MERGE 2010 Alumni Exhibition featured artist, Carolin Rutsche

Influenced by Lyonel Feininger, Carolin Rutsche (’09, art) creates her work from her surroundings, including the architectural details of buildings in her proximity, interesting negative spaces, and colors. A professional artist, she has shown here work at the Denver International Airport, the Core New Art Space in Denver's Santa Fe Art District and other local art galleries. She finds inspiration for her paintings through her travels.

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.
Metro State: How would you characterize your art?
Carolin Rutsche: Urban Abstract Contemporary Precisionism (Cubist Realism) paintings in oil and watercolor

MS: Tell me about your latest work and why you are inspired by it.
CR: My current work is narrative in quality and depicts places of transportation of my past in Berlin, Germany. Locations I regularly travelled to represent starting points, crossing points and destinations. The paintings reveal images from memory, the train and subway stations of Berlin that were once part of my daily life … I see through a geometrical lens in which the picture plane is broken up by dividing lines and shapes similar to the precisionist style.

MS: In what ways did your Metro State professors influence your work?
CR: They influenced my work immensely. Amy Metier has always pushed me to go beyond of what I thought I could accomplish. She was a constant inspiration in all aspects of [my life as an artist], instilling an incredible work ethic and having an abundance of knowledge and wisdom to give. Anna Kaye’s knowledge and power of teaching was equally impressive, as well as Linda Sanchez’ infectious love and enthusiasm for art history that got me thinking of a double major. So many professors had so much to give. [There is] not enough time and space to list them all. They were great!

MS: How has your work evolved since you graduated?
CR: It is still evolving. Just shy of my graduating semester, I finally found myself as an artist and I am still “refining myself” and am enjoying the process very much!

MS: Tell me why you submitted the pieces that you did for MERGE.
CR: It is a piece from my “Transit Memories II” series. It represents my current body of work very well.

MS: How do you feel about this opportunity to present your work for Metro State’s new CVA facility?
CR: It is exciting! Metro has found a new permanent home in the Santa Fe Arts district and I am honored to be able to be a part of a great group of alumni for this exhibition to celebrate its last 20 years and a new beginning.
For more information, visit Rutsche’s website. www.CRutsche.com

MERGE featured artist of the week, Adesola Owolabi

Adesola Owolabi is this Friday’s featured MERGE artist. Owolabi graduated just last year, after changing her major from computer information systems to art, with an emphasis on ceramics. We caught up with her both by email and at the grand opening event. Check out the video of her talking about the piece she submitted to MERGE and why she love Metro State.

Metro State: How do you characterize your art?
Adesola Owolabi: Symbolic

MS: Tell me about your latest work and why you are inspired by it.
AO: My new series title “Ifesowapo” is inspired by my relationship with everyone around me.

MS: In what ways did your Metro State Professors influence your works?
AO: Tsehai Johnson and Kathleen Royster-Lamb’s encouragement and the persistent push to take my work to the next level really gave me high hope in everything I do. Also, my interning with Tsehai while I was at school was an eye opener to the art world.

MS: How has your work evolved since you graduated?
AO: I have so much time now for proper planning and layout before anything is executed and have been leaning more towards sculptural rather than functional.

MS: Tell me why you submitted the piece you did for MERGE.
AO: I submitted the piece because it was my latest best and one of my largest.

MS: How do you feel about this opportunity to present your work for Metro State’s new CVA facility?
AO: I feel honored to be part of the Metro Art Community and Metro State at large

MS: Is there anything I am not asking you that you want to share with me?
AO: I missed living in Colorado, but it's always going to be home too.

Read more about Owolabi on the Metro State Web site or by checking out the 9News piece in which she was featured.

MERGE: Metro State Alumni Exhibition 2010 – The Anniversary Year

July 16 - August 28

Opening reception July 16
6-7 pm: Private artist reception for members and special guests
7-9 pm: Public reception MERGE was juried by Greg Watts, current Chair of the Metro State Department of Art and Barbara Houghton, Professor of Art at Northern Kentucky University and former Chair of the Metro State

Department of Art. As the CVA celebrates its 20th Anniversary it is significant that these two jurors have joined forces. Barbara Houghton played a considerable role in the creation of the CVA 20 years ago and Greg Watts has helped develop the CVA into its role today as contributor to the Rocky Mountain art scene and most recently, as an important anchor for the Santa Fe arts district.

Highlighting some of the best talent to come out of the Metro State Art Department, MERGE features both emerging and well established artists, juried from a local and national basis.

Eligibility to participate in MERGE was open to artists who graduated from Metro State in 2009 or earlier. All work was completed within the last three years. Profiles of the artists will be posted to the CVA Facebook page every week for the duration of the exhibition.

Artists:
Jeffery Ball, Phil Bender, Cristine Boyd, Mary Cay, Gabriel Christus, Evan Colbert, Terry Decker, Heather Doyle-Maier, Robert Dunahay, Mark Friday, Shawn Garvin, Jennifer Ghormley, Jason Gimbel, Kathryn Gregonis, Celina Grigore, Megan Harrison, Katie Hoffman, Conor Hollis, Jennifer Jeannelle, Heidi Jung, Josiah Lopez, Merlin Madrid, Dawn McFadden, Skyler McGee, Todd Muller, Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, Luzia Ornelas, Adesola Owolabi, J. John Priola, Marie Quinn, Brian Rendon, Claudia Roulier, Sean Rozales, Caroline Rutsche, Dave Seiler, Tony Stanzione, Sue Whitmore, Kyle Wimmer

The CVA is open late First and Third Fridays until 8 p.m. - August 6 and 20
Hours: Tuesday-Friday 11am-6pm, Saturday noon-5pm. www.MetroStateCVA.org
Admission is free.
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MERGE: Alumni Exhibition 2010, Featured Artist Jennifer Jeannelle

Jennifer Jeannelle ('98, art) is this week’s second featured MERGE artist. Jeannelle teaches ceramics and sculpture to high school students, has led workshops for other Colorado art teachers and plans on participating in a teacher exchange to Europe. While working full-time and raising a family, she maintains her studio, often creating art alongside her students. Jeannelle received her BFA in Art from Metro State in 1998 and an MFA from the Art Institute of Boston soon thereafter.


Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Metro State: How would you characterize your art?
Jennifer Jeannelle: I tend to refer to myself as a mixed media sculptor since I seem to enjoy creating my art with a wide range of materials. I will always be most loyal to clay, however, and always like to include it in my art somehow. Because of clay's inherent connection with the earth, my work also tends to have environmental and science-based themes.

MS: Tell me about your latest work and why you are inspired by it.
JJ: My latest body of work is about the cyclical endeavor of decay and re-growth. I like to create visual connections between the natural world and manmade objects and tend to explore the transcendence of time.

MS: In what ways did your Metro State professors influence your work?
JJ: Wow! I had some amazing influence by two professors in particular - Rodger Lang and Susan Josepher. Both encouraged me to not be intimidated by my big ideas and recognized my drive to create and teach others about my passion for art. I think of these two often and how their words of wisdom still, 12 years later, help me to make decisions about my career.

MS: How has your work evolved since you graduated?
JJ: It has definitely grown in size! I was very interested the intimacy of the object as an undergrad and created very small, detailed pieces to pull the viewer closer to the work. Now, I wish to create a space in which the viewer can be surrounded by an art experience

MS: Tell me why you submitted the pieces that you did for MERGE.
JJ: I was excited for the opportunity and wanted to show pieces that represented my progress as an artist. The series that is featured in the MERGE show represents a turning point in the direction of my work.

MS: How do you feel about this opportunity to present your work for Metro State’s new CVA facility?
JJ: Of course, it's an honor! It's an exciting opportunity for Metro and CVA to continue growth in the arts program. I am proud to be a part.

MS: Is there anything I’m not asking you that you want to share with me?
JJ: I love travelling and love teaching and love my family. How I manage to juggle my busy schedule sometimes baffles me, but when you are creating a life you love, you find a way to make it work!

To see more of Jeannelle's work, please visit her Web site.

Each week, from now until August 28, the Office of Alumni Relations will do a short Q&A with one to three artists who are featured in the Center for Visual Art’s MERGE: Metro State Alumni Exhibition.

MERGE: Alumni Exhibition 2010. Featured Artist: Celina Grigore

Each week, from now until August 28, the Office of Alumni Relations will do a short Q&A with one to three artists who are featured in the Center for Visual Art’s MERGE: Metro State Alumni Exhibition.

This week's featured artist is Celina Grigore ('98, art). Originally from Romania, she relocated to United States in 1993. She gleaned her education and experience with art both through her travels outside of Romania and while attending the National University of Art, in Bucharest. She majored in fine arts after completing a 6-year program. She then pursued another degree in Communication Design at Metropolitan State College of Denver, graduating in 1998.

Metro State: How would you characterize your art?
Celina Grigore: Passionate. Engaging. Intense. Symbolic. Metaphoric. Imaginative. Process-Oriented. … and, at this time, literally: BLACK-and-WHITE.

I learned to treasure the objects and beings around me not merely for their pictorial quality but more for their symbolic meanings and potential archetypal configurations. On the infinite dome above, I may instinctively contemplate the "illusory beauty of flying wings." Beyond that, the challenge is to open my eyes wider and look for the "inward nature of flight." The process of structuring my fantasy into the solidity and character of balanced compositions is a key component of my mind and the reason why my life is a perpetual adventure.

MS: Tell me about your latest work and why you are inspired by it.
CG: Inspired by travels, journeys, flight, time, space and the coexistence of opposing forces, several cycles of pen & ink drawings have emerged from my studio, awaiting their unveiling to the public eye. One is the "Migration" series: Traveling is experiencing with intensity.

Beyond exploring, traveling is about acquiring a sense of place.

Beyond contemplating the flow of shapes in a landscape, I kneel to the ground, run my fingers through sand, dirt, grass. I focus on the silence. In that frame of mind and spirit I try to feel the life force within, a pulse.

Beyond entering and exiting a space, I accumulate visual information by observing key-characteristics from up-close and up-above. I make note of features from a variety of perspectives to the target-objects: from the growth pattern of a leaf to the structure of a village seen from atop a medieval tower, from the abstract erosions carved by time into a piece of stone to the striped vineyard patterns on the hills of a Tuscan landscape. Up-close characteristics generate texture. Up-above characteristics determine structure.

By the time I leave, I have an imprint of that place.

My studio work starts with translating that imprint–an exaltation of the senses–into a visual language. A new journey is about to begin.

The process of distilling emotion into formal elements generates a wave of idea-sketches. Key elements start defining an essence of space. Communicating to the viewer a sense of space is not done by means of expected spacial relationships as much as it is done by means of emotional association and symbolic interconnections."

MS: In what ways did your Metro State professors influence your work?
CG: The education at MSCD contributed in a definitive manner to my integration and understanding of a completely new social and cultural environment. The years spent at MSCD allowed for the favorable encounter with professors of high caliber like Mrs. Carla Tedeschi, an exquisitely knowledgeable, upbeat graphic design professional. One of the elective courses that had a high impact on me was Black-and-White Photography with Mr. Greg Watts along with the opportunity to spend countless hours in a well equipped dark room working on my photographs. Ever since, I have never parted from a camera for more than a couple of days at a time, evolving into the all-digital.

MS: How has your work evolved since you graduated?
CG: The education that I had been privileged to be offered at MSCD prepared me for being able to dive within days after graduation into the competitive graphic design, advertising and corporate identity field in Denver. I have been involved with a large number of interesting projects from their inception through their completion. The positions I held along with a solid number of diverse freelance projects allowed me to meet impressive top notch professionals in the communication design field from whom I have acquired meaningful knowledge and new perspectives. This decade-long experience allowed me to grow as a professional and as an individual. I have worked at building my fine arts body of work in ALL available time that holding full-time jobs have allowed me to. Since 2007, I have dedicated myself full-time to pursuing my fine arts career. I consider that to be my true passion and my vocation in life.

MS: Tell me why you submitted the pieces that you did for MERGE.
CG: First: I believe that the symbolic connotations that pieces from the "Migration" series carry within them are relevant to the audience that the new location of the "Center for Visual Arts" now has the opportunity to reach.

Second: The pieces from the "Migration" series are representative of the body of artwork that I have been engaged in developing for many years now, specifically the past three years.

Not in the least, I invite you, the reader, to come to CVA, see "Metaphor. Migration" as part of the "Merge" exhibition and make your own mind up about the "Why" of my choice. … Or you can simply ask me directly. I will be there.

MS: How do you feel about this opportunity to present your work for Metro State’s new CVA facility?
CG: It is an honor to have been selected as a result of a juried process to be part of the upcoming "Merge" exhibition. As an MSCD alumnus, I'm quite proud of the latest accomplishment of the Art Department having been able to acquire a permanent home for the "Center for Visual Art." There is no doubt in my mind that CVA will do a great curatorial and public relation job for all upcoming exhibitions, "Merge" included, keeping up with their tradition of excellence for the past 20 years.

MS: Is there anything I’m not asking you that you want to share with me?
CG: How about plans for the immediate future? I would like to have the opportunity to exhibit most of my "Migration" black-and-white drawing series in a contemporary space that could accommodate it in size, spirit and level of public exposure. I strongly believe this body of work deserves a well-curated public exposure in a "brick-and-mortar" gallery. I'm working towards it, and I hope that one day one of my proposals to a prestigious exhibition space in the Denver/Boulder area or elsewhere will become a relevant, tangible art event. It is no secret: my heart is set on Colorado, the place I have landed on by choice and developed new roots as part of my own migratory journey as a free citizen of the world. Looking back, I'm pleased I did.

For more information on Celina Grigore's artwork, you are invited to visit the artist's Web site. Or check out a Web site of her exhibitions by clicking here.

All photos Copyright © by Celina Grigore. All rights reserved.

MERGE: Alumni Exhibition. Featured artist Jason Lee Gimbel

Each week, from now until August 28, the Office of Alumni Relations will do a short Q&A with one to three artists who are featured in the Center for Visual Art’s MERGE: Metro State Alumni Exhibition 2010.

This week’s featured artist is Jason Lee Gimbel. Gimbel graduated from Metro State in 1998 with a BFA in Drawing and Printmaking. His work has displayed in venues throughout Denver.

Metro State: How would you characterize your art?
Jason Gimbel: My art can be described as a deconstruction of my own processes and ideas. I am a conceptual figurative artist.

MS: Tell me about your latest work and why you are inspired by it.
JG: The pieces that I’m creating are digital assemblages of my figure drawing. Most on my work consists of destroying and rebuilding my own work.

MS: In what ways did your Metro State professors influence your work?
JG: Reflecting back on my Metro days, I see how certain influences dominated my art and how I slowly broke away from that influence. I try to be mindful of how external noise seeps into my work.

MS: How has your work evolved since you graduated?
JG: I focus more on mastering what I do; it’s about the refinement of my process and tapping into deeper thoughts that create a narrative. When I was in college, I was more concerned with earning a degree.

MS: Tell me why you submitted the pieces that you did for MERGE.
JG: I am proud to be a part of the Metro Alumni and fully support the CVA and its staff. I think that it’s an amazing facility and happy that the CVA has a permanent home in the Arts District. Why would I not submit my work?

MS: How do you feel about this opportunity to present your work for Metro State’s new CVA facility?
JG: By being included in this exhibition, I feel that I am helping to continue grow the legacy of the CVA and Metro’s Art program. It’s an honor !

MS: Is there anything I’m not asking you that you want to share with me?
JG: I have a sweet tooth; I’m a smart ass with random epileptic attacks of seriousness and somewhere in the murky mess of my life I manage to be an artist.

For more information on Jason, please visit his Web site.