JULY 13 – AUGUST 25, 2019
Emily Galusha Gallery
Main Gallery
The annual exhibition, Six McKnight Artists, features new work by the 2018 recipients of the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, Brett Freund (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Donovan Palmquist (Farmington, Minnesota), as well as by the 2018 recipients of the McKnight Artist Residency for Ceramic Artists: Derek Au (New York), Linda Cordell (Pennsylvania), Ian Meares (Arkansas), and Bryan Czibesz (New York). This exhibition, supported by the McKnight Foundation, showcases the success of each artist’s fellowship or residency.
Brett Freund graduated with an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, in 2011. He was an artist-in-residence at St. Petersburg Clay Company. After graduation, he was a Lormina Salter Fellow at Baltimore Clayworks. In 2012, Ceramics Monthly named him an Emerging Artist. Freund’s work incorporates color, sketching, and repetition. He intuitively constructs from slip-cast parts. The result is a single product that communicates preciousness, but is manipulated with a chaotic energy. Using prototypes and reproducible parts, Freund creates decorative objects with personal, interior spaces.
Donovan Palmquist has been making pots for over thirty years. Currently, he makes pots part-time and is the owner of Master Kiln Builders. He received his MFA in ceramics at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities in 1988. He exhibits his work nationally, and has received numerous grants and awards. Palmquist taught at Anoka-Ramsey Community College for several years prior to starting his kiln building business. He has been a guest lecturer at the Weisman Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. His primary interest is high-fire functional work, with a current focus on thrown and altered vessels finished in atmospheric firings.
Derek Au began his professional journey of life in the sciences, physics specifically, with forays into the Internet and as an environmental activist. All along he nurtured his ceramics practice. In 2007, he completed service on the Greenpeace ship “Rainbow Warrior” in China and began working in Jingdezhen, where he maintained a studio practice until he arrived in Minneapolis to be our 2018 Winter McKnight Artist Resident. Au is the creator of Glazy, an open-source ceramics database with over 6000 users, containing more than 15,000 glaze and clay recipes. In 2017 he began 72 Hands, a collection of videos documenting ceramics techniques. After his McKnight residency, he was accepted as a special student at Alfred University, and in the fall of 2019, he will begin a long-term residency at Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana.
Linda Cordell has been teaching in and around Pennsylvania since 2004, with full-time stints at Edinboro University and Kutztown University, both in Pennsylvania. Currently, she is Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Cordell received her BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and her MFA from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Her work has been exhibited in the Cheongju International Craft Biennale at the National Cheongju Museum, South Korea; the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; among others. She is a 1998 recipient of an Evelyn Shapiro Foundation Fellowship and a 2003 Pew Fellowship in the Arts in the category of crafts.
Ian Meares earned an MFA in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the University of California–Irvine, an MFA in ceramics and sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in the politics and ethos of East Asia from Eckerd College in Florida. Meares currently lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and is a resident artist, ceramic technician, and instructor for the University of Arkansas. His research and creative work is concerned with the complementary ways materials are shaped and meaning is made. He has been a visiting assistant professor at Ohio State University, Indiana University, and numerous other institutions. Meares has participated in residencies, as well as presented, demonstrated, and held solo and group exhibitions, in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada, England, and across the United States.
Bryan Czibesz teaches at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He has traveled extensively around the country in recent years as a visiting artist doing 3D printer builds at institutions of higher learning. Czibesz earned his MFA from San Diego State University and BA from Humboldt State University. He has shown his work throughout the United States and internationally, including the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design; the Riga Porcelain Museum in Latvia; and the Ceramics Annual at Scripps College. Czibesz has taught at Arcadia University, Rowan University, and has been an artist-in-residence at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia; the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét, Hungary; c.r.e.t.a. Rome; and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Related Events
Summer McKnight Open House: Saturday, July 13, 1 – 4 pm
Free and open to everyone
View the catalog