books at I Like You, an artist consignment store in Northeast Minneapolis. I also create commissioned jewelry pieces created from specialized plastic and features pop culture themes.

Sound qualified to teach artists yet? Well here’s more: Currently I am building a national reputation with exhibitions throughout the United States. Recently, I received honorable mention at the 2010 Arrowhead Biennial at the Duluth
Art Institute for one of my acrylic paintings.


I’m So Sweet, I Could Eat Myself

Honorable Mention at the Arrowhead Biennial 2010

I have also been published twice in the University of Minnesota’s literary magazine, The Ivory Tower, and featured in various newspapers including MN Daily and City Pages. In April of 2011, Local Artist Interviews featured me and my artwork on the Minnesota based artist blog. My interview was selected as one of the “Interviewed” contest winners. In July of 2011, I began a six week residency at Prairie Center of the Arts in Peoria, IL, where I focused on building a new body of work. During my residency I created 57 new paintings, a collaboration project, an installation, professional press archive, comprehensive exhibitions history, portfolio inventory, new artist statement, business plan, Artist Initiative Grant and a lot more!

Feel free to check out my Artist Resume… (I’m looking for an arts related job as well so feel free to contact me as well if I sound like a good match!)

Interested in me teaching you how to take your art career to the next step? To apply to my Solo Exhibition Program go to the program website. There you will find the application and program guidelines. There is also a frequently asked questions document to help answer all your program related questions.
Deadline for the 2012 exhibition season was extended! Applications are due September 1st 2011!