In Joe Sinness’s recent drawings, portraiture and still life become glossy, yet melancholic, tributes to queer performance. These meticulous works filter cinematic performance, sharp humor and sexual desire through carefully staged still lives and closely observed portraits. Sinness considers this performance a type of strip tease that creates an erotic tension loop between what may be broadly considered sacred and profane.

Take a bow, Colored Pencil on Paper, 16”x28”, ©2015 Joe Sinness

Given:, Colored Pencil on Paper, 20”x21”, ©2014 Joe Sinness

Phantasm, Colored Pencil on Paper, 26”x21”, ©2014 Joe Sinness

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Sinness received his BA from St. John’s University and an MFA in Studio Art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 2013 he was awarded a McKnight Visual Arts Fellowship and an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Notable past exhibitions include Ace Art in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Rochester Art Center and MAEP Gallery of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Sinness was recently chosen as a recipient of an artist residency with the Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) during the Summer of 2015.

Fey: Drawings by Joe Sinness
September 25 – October 21, 2015
Law Warschaw Gallery
Macalester College  St Paul, MN

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The exhibition “What a Relief! Variations on Printmaking” connects historical and contemporary art by featuring works from the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art’s collection as well as recent works by local printmaker Joseph Lappie and fiber artist Janet Taylor. 

Works from Augustana’s collection are ukiyo-e prints, a genre of Japanese woodblock prints from the 19th century, many of which have not been displayed in the museum’s recent history. These historical works will provide a reference point for the contemporary works of Lappie and Taylor.

Lappie, an associate professor at St. Ambrose University, teaches printmaking, papermaking, book arts and drawing. His work in this exhibition is based on the Nuremberg Chronicles, an illustrated world history that first appeared in 1493. Lappie tells the story of the people and their journey along the way, as well as how the stories relate to memory. It is the first time this series has been exhibited in the Quad Cities.

Taylor established herself as an artist with her tapestries and silk organza layered wall pieces. Recognized as an artist, speaker and educator, Taylor has exhibited regionally, nationally and internationally since 1969 and has had her own studio in North Carolina since 1990.

Combining these three collections has sparked creativity and appreciation for the breadth of relief printmaking, which is the first printmaking process invented, dating back to 255 B.C. This exhibition exemplifies that art can not only withstand the test of time, but also be interpreted and approached from many different angles.

Some of the most intriguing inspiration stemming from this exhibition comes from Augustana assistant professor and violist Deborah Dakin with her recital performance of “Oceans and Crossings.” Much like relief printmaking enables commonality among the exhibiting artists, Dakin will encourage engagement with parallels between music from the East and the West to explore ways to listen with understanding and appreciation.

“What a Relief! Variations on Printmaking”
August 20, 2015 – October 30, 2015
Augustana Teaching Museum of Art
Augustana College, Rock Island, IL

GALLERY FRAMES

Standard Profile: 106
Type: standard wood frame
Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with pickled white finish
Purchasing Options: joined wood frame
Custom Frame Strainer: 3/4″ wood frame strainer with inserts
Custom Frame Acrylic: UV acrylic cut to size
Custom Frame Backing Boards: archival coroplast cut to size

Jim Hittinger is a co-winner of our annual MFA framing award. Providing professional framing advice to art students has been a long term goal of ours. For artists to be successful as they enter their professional life it is necessary to understand how to present their work professionally.  Our goal is to help students understand the basics of framing their work and to help us better understand what we may need to do to make the process easier for them.

JIm Hittinger, “Sunbather” oil on canvas, 2015, 60″x84″

Jim Hittinger, “Ice Fisher,” oil on paper, 2015, 18×24 inches.

Artist Statement
The world my images exist in is one of memories and traces. The world is semi- autobiographical, based on banal urban and suburban spaces modeled after Metro Detroit. Subdivisions, strip malls, and undeveloped lots off the interstate near the airport are common locales in my imagery. I am drawn to objects that act as stand-ins for human activity or that imply rather than illustrate events: overturned lawn chairs, tornado sirens, and inflatable tube men advertising used cars, often without the presence of humans. Situations are suggested and pointed to indirectly, creating an atmosphere of dread and impending disaster.

Biography
Jim Hittinger was born in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois and grew up primarily in the Metro Detroit, Michigan area. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in painting and drawing from Wayne State University in Detroit in 2012.

The following is an interview we did with him to find out more about his experience at the University of Minnesota MFA program and his plans for the future.

Metroframe
How did you decide on which MFA program to attend?

Jim Hittinger
There were a few specific things I was looking for in an MFA program: funding, facilities and studio space, teaching opportunities, and location in a major city.  I didn’t want to be in a small college town that didn’t have an art community outside of the confines of school. The University of Minnesota fit all those criteria as well as any program I researched.

Metroframe
What is the most valuable thing you learned and what would you advise others who are considering getting their MFA?

Jim Hittinger
For me, grad school was a place to develop my work and hone in on what I really want to make with the support of faculty and other graduate students. I learned how to balance exploring my existing ideas with keeping an open mind toward experimenting with new things. Some of those experiments with ideas and materials outside of my comfort zone failed, and I think being okay with failing once in awhile is an important lesson to learn. I have a giant pile of bad paintings I’ve made over the past three years, and I think in a way, I learned more  from those than from the pieces in my thesis exhibition.

Metroframe
How long have you been painting? 

Jim Hittinger
I’ve been painting since I was in high school, so about twelve years. I’ve been drawing my whole life, since I was able to hold crayons. That’s all I wanted to do when I was a kid.

Metroframe
What are your goals after graduating?

Jim Hittinger
First and foremost, I will need to find studio space and keep painting. My work has evolved so much over the three years that I’ve been in graduate school, and I’m incredibly excited about the direction I’m going in. I see my work in the thesis exhibition as a turning point towards a new body of work. Aside from continuing to make work, I’ll be applying to teaching positions. I really loved teaching the past few years and would be very happy to continue doing it.

Underlined Action is a group exhibition of 10 artists about to complete the Master of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota. The artwork represented is made in a diverse range of media including, ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, installation, film and video.

Artists included in the exhibition
Beth Dow, Mara Duvra, Chris Groth, Jim Hittinger, Antony W. Lakey, Joshua McGarvey, Candice Methe Hess, Lorena Molina, Kevin Obsatz, Erin Paradis           

Underlined Action
April 7 – 25, 2015
Katherine E. Nash Gallery
Regis Center for Art (East) | University of Minnesota

Saturday, April 11, 2015
Public Program | 5:30 – 6:00 PM | InFlux Space
Reception | 6:00 – 10:00 PM | Regis East Lobby

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METRO GALLERY FRAME

Standard Profile: 106
Type: floating gallery frame
Wood & Finish: ash wood frame with pickled white finish
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Custom Wood Spacer: 3/4″ wood frame spacer
Custom Cut Matboard: 4 ply white museum board cut to size
Custom Frame Acrylic: regular acrylic cut to size
Custom Frame Backing Board: acid free foamboard cut to size
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On display in the Doris Ulmann Galleries at Berea College are a series of Frank Long’s mural studies for public post offices and his more personal series of woodcut prints depicting the achievement of Hercules. Long had close ties to Berea College and was living in Berea when the murals were produced. The Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts, later known as The Section of Fine Art, commissioned Long’s murals during the Depression under the New Deal in 1933. The section’s chief goal was to bring high quality art suitable for public buildings. To accomplish this aspiration, competitions between artists were held. The commissioned art was site specific to locations in newly built federal buildings and post offices. Frank Long completed many murals from 1933-1942.

These relatable images, even as murals, are a part of not only Kentucky’s history but also the history of America. Long represented the average American worker by depicting the work makes daily life possible. By being displayed in many federal buildings across the state during the 1930’s Long helped forge a vision of the unforgettable American spirit of hard work, and stressed that all work was important.

Each piece was selected from the Berea College Art Collection by the students in Dr. Ashley Elston’s Art History 124: Survey of Western Art class, this exhibit explores the work of artist Frank Long (1906-1999). Working with the Director and Curator of the Galleries, Meghan Doherty, students, LeAndre Flores, ’16, and Haley Boothe, ’16, measured all of the pieces for new mats and frames. Once the new frames arrived, the students matted and framed all of the pieces for the show.

Jessica Schroader, ‘18, a student who picked one of the featured Frank Long works talks about how this exhibition effected her personally.

“Upon receiving the task of analyzing the work of Frank Long, our class learned about his dedication to art, which aimed to accurately depict the average American worker. I chose the “Activities of the Region.” This image adequately represents the history and culture of the agriculture and coal industries, which still have an impact to many families in Kentucky almost 80 years later. It spoke to me above the others because as a native Kentuckian, I am very familiar with the hard work that goes in to managing a farm. I have also known many families that have been supported by the coal industry for several generations. Though I do not plan on working in either industry, I can imagine that in during depression era this painting would have affected many Kentuckians in the same way.”

Frank Long,
“Mercy Before Justice”

Frank Long “Untitled”

Frank Long “Untitled”

Frank Long,
“Herakles: The Twelve Labors (Mares of Diomedes)”

Frank Long,
“Herakles: The Twelve Labors (Cretan Bull)”

Frank Long,
“Herakles: The Twelve Labors (Stymphalian Birds)”

BEREA COLLEGE DORIS ULMANN GALLERIES

Berea College is an undergraduate liberal arts work college that offers a BA in Art with concentrations in studio and art history. The galleries are intended to support student learning across the curriculum. The College Art Collection was established in 1935 as a teaching collection with the purpose of providing Berea College students with the best examples of art and artifacts from around the world. Currently, the art collection is made up of more than 12,000 works of art and artifacts of cultural significance and is known for its high quality.

The Berea College Art Collection is made accessible to the campus, surrounding communities, and visiting scholars with the goal of providing rich opportunities to experience the visual arts . We accomplish this goal by caring for the artwork entrusted to us by generations of donors, making the artwork available for research and study, and installing exhibitions that educate, intrigue, and inspire.

The core of the collection includes paintings and prints by European and American masters; contemporary ceramics; and Asian arts. Among the most significant works in the collection are Renaissance paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Old Master prints including works by Rembrandt and Albrecht Dürer, Japanese woodblock prints, over 3000 Doris Ulmann photographs, and paintings by Gilbert Stuart, Arthur Wesley Dow, Thomas Moran, and Henry Ossawa Tanner. The early works on paper have been supplemented by a recent gift of contemporary American prints by Jasper Johns, Jacob Lawrence, and Sam Gilliam among others.

“Overcoming Discouragement: Frank Long’s WPA-Era Works”
February 22 – April 6, 2015
Berea College
Doris Ulmann Galleries
Berea, Kentucky

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

101 maple with clear finish

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Standard Profile: 101
Type: standard gallery frame
Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with clear lacquer finish
Purchasing Options: joined wood frame
Custom Wood Strainer: 3/4″ wood frame strainer
Custom Frame Mat: 4 ply warm white museum mat
Custom Frame Acrylic: UV acrylic cut to size
Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames

You’re Always Brilliant in the Morning, Pigment Print 18 x 24	I’ll Huff and Puff, pigment prints and collage, 11.25 x 10.5
If the Top is the Bottom and Heaven is Hell, Pigment prints and collage, 18 x 18	Love Like This Won’t Last Forever, pigment prints and collage, 18 x 24

Elise Nicol is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has exhibited at The Print Center (Philadelphia), Buddy Holly Fine Art Center (Lubbock, TX), Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY), Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Rockport), Springfield Art Museum (Springfield, MO), Janet Turner Print Museum at California State University (Chico), and Soho Photo (New York, NY), among other venues. Her work is in the collections of The Library of Congress, Boise Art Museum, Mesa Arts Center, Photomedia Center, Graphic Chemical and Ink Company, and more. Most recently, she is the recipient of an Anderson Ranch Arts Center Scholarship and a Vermont Studio Center Artist Residency.

Elise Nicol
You’re Always Brilliant in the Morning
February 2 – April 28, 2015|
Blanchard S. Gummo Gallery
Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Standard Profile: 106
Type: standard gallery frame
Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with white opaque finish
Purchasing Option: joined wood frame with splines
Custom Wood Spacer: 1/4″ wood frame spacer
Custom Wood Strainer: 3/4″ wood frame strainer
Custom Cut Matboard: 4 ply white museum matboard
Custom Frame Acrylic: regular acrylic cut to size
Custom Frame Backing Board: archival corrugated cut to size
Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames

Herman Mhire began photographing seashells in 2012 as “meditations upon the forms, colors and patterns of marine mollusk exoskeletons found in oceans around the world.”  Mhire selected his subjects from more than 7,000 species and 100,000 specimens collected by Dr. Emilio Garcia, a world renowned malacologist – an expert in the study of mollusks.  Dr. Garcia has an extensive publication record, has collected shells around the world, and has gone on numerous dredging expeditions over the past nine years as part of his work recording the molluscan biodiversity of the Gulf of Mexico.  Mhire will have 50 photographs in the exhibition.
To create his shell series, Mhire photographed his subjects against a neutral background.  After taking extraordinary close-up photographs using the camera on his iPhone4s, he enlarged the images to reveal microscopic details and individual characteristics of each shell.  His early photographs were commercially printed in sizes ranging from 30” x 20” to 80” x 60”. Mhire subsequently purchased a large format ink jet printer to print his images.  As his approach to image-making evolved, he replaced the neutral backgrounds and shallow spaces of his early photographs with a matte black background that more dramatically emphasizes the form, color and pattern of each seashell. Inspired by stories of scientific underwater exploration and discoveries of fantastic new species, he altered his shell photographs using computer software in order to produce a dizzying array of imaginary forms set within surreal environments, suggesting a whimsical world of nautical wonders.

Herman Mhire was named Distinguished Professor in the College of the Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he taught from 1977 until his retirement in 2005. He also served as director of the university’s art museum for 17 years. Trained as a painter and printmaker, Mhire holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette (1969) and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arkansas (1972).  Since turning to photography in 2008, his work has been widely exhibited and critically acclaimed.

Achachantina mask, © 2013 Herman Mhire	Haliotis scalaris, 2012 © Herman Mhire
Conus marmoreus, 2012 © Herman Mhire	Hexaplex brassica, 2012 © Herman Mhire

“Herman Mhire: The Art and Science of Shells”
July 5 – September 25, 2014
Louisiana Art and Science Museum 
Baton Rouge, LA

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Standard Profile: 106
Type: Standard Gallery Frame
Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with white opaque finish
Purchasing Option: joined frame with splines
Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames

Blake Leigh is our first BFA framing award winner. Providing professional framing advice to art students has been a long term goal of ours. In order to better understand how to accomplish this Metroframe has established a BFA framing award at the University of Minnesota.  Our goal is to help students understand the basics of framing their work and to help us better understand what we may need to do to make the process easier for them.

The following is an interview we did with him to learn more about his work and process.

metroframe
How did you get interested in photography?

Blake Leigh
I first became interested in photography when I started my undergrads. Both sides of my family were interested in photography and all my grandparents had an appreciation for image making, so when I became interested in art, photography was the most natural entry point for me. My family has a history of using cameras and documenting family life so when I started using photography for art, I was drawn to the documentary uses of the camera.

metroframe
What kind of equipment do your use?

Blake Leigh
I alternate between film and digital cameras, but I have an interest in all the different ways I can make images. I enjoy experimenting with different cameras, but when it comes to working on projects I like to find the appropriate tools for each task.

metroframe
Your final BFA project is titled “Waiting for You”. Can you tell us more about the project and why you selected it.

Blake Leigh
“Waiting For You” is a project that I started a year ago and have been working on in my free time since. The project looks at isolated people on the MTA bus system and exploits the ease of viewing people in public. Specifically, I wait outside of bus stops at night time and when each bus stops lights on the interior brighten making the riders easily visible to people waiting out side.

metroframe
I understand you are doing a larger project about surveillance and privacy. What drew you to this subject and what have you found out as you pursue it?

Blake Leigh
“Waiting for You” has opened the door to continually study the ways people act in public when they think they’re not being watched. Since this project started I’ve been able to expand into a larger project where I explore the use of surveillance in public spaces and examine the concerns of privacy in these spaces as well.

PRACTICE/PRACTICE
MAY 6 – MAY 17, 2014
Katherine E. Nash Gallery
Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota
405 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, (612) 624-7530
Gallery hours are 11 am to 7 pm, Tuesday through Saturday

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

NIELSEN METAL FRAMES

Profile: Nielsen Profile 117
Finish: black metal frame
Framing Advice: fitting metal frames

“I wanted to send you a few installation images from the MFA Thesis exhibition. The photos look great in the frames, and I’ve received plenty of compliments on the frames themselves. Thank you for continuing the make such a wonderful product.”

Micah is more knowledgeable about framing than most MFA students. We first met Micah at the Baltimore Museum of Art when we did an interview with him and Rena Hoisington, the BMA Curator & Department Head of the Department of Prints, Drawings, & Photographs. At the time Micah was the BMA Conservation Technician for Paper and was working on the  “Print by Print: Series from Dürer to Lichtenstein” exhibition.

Nothing brightens are day more than getting exhibition shots and kind words from our customers. Our business is making exhibition frames. When we get photos like this it reminds us why we like doing what we do so much. Thank you Micah!

“Unclaimed Space”
April 8 – May 11, 2014″
The William Benton Museum of Art

FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS AND ADVICE

GALLERY FRAMES

Thin Profile: 102
Type: thin gallery frame
Wood & Finish: maple wood frame with white opaque finish
Purchasing Option: joined wood frame with splines
Custom Wood Spacer: 1/2″ wood frame spacer
Custom Wood Strainer: 3/4″ wood frame strainer
Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames

Providing professional framing advice to art students has been a long term goal of ours. For artists to be successful as they enter their professional life it is necessary to understand how to present their work professionally. After meeting with the director of graduate and undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota, Metroframe has established a framing award for one  BFA and one MFA student. Our goal is to help the student understand the basics of framing their work and to help us better understand what we may need to do to make the process easier for them.

The first MFA student award winner is Jamie Kinroy. Jamie Kinroy is a Scottish artist who makes drawings, paintings and prints. He completed his BA in drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art in 2010. After graduating, Jamie drew, exhibited, and helped found the artist’s collective Clusterbomb. In 2011 he moved to Minneapolis and began his MFA at the University of Minnesota. To learn more about the artist  read the  interview done in Brockigraphica.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is rooted in comics, but rejects sequential illustration, ‘plot’ or single narratives, and is instead focused solely on intricately designed locations or environments. The images work together in the aim of building a comprehensive picture of a personal urban cosmology; an imagined, but contemporary and global city, built out of my influences and lived experience of a range of places – Scotland, Minneapolis, Japan.

Functioning in a similar way to the open-world environments of the current generation of video games (like Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V), my work aims for the possibility that viewers might put themselves in, and imaginatively navigate the spaces I construct.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

brown study
n. a state of serious absorption or abstraction
The Katherine E. Nash Gallery presents brown study, a group exhibition of seven artists about to complete the Master of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota. The artworks are made in a diverse range of media including ceramics,drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, installation, sound and video.

Artists Included in the Exhibition
Miranda Brandon,  Terry Hildebrand,  Teréz Iacovino,  Jamie Kinroy,  Marie Schrobilgen, Michelle Summers and Ryan Wurst

brown study
n. a state of serious absorption or abstraction
April 8 – April 26, 2014
Katherine E. Nash Gallery
Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota

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NIELSEN METAL FRAMES

Profile: Nielsen Profile 117
Finish: black metal frame
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Observing Vermont Architecture features some one hundred photographs by Curtis B. Johnson selected to accompany the newly published Buildings of Vermont co-authored by Johnson and Glenn M. Andres. Curated by the authors, the exhibition celebrates an architectural heritage that has made Vermont the only state in the Union to be designated in its entirety as a national treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Beyond Vermont’s famously wonderful and evocative meeting houses and barns, its villages, cities, and landscapes present a remarkably intact and comprehensive  microcosm of the American building experience from revolutionary times to the present. Major national and regional architects and talented master builders have drawn upon the state’s abundant building materials—wood, stone, brick, marble, slate, and granite—to create structures in high style as well as regional vernaculars. The buildings may be more modest in scale and pretension than those found elsewhere, but they are of no lesser quality, and they and their settings  are often better preserved. They represent technical limitations and innovations, and they chronicle social and economic developments. Mainstream or idiosyncratic, they also embody a story of Vermont’s regional values, cultural imagery and  local ambitions.

The study from which they have been drawn is part of a national series, The Buildings of the United States, sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians. Twenty years in the making, it represents a culling of some forty thousand buildings on the State and National Registers to arrive at approximately six hundred and fifty examples that can tell the built story of the state from its earliest days to the present.  They have been selected to represent Vermont’s every region, historic period, and genre of building—from the grand to the humble.

Chittenden Roller Mills, 1856—1885, Jericho village. (Photo: Curtis Johnson)	Crossett Library, 1957—59, Pietro Belluschi with Carl Koch and Associates; Sasaki Associates, landscape, North Bennington. (Photo: Curtis Johnson)
Immaculate Heart of Mary, 1892, George Guernsey, City of Rutland. (Photo: Curtis Johnson)	Grassemount, 1804, John Johnson and Abram Stevens; 1824, 1856 additions, Burlington. (Photo: Curtis Johnson)
Downtown City of Rutland, 1852—1930. (Photo: Curtis Johnson)	Hewett Barn, 1859, Justin Bugbee (builder), Pomfret. (Photo: Curtis Johnson)

“Observing Vermont Architecture”
January 7, 2014 – March 23, 2014
Middlebury College Museum Of Art
Middlebury, VT

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Standard Profile: 106
Type: standard gallery frame
Wood & Finish: ash wood frame with clear lacquer finish
Purchasing Options: joined wood frame
Framing Advice: fitting gallery frames