Octagon Center for the Arts

Alight and Allure EMILY MINNIE
2020-01-18 10:00 - 2020-03-21 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue, Ames, IA, 50010, United States
LOCATED IN THE COMMUNITY GALLERY (FIRST FLOOR)
Artist Biography
Emily Lambertsen Minnie is an artist who specializes in charcoal drawing and oil painting. She
earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Northern Iowa and a Master of
Fine Arts degree from the University of Tennessee. Emily taught art for three years at Tulane
University in New Orleans before living and working as an artist and illustrator for seven years in
Brooklyn, NY. In the summer of 2016 she moved back to Iowa. She currently enjoys dividing her
time between drawing and painting in her Iowa City home studio, working for the Iowa City
School District and family time spent with her husband and two children.
Artist Statement
My art practice is the study, investigation and re-creation of images that entice and allure me
due to the beauty of their light and composition and the drama created by the human form
frozen in a moment. I employ the ability of a two-dimensional artwork whose source is photo or
film, to feel personal and familiar while working to create artwork that is separated from its
source material’s narrative and considered for its core essence.
My charcoal series consists of 19” x 30” drawings on BFK Rives Paper. I love to watch the
drama created on the gallery wall by these black and white images. From afar they look like
their source film still. Up close, they reduce to illusions of light and velvety smudges of charcoal.
My wall installations are made sight specific to fit the wall. They are created from small, hand
drawn pencil sketches and watercolors that are scanned, enlarged and printed on pre-pasted
wallpaper. In a gallery, the change of scale to life-sized adds a human connection and the
enlarged nature reveals an exaggerated artist’s mark.
My oil paintings are created on gallery wrapped 24” x 36” canvas. My canvas preparation
consists of 3 coats of gesso with a fine grit sanding between each coat. While painting, I get lost
in the textured and smooth layers of warm and cool tones mingling together. I find great
satisfaction creating paintings of figures that, even in their stillness, interact with the space and
the light around them.

Limens CHRISTOPHER CHIAVETTA
2020-02-07 10:00 - 2020-03-21 17:00
LOCATED IN SWEENEY GALLERY (THIRD FLOOR)
Artist Statement
Limen may pertain to the sill of a doorway, the threshold itself, or the point at which a stimulus
produces a physiological or psychological response. It marks a boundary of perception. The
thresholds presented here explore feelings of liminality, and loss. Things emerge and divide,
crystalize in time, accrete, stratify, and dissolve. Sometimes they just burn. I see in these
material states of transformation a way to discuss inner experience, but I also see them as the
life expressions of the immanent world. Processing charcoal at home has become a way for me
to reflect on these subjects in a direct and personal manner.

OCTAGONAL 2020: The Annual All Media Exhibit
2020-02-07 10:00 - 2020-04-04 17:00
LOCATED IN THE MAIN GALLERY
Octagonal: The All-Media Exhibit is the annual, juried all-media exhibition at the Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames, Iowa. Originally titled the Clay and Paper Show, the exhibit opened in 1968 to provide an opportunity to the central Iowa arts community. Over the past 51 years, the exhibit morphed over the decades to become the Clay, Fiber, Paper, Glass, Metal, Wood Exhibit that has featured hundreds of artists from dozens of states. The newest version of the exhibit, Octagonal: The All-Media Exhibit, launched in 2018 taking a note from the past while moving forward to continue to provide an exciting opportunity for artists across Iowa, the Midwest, and the nation. This exhibit features a regionally-recognized juror each year, attracts artists from across the United States, and provides significant cash awards.
2020 Juror: Jordan Weber
Using utilitarian materials, Jordan Weber produces sculptural social objects that speak to the ways in which racially oppressed peoples are restricted physically, geographically, and socially. The architecture of his work attempts to create inclusive environments where visitors might test or practice forms of sustainable urbanism. These public works are often modified to fit the site specificity of their environments both inside museums and cultural institutions and individual communities alike.
Weber is a Des Moines based multi-disciplinary artist/activist who works predominately with inner-city communities nationwide. His work has been exhibited at White Box, New York; Union for Contemporary Art, Omaha; Intersect Art Center, St. Louis; The Soap Factory, Minneapolis; Smack Mellon, New York; Manifest Justice, Los Angeles; Charlotte Street Foundation; Kansas City; Gallery 38, Los Angeles; Open Engagement, Chicago; Truth to Power, Philadelphia; 50/50, Kansas City. Awards and fellowships include Harvard LOEB candidate, A Blade of Grass fellowship NYC, Tanne Foundation award, Joan Mitchell nominee, USA Artist nominee, Des Moines Public Art Foundation fellowship, Iowa Arts Council Artist Fellowship (Creative Capital) and the African American Leadership Forum Fellowship. He is currently in residence at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Thank you to HAILA Architecture Structure Planning Ltd. and the Huff Endowment for sponsoring Jordan’s juror honorarium.

2020 Selected Work
A sincere thank you to all who submitted work. Congratulations to those whose work was chosen for this year’s exhibit. Please join us for the reception on February 7, 2020, 5 – 7pm with awards presented at 6pm.
