Rachel Bruya is a printmaker who lives and works in St. Paul, MN. She earned a BFA in photography from the University of Washington-Seattle in 1999 and graduated with an MFA in printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2007, where she studied with Frances Myers and Jack Damer. Bruya spent eight years working for architecture firms, which informs the work she does now, and has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, City College of San Francisco, the Milwaukee Institute of Art + Design and at Edgewood College, Madison. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art at UW-Stout, Menomonie.

Bruya’s work is centered on print media, but can include drawing and photography, and often engages 3-dimensional space. She sees a switch of media as a “translation” of the idea she is working on, allowing her to study the idea and expand it. She is intensely interested in how what we see and experience can affect our subconscious and guide us to certain thoughts, emotions, and actions.

The work currently in my studio are reflections on death, grief, loss and how community and relationships can suture the edges of those experiences. All of the work in this exhibition is grounded in printmaking, the materials of which leave an indelible mark on paper, just as life experiences leave upon us.

Bruya’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art in San Jose, CA; the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI; the Cello Factory in London; and in several national printmaking exhibitions. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend; the Target Corporation in Minneapolis; Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA; and the Los Angeles (CA) Center for Digital Art.

Don Dickinson of St. Paul, MN, is a painter. He studied architecture at the University of Oregon, photography at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and has a BFA in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After a 12-year career in photography in Los Angeles, he taught drawing, painting, photography, and computer graphics at the high school and college level in the Chicago area for 14 years.

These pieces are an exploration of urban landscapes and the energy they create. I’m interested in how that energy is visualized. Cities can be chaotic experiences and the challenge is to produce an equivalent feeling. Fracturing the subject matter creates the visual energy and also adds the necessary chaos. Artistically the grid provides an organizing static visual to contrast with the underlying asymmetrical chaos of the fractured subject matter. I have also tried to stay away from static “pretty” compositions in favor of more diagonals and oblique collaging, going more in the direction of a raw “street photography” approach, such as in the work of Gary Winogrand and Joel Meyerowitz. The grids and fractures also provide a wonderful opportunity to explore various treatments of edges, one of my favorite painting endeavors.

Dickinson’s work has been seen in various national shows over the years and is in numerous private collections. His work has been included in the Minnesota State Fair Fine Art Exhibition six times, including 2022 and 2021. And, it has been exhibited at several local venues such as Artistry, Bloomington, MN (2020), Arts North at Hopkins Center for the Arts, and the Swedish American Institute (2021, 2019 runner up Best of Show). His work was featured on the catalogue cover for the Spring 2018 St. Paul Art Crawl. In the Twin Cities his work can be seen at the Dow Gallery in the Midway area of St. Paul.

Steve King of Hudson, WI, is a stained-glass artist. He went to colleges in California and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree and a Masters. Neither degree was in art. More influential than college classes were his mother, who was an accomplished painter and sculptor, and his father, who invented devices used in nuclear medicine. King was a teacher in the US and in Japan, Germany, Spain, and Italy, and has received recognition for his teaching in National Geographic and other publications.

Rivers are vibrant and edgy and stir things up. They cause great trouble and tremendous beauty while they grind away, carving into history. Rivers don’t make mistakes. A course correction is their nature, not a sign of failure. I am lucky to have lived near rivers throughout my life. They have influenced me and were my inspiration for all the work in this exhibit.

I enjoy working with sheets of stained glass because it is a brutal medium. It demands concentrated physical effort. When making art, glass does not lend itself to flexibility or spontaneity. Everything about working in glass is intentional. Sometimes this fragile material shatters, resulting in challenging limitations of glass sizes, colors and textures. This is oddly beneficial as I am forced to then stretch my original idea and reconsider the design as I adapt to such unforeseen limitations.

Even when completed, art in stained glass is not finished, not truly alive, until light is breathing through it. I can’t determine that illumination and therefore cannot claim to be the sole creator of how my artwork appears and the feelings it evokes. It’s that enduring challenge and beauty that keeps me working in glass.

King’s art is in private collections and installed in public buildings in the US and Europe.

Charley (C. B.) Murphy of Marine on St Croix, MN, is a painter and sculptor. He has a degree in Geography from UMN (1971). Murphy is retired from a career in marketing and product development and has also been a filmmaker, illustrator, cartoonist, novelist, and art educator. For ten years he has been a volunteer art teacher at Stillwater Prison. He paints primarily with acrylics (spraying to encourage natural flow patterns) while his sculptures and masks are created from found objects. Murphy is inspired by street art and signage from a variety of cultures, as well as by American (Johns, Lichtenstein, Warhol) and European (Rauch, Richter, Bacon) painters and movements (Surrealism, Pop Surrealism) of the past century. He is also interested in contemporary scientific (physics, anatomy) and historical (alchemy) diagrams.

His paintings are characterized by complex layering in both their graphic components and their meaning. Stylistically Murphy’s work can be grouped with Pop Surrealism, which he describes as art that “uses recognizable narrative imagery placed in situations or compositions that are unrealistic or dreamscape.”

My art is a conversation between interior realities (feelings, thoughts, dreams) and the collective unconscious (pop culture, classic archetypes, science, history).

I enjoy using apparent contradictions and paradoxes in my art. Something can be simple and complex at the same time. Paradox can be a doorway to a moment when the mind is halted and forced to be in the present moment, looking with awe and wonder at the unknown.

Murphy’s work has been exhibited in juried exhibitions most recently at The Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI (2019); Arts Council of Fayetteville (NC) (2019); Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY (2019); Prairie Village (KS) Arts Council (2019); Ala Gallery by the Lake, Lake Charles, LA (2018); and The Studio Door, San Diego, CA (2017).

David Strom paints and draws in Windom, MN. He received his BFA in Painting from Minneapolis College of Art and Design (1973) and studied at Skowhegan (ME) School of Painting and Sculpture (1972) and Edinburgh (Scotland) Arts ’73. Strom works with acrylics and pen & ink on paper and canvas. The southwest Minnesota rural landscape has been his main interest.

In 2019, he combined realism and fantasy in a series of black acrylic and ink drawings that refer to gray steel grain bins, elevators, wind turbines, round bales, roads, ropes, rows of crops in all stages, and the abstract way that we define the land using maps, specifically plat maps. These elements are combined by putting them in vignettes and connecting them together much like one would make a quilt or illustrate a graphic novel. Strom received a grant in 2021 from Southwest Minnesota Arts Council (SMAC) to interpret twelve of these drawings as acrylic paintings, introducing color. The paintings use the drawings as a starting point and then take off from there. Strom thinks of it like music with sharps and flats, slow and fast, rest and rhythm, etc.; the end result being 12 dancing pairs of drawings and paintings reflecting and interpreting the landscape he lives in and what lives within him. Genius Loci.

Painting is like putting a puzzle together of layered colors and shapes.

Strom has shown extensively in the region, including most recently at Remick Gallery, Windom (2022); Arts on Grand, Spencer, IA (2021); Pearson Lakes Art Center, Witter Gallery, Storm Lake, IA (2018); Okoboji, IA (2017); and Carnegie Art Center, Mankato, MN (2016); as well as numerous times in the Minnesota State Fair Juried Fine Arts Exhibition. Strom has received Individual Artist Career Grants from SMAC funded by the McKnight Foundation, Marshall, MN (2021, 2011, 2004).

River Maria Urke is a multimedia artist living near the Kinnickinnic River in River Falls, WI. A graduate of UMN-Duluth, she earned degrees in American Indian Studies and Anthropology, and took numerous classes from modern dance to abstract painting to black and white photography. Her output includes driftwood creations, dreamcatchers, moon hangings, storyboards, wearable art, paintings, photography, sculpture, and writings. She has published books of poetry and non-fiction. Urke often incorporates found and recycled materials in her work, blending different materials and forms into a sculpture or story board. She frequently interweaves her poetry and visual art.

I have used the same phrase in relation to my work for over 15 years -- the heart of a poet and the eyes of an artist. I am a multimedia artist who enjoys blending two or more mediums together. I paint, bead, weave webs, sew, take photos, and write poems. Often, I integrate poetry and art into one artistic piece. My work is inspired by the natural world and all her wonder, the environment’s security, and my Ojibwe heritage. My works are influenced by traditional ways of art and craft, new and unique ide, and the concepts of story quilts.

I aim to create an experience of culture and fantasy using the symbiotic relationship of poetry and art. I have fused verse with one or more artistic expressions to form pieces of mixed media with deeper meanings. I share my voice with you.

Urke has exhibited her creations most recently at ArtReach St. Croix, Stillwater, MN (2022); Kinni Arts Fair, CAB River Falls (20121); Arts House, CAB River Falls (2021); and What We Need Is Here, The Phipps, Hudson, WI (2021). She was named a Poet in Place: Lower St. Croix Valley in 2022.