The Hillstrom Museum of Art at Gustavus Adolphus College will present Fluid Chromatics: Epoxy Paintings by Patrick Blaine, from November 24, 2014 through January 30, 2015, and FOCUS IN/ON: Everett Shinn’s Magician with Shears, from December 5, 2014 through January 30, 2015 and February 16 through April 19, 2015.
There will be an opening reception for Fluid Chromatics: Epoxy Paintings by Patrick Blaine from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 24, with comments from the artist at 7:30 p.m.
Fluid Chromatics: Epoxy Paintings by Patrick Blaine features fifty paintings by St. Paul artist Patrick Blaine, created in an epoxy medium that he developed through long and dangerous experimentation. The effect of these works, which feature imagery that is related to natural forms such as shells, leaves, pools of water, or clusters of frog eggs, is of rich, deep colors that seem to glow from within and that have a visually intense effect similar to that of paintings on copper. The primacy of color in his works is evident in the uniform title, Fluid Chromatic, Blaine has given to all the paintings in the exhibit.
Recently the artist has begun to combine his interest in nature photography, including that made during regular outings on bodies of water such as the Mississippi River, with his concern for color and for the epoxy medium. This exhibition includes his video titled Memories on the River Lethe, in which Blaine introduced hundreds of small, colorful epoxy globules, or resin stones as he calls them, into flowing water and recorded the effect. These globules were made by an accidentally discovered free-form molding process to create colorful, jewel-like cabochons of epoxy.
Blaine studied in doctoral programs in history and the history of science but left those pursuits to concentrate on art, having been a casual painter for many years. To date, Blaine has had few exhibitions, which include showings at the Marziart Internationale Galerie in Hamburg, Germany, and at the Blue Moon Café and the Frank Stone Gallery in Minneapolis.
FOCUS IN/ON: Everett Shinn’s Magician with Shears is another of the Museum’s FOCUS IN/ON projects, in which a single work from the Hillstrom Collection is analyzed in depth, in collaboration with a colleague from across the Gustavus Adolphus College curriculum. An oil painting titled Magician with Shears by American Ashcan painter Everett Shinn (1876-1953) is the subject of an exhibition and essay co-written by Micah J. Maatman, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, and Hillstrom Museum of Art Director Donald Myers, which considers the artist, his career, and his strong interest in theatre, in particular vaudeville, through the painting, and will also reconsider the painting’s likely date and suggest the identity of the particular magician depicted by Shinn.
Admission to the Hillstrom Museum of Art, including all receptions and special events, is free and open to the public. Regular Museum hours 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, and 1 to 5 p.m. on weekends. Please visit the Museum’s website at gustavus.edu/finearts/hillstrom for further information.
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