Each year, senior art majors at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University choose a title for the annual exhibition of their work – something they feel reflects their time on campus the past four years.
This year, the nine participating seniors picked “Inhale: Exhale,” viewing their art as if a deep breath.
The inhale represents all the personal experiences, lessons and growth they’ve taken in; the exhale the way it all comes out and is reflected in their work.
The exhibition kicks off with a reception scheduled for 1 p.m. this Saturday (March 28) and an artist talk scheduled for 2 at the Alice R. Rogers & Target Gallery on the SJU campus.
It is set to run through May 9.
“It’s really important to have a show like this,” SJU senior Colin Klein said. “It’s almost like a final send-off for us as art majors, and it’s a chance to show what we’ve been doing – not just over the past year, but the whole time we’ve been here.
“It’s a way to showcase the skills we’ve developed since we started out as freshmen and some of the new media we’ve taken on.”
For Klein, one of those new media has been animation. As an experienced graphic designer, who has worked in the CSB and SJU marketing and communications department for four years now, it’s a skill he wanted to add to his toolbox.
“I’d done a little bit of animation and stuff before this, but not anything major,” he said. “But part of the theme of this show is pushing boundaries and doing things you haven’t done before. So I wanted to try something new.”
That’s why he’s spent the past few months working on his first animated short film. The three-minute work is entitled “Lost,” and deals with the emotions that come with losing someone close to you. In Klein’s case, that person was his grandfather Del Pouliot, who passed away in 2020 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
The film will play on an older television in a set designed to look like a living room. Along with it, he will also be displaying a letterpress print (another medium he tried for the first time this year) and a poster print.
“(Taking on animation) has definitely been a big learning curve for me,” Klein said. “But it’s gotten easier the more I’ve done it, and the more time I’ve spent exploring the methods and themes that go into making something a narrative.
“By now, I think I’ve gotten a lot better at it.”
Fellow SJU senior Jonathan Andersen will be showing off his evolution as an artist as well. Andersen – who has channeled his interest in architecture into work with concrete casting – will be showing 13 concrete sculptures meant to demonstrate the way buildings can change over time.
“Most of these sculptures have weathering or marks on them similar to what you find on buildings we use every day,” Andersen said.
“Hopefully, when people leave the gallery, they’ll take a little more notice of those changes that can be found all around us.”
Andersen began working with concrete this past summer under the direction of visiting professor of art Steven Lemke. That work came after he was awarded the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholars Student-Driven Summer Research Fellowship in Ethics – which funds and supports CSB and SJU students receiving a summer of guided mentorship with a faculty member.
By the start of the school year, he’d designed and installed his first solo exhibition, entitled “Archival Architecture: An Exploration of Housing and Materiality Through Sculpture” which ran in the Exit Gallery inside the Art Center building at SJU.
And his passion for the medium has continued ever since.
“Concrete is all I’ve been focused on my entire senior year,” he said.
Andersen said that hunger for growth and evolution as an artist is what unites all nine of the participants in this year’s exhibition.
“We’re all doing completely different stuff, but what connects us is the journey of growth we’ve been on from our freshmen to senior years here,” Andersen said.
“That’s what this show is celebrating.”
