Haptic Image — Waiting Room

Haptic Image
February 6–March 14, 2015
Opening Reception: Friday, February 6, 7–10 pm

Waiting Room is pleased to announce Haptic Image, a group exhibition of recent work by Hartmut Austen, Katelyn Farstad, GraceMarie Keaton, and Justin Quinn. Curated by Jehra Patrick, Haptic Image gathers together photographic prints, drawings, collage, assemblage, and paintings, to demonstrate possibilities for mark-making through material.

Each of these artists maintains a traditional studio practice: a physical site for the contemplation, production, and iteration of images-as-objects. All embrace the tactility of their materials, operate as interveners on surface, and leave traces – brushwork, folds, creases, clipped edges, globs – of their hands' interactions with their objects. Their surfaces, even if built up or incised upon, are to be viewed head-on. All commit to a rectangular frame, either through paint on stretched canvas or by forms which proximate painting.

While material drives process, each of the artists begin with a found image or object, often historical or cast-off. They then work to obliterate, transform, mask, scale, fragment, build, and re-constitute their source-subject until a new image amalgamate is born. ‘Image' is the operative word - any traces of the pictorial are circumstantial; the works are now abstractions, stylizations, reductions, counterparts, and recursions. Even-handed touch affirms the image-ness of these pieces. Nothing singular is depicted, given focus, or hierarchy, which provides room for multiple entry points, readings, associations, and histories.

This combination of process, technique and uniform application results in an all-over touching, as well as evidence of decision-making – like residual finger traces on an iPad screen. No coincidence, this language of touching – in digital user experience this is known as haptics, or interactive feedback appealing to touch – opens new interpretations for the shorthand, secondhand, and sleight of hand, that these artists employ from mark, to materializing image, to contained and collective meaning.

The exhibition is welcomed by an opening reception at Waiting Room on Friday, February 6, from 7-10 pm. Waiting Room invites conversation and patronage during gallery hours and by appointment.

About Hartmut Austen
Hartmut Austen studied painting and drawing with H.J. Diehl at Hochschule der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin. As a member of the Telegraph Art Collective, he has worked and exhibited with artists of diverse disciplinary backgrounds. In 2009, Austen was awarded a prestigious Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellowship and was the Grant Wood Fellow for Painting and Drawing at the University or Iowa in 2012. He currently divides his time between Minneapolis, where he is teaching at the University of Minnesota during the year, and Detroit.
www.hartmutausten.com

About Katelyn Farstad
Katelyn Farstad has exhibited in Minneapolis at Midway Contemporary Art, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, They Won’t Find Us Here, and David Petersen Gallery. She as exhibited at Zach Feuer Gallery (New York), Synchronicity Space (Los Angeles), Julius Caesar (Chicago), and Luis Campana (Berlin). Farstad is also an active musician in the Twin Cities, playing drums in two bands, ‘Tips for Twat’ and ‘Larry Wish and His Guys’ and performs music solo under the moniker 'Itch Princess'. Farstad co-runs a dance expressionist group, ROXANNE, and is one of the forewomen at GAS GALLERY AND PRESS.
www.katelyn-farstad.com

About GraceMarie Keaton
GraceMarie Keaton is an artist currently based in Minneapolis, MN. She has shown work in multiple group exhibitions within the Midwest and East Coast, including Perspective Gallery (Chicago) and Dumbo Arts Building (Brooklyn), and has participated in several residency programs including 10 Chances Urban Artist Residency and Yale Norfolk's Summer program. Keaton received a Jerome Fellowship for Emerging Artist in 2013 and is a Minnesota State Arts Board recipient for 2015.
www.cargocollective.com/gracemariekeaton

About Justin Quinn
Justin Quinn has exhibited internationally, including the University of Reno, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Kunstlerhaus (Vienna), Andrea Rosen Gallery (New York), and Helmuth Projects (San Diego), and Kit Schulte Contemporary Art (Berlin). Quinn is represented by Conduit Gallery (Dallas), Cain Schulte Gallery (San Francisco), and Satellite Berlin (Berlin). He currently lives and teaches in St. Cloud, MN.
www.justinquinn.info

About curator Jehra Patrick
Also an artist, Jehra Patrick has exhibited internationally, including The Minnesota Museum of American Art, Rochester Art Center, The DeVos Museum of Art (Michigan), and Harcourt House Artist Run Centre (Alberta). Patrick has been a recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, McKnight Next Step Fund, and a Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists. She is a frequent lecturer, visiting critic, writer, and program organizer, on topics relevant to practices of visual artists.
www.jehrapatrick.com