Halle Rittgers

Artist’s statement:

Halle Rittgers is a Minnesota-based painter and mixed-media artist who investigates the relationships between memory, play, movement, and meditation. Her work emphasizes the intentional and layered process of creating balanced compositions.

Each painting starts with playful experimentation as the brush meets the canvas and advances into thoughtful exploration. There is an ongoing conversation between the organic forms and gestural marks in her work as they create balance and hint at distant memories with her use of mark-making and recycled materials from past work. She sees her art as something hopeful and healing, always moving towards harmony and balance within each piece.

Artist Bio:

Her studies include a BFA in visual arts and a minor in teaching English as a second language from Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is the 2020 recipient of the Cameron Booth Memorial Painting Award and the 2021 Bethel University Purchase Award. Her work has been featured in multiple publications. She has also exhibited in two solo shows and numerous group exhibitions around the Twin Cities, including the Minnesota State Fair and the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.

Please contact Halle to make a purchase or to inquire about commissioning custom work.

Gallery at Cross
Chris Roth

Artist’s statement:

For work in my “I See You” series, I pair photographs with Scripture. However, instead of intentionally looking for photographic subjects that will communicate a scriptural truth, the opposite approach is taken. I meditate on images I’ve already shot and look for the Word of God to emerge, solving little theological puzzles of sorts.

God is not just present in cathedrals, sunsets, and butterflies. God does not just speak through prophets, priests, and kings. And so I’ve seen God in lonely desert ruins. I’ve heard the Word of God emerge from protests following tragedies. I’ve felt God’s truth in city streets where different cultures, faiths, passions, and experiences intersect.

I hope that my images will surprise, delight, and challenge you. But most of all, I pray that they will help you to see God’s presence in places that might be unexpected.

Artist Bio:

For 30 years, Chris Roth has been various combinations of an art and English teacher, communications and marketing director, graphic designer, and photographer. He grew up in Central Illinois and Southern Minnesota in a family of Lutheran church workers, so it came as little surprise when he decided to pursue a teaching career and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Art from Concordia University, St. Paul.

Chris is currently an art teacher and Director of Communications at Concordia Academy in Roseville, MN, and a graphic designer for Cross View Lutheran Church in Edina, MN. He is also an active photographer and freelance designer.

Gallery at Cross
Dan Petrov

Dan Petrov has worked hard to reclaim the old Renaissance style of oil painting, producing luscious still-life and portraits.

Artist’s statement:

My interest in oil painting formed very early with the realization that painting simultaneously takes me in three different directions: into the world, in the painting process and in the introspective process. It became obvious that technical skills of observation and application were paramount for visual expression and that is the reason that my painting practice was deeply rooted in Renaissance and Flemish Oil Painting Method combined with some contemporary aspects of Direct Painting Method.

In Still Life genre objects are not just the forms that receive the light. These paintings are conveying our existential relation to the nature and production that is in function of our sustenance and life. It also elevates our perception from mundane and ordinary to the level of beauty.

If we think about still life painting as a tool of transcendence of daily life, we cultivate higher experience of reality. In genres of portrait and figure I am interested to explore aspects of human condition, individuality, character, themes and feelings of impermanence, loss, grief, uncertainty and choices that are optimistic beyond the shallow feeling of happiness and directed to the meaning of individual and collective.

Artist Bio:

Dan Petrov is classically trained and educated art teacher and independent studio artist with 25 years of experience in assisting students in learning and developing understanding of all formal elements of visual representation with special focus on traditional oil painting techniques and methods of painting. Specializing in Renaissance and Flemish Oil Painting Method and modern forms of Alla Prima painting as fundamental skills for contemporary expression in painting.

Gallery at Cross
Katherine Boyce

Katherine observes ordinary cityscapes and landscapes, but when she paints them, somehow more than just the ordinary shines through—and that is the wonder of art.

Artist’s statement:

Katherine Boyce is an oil painter living and working in Minneapolis. Her body of work draws from her experience of her surrounding environment, whether city or wilderness. She uses paint to both capture and abstract the sense of space and atmosphere she perceives, such that her paintings are less a depiction of real scenes and more a memory of being somewhere. Her compositions are suspended between representational detail and abstraction, serving as a way to visualize her internal processing of the scenes and events she experiences in a wild, often maddening world.

This body of work includes paintings from several different series painted in 2018 and 2019, when Boyce began painting professionally. The variety of styles and themes represented are expressive of the myriad changes in her surroundings over the past five years. From the density of the city to the solitude of the Minnesota winter to the fragility of remote, endangered places, painting is Boyce’s way of paying attention to the spaces we create, inhabit, and impact as humans.

Boyce maintains a home studio practice and displays her work in Studio 364 of the Northrup King Building. In addition to painting, she is a freelance writer for the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District, as well as a volunteer from Princeton University with a degree in Politics and a certificate in Visual Arts.

Gallery at Cross
Matt Hebert

Matt is an artist and youth ministry director for Youth for Christ in St. Cloud, and has long been inspired by the relationship between creativity and connection.

Artist’s statement:

I’m interested in common things reconsidered, reorganized, reconciled by raw daylight. Bread, wine, buildings, landscapes, creatures, names, stories. I also like places of intersection... integration... places of overlap... where ideas, essence, and pavement converge in real time and space. Here’s my favorite such convergence: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us... (John 1:14).

The trouble of it is... the painting studio can be a scary place to try out such heady impressions of the universe. Bad ideas and strained skills quickly get exposed there, producing something akin to that vulnerable feeling you get in dreams where you wander crowded school cafeterias, clutching a lonely lunch tray, searching in vain for a place to sit down. Somehow, though, the fear and insecurity of the moment give way to an impulse, an instinct, too pesky to be outmatched by trepidation, and you eventually snatch a seat at The Table. An idea takes root. A vision emerges. And there, mingling in the company of interesting strangers who soon become friends... you eat... together. You discover a new story in the husk of the old, as one adventure gives way to the next.

This is my life... and my life in the studio. For no good art, and no good stories, come without risk.

Gallery at Cross
Douglas Ross

Douglas Ross is a retired professor from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His work includes intricate paintings that embrace the beauty of northern Minnesota, with its wealth of trees, rocks, and water.

Artist’s statement:

The present exhibition of paintings shown at the Gallery at Cross were drawn from three projets with which I have been involved over the past ten years. These projects have kept me very busy traveling and painting during that period. I visted all of the sites that are the subject matter for my paintings.

The first project began in early 2010 and presented an exciting and challenging task. The plan was to travel to all fifty states, photograph waterfalls in every state, and return to my studio to develop the paintings, a waterfall from each state.

Following the waterfall project I traveled from Lake Itasca down the west side of the Mississippi River to south of New Orleans and then back up the east side into Minnesota again. This project resulted in two paintings from each of the ten states that are bordered by the Mississippi.

I had just travelled from North to South and back again. Obviously, it was time for a trip from the Midwest to the West Coast. I crossed from Missouri to Kansas as did the pioneers whose adventure established the Oregon Trail. This project resulted in three paintings from the five states along the Oregon Trail.

“I have a dream...” Yes, I am still thinking of projects. Perhaps next:

the Appalachian Trail. We will see!

Gallery at Cross
Stephanie Hunder

Stephanie Hunder is a Professor of Art at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota. She teaches classes in printmaking and design foundations and is the Director of the Concordia Gallery. Originally from Rochester, Minnesota, Hunder received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and her Master of Fine Arts from Arizona State University. Her current work addresses relationships through natural iconography and combines photographic and digital techniques with traditional printmaking processes. As an educator, creating content through making is an area of special interest for Hunder. The significance of process – as exploring, researching, and creating – being central to learning and vocation is a focus in her teaching.

Artist’s statement:

Humans understand non-tangible ideas through metaphor, parallels of the material world. A tree sending out roots, a seed blowing on the wind – these natural processes are akin to the physical processes of the human body, representative of what we think, and how we structure those thoughts. Natural images are appealing and meaningful, conceptual on the most basic level.

I grew up in a family of doctors and amateur naturalists, collecting butterflies and identifying trees. My mother encouraged interest in the arts, and my older sister taught me how to draw and paint. However, learning printmaking and photography is what really helped me find my voice. I fell in love with these processes; they have a visual language that carries the idea of observation and recording, the beginning of understanding.

Some of the earliest pieces here explore narrative and tell a story not unlike a dream – symbolic elements are pulled together in ways that suggests intertwining ideas and relationships. The series of large black and white images focuses on spiritual symbolism and ways of understanding through metaphor. The belief that, in the darkest hour, a rose may bloom changes how we understand our world. As the moon reflects the sun, so moonlight on water may create an image of self-reflection – the water symbolizing our surfaces and depths. Plants grow, stars rise, materials crystallize, and chaos is tempered by order; this beauty we find in nature is a confirmation of meaning.

Gallery at Cross
Tom Maakestad

Tom Maakestad works and lives in Marine on St. Croix, MN where he has maintained a studio for the past 26 years. The Minneapolis area has been home-base since 1992. Prior to that Tom and his wife Anna lived in Hong Kong for 7 years where they both had busy careers and traveled extensively throughout Asia. Trekking in Nepal, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan among other countries gave them a first hand observation of different cultures and art forms.

His undergraduate work in literature and studio art propelled him into a parallel track as a graphic designer for the publishing industry as well as a full time artist. Maakestad’s exhibitions in the US and Asia have placed his work in many collections world-wide.

He recently judged the Minnesota State Fair Painting section of the fine arts exhibition and has received 4 grants through the Minnesota State Arts Board.

His main representation is through the Groveland Gallery where he will show his most recent MNSAB grant project next December, 2022.

Contact the Groveland Gallery for purchasing questions: 612-377-7800, by email: info@gallery.com or online at www.grovelandgallery.com.

Artist’s statement:

I work with oil paint, oil pastel and dry pastel using regional landscapes as my main focal point. In the early morning or late afternoon I look for vast expanses or the complexities formed by merging land masses with light and shadow. My color pallet is frequently limited to what I’m viewing at that time of year.

Oil pastel has been a versatile medium both for study and finished works. For the past 31 years I have used both dry and oil pastel to resolve compositions combining both drawing and painting techniques. The resulting larger oil paintings are much easier to manage from these studies.

My work attempts a realist fiction. Elements such as surface treatment, created light and color theory combine to suggest places that appeal to me. However close to the actual place or time of day the work does not attempt to create a copy of an event or place but to hopefully survive on its own as a cohesive composition.

Midwestern subject matter makes up the bulk of my work. The area around my parent’s farm in south central Minnesota has elements that I appreciate about this part of the country: long views from open ridge lines remind me of bus rides from my youth when valley bottoms were shrouded in fog, or sunsets that heighten the landforms and tree rows. All of these factors combine to create intriguing material from which to start my pictures.

Gallery at Cross
Mark Cosimini

Mark Cosimini is a painter working in oils and acrylics. He has always loved to paint. In college Mark double majored in studio arts (draw- ing and painting) and political science. He then attended William Mitchell College of Law where he met his wife. The majority of his legal career was as an assistant Hennepin County Public Defender. Mark’s wife passed away in 2010. Soon after her death he retired from law and decided it was time for a change. He returned to his original love, painting.

Artist’s statement:

Mark Cosimini has created two series of paintings; Altar Pieces and Social Landscapes. Additionally, he paints landscapes and still lifes. The majority of the work presented here are Social Landscapes.

In 2013 Mark began working on the series called Altar Pieces. These are abstract studies of of the interiors of churches. Those spaces were built not only to reflect great beauty, but to represent the virtue of those who occupy it. Looking at the beauty of these spaces and the values of those who worship in those spaces, lead him to his second series, Social Landscapes.

Mark started the Social Landscapes series in 2017. These are a series of paintings focusing on the less fortunate in society. Although land- scape painting may be defined as the depiction of nature, it is much more. Landscapes have progressed from serving as the background for religious and historical paintings to being a genre in themselves. By the 19th century landscapes were part of the romantic movement in art rep- resenting the glory of God’s work, and the struggles of man against the forces of nature. By the 20th century landscapes grew to include man’s struggles in urban and industrial scenes. Mark Cosimini’s Social Land- scapes look at the forgotten struggles in the 21st century landscape and hopefully evokes the virtues we see in sacred spaces.

Gallery at Cross
Anna Biedenbender

Anna Leigh Biedenbender is a visual artist, classically trained so- prano, speaker, and ministry coordinator who has worked with vari- ous galleries, mentor programs, and arts organizations. Anna’s stu- dio practice and personal ministry focus on the human condition, empathy, and vulnerability. She holds an MFA in visual art with an emphasis in painting and drawing from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Anna currently teaches middle school art and serves as an admissions counselor at St. Croix Lutheran Academy in West St. Paul, and she maintains a studio space in NE Minneapolis Arts District’s Northrup King Building. Her award-winning paintings have been exhibited throughout the Midwest.

GOING TO SMASH

This body of work uses deconstructed/reconstructed churches as metaphors to contemplate our present challenges. The suffering induced by the pandemic, growing distrust of science and societal institutions, challenging questions of race and justice, tribal loyalties that sometimes obscure truth, a distressed and changing climate—all of these and more are signs of the systemic societal deconstruction that is also infiltrating the Christian church. As many Christian communities seem to be “going to smash” (Bonhoeffer), all people of faith are called to rediscover the foundation of truth and rethink their purpose: loving and serving others in an uneasy world.

Artist’s statement:

I am interested in the human condition. Specifically, I question one’s ability to be vulnerable and empathetic with others. In my work I dissolve figure/ground relationships into compositions of gestural line and mark. These compositions have tensions between figuration and abstraction, and fluctuate between the ephemeral and the concrete.

I work from multiple sources – referencing photographs, direct observation, and other renderings. I combine and translate this information through painting and drawing. This process is part depiction, part improvisation, and part alteration, so the work hovers between clarity and obscurity. Through this process, I am able to reflect on the intersections of personal identity, sanctuary, and relationship.

Gallery at Cross
James Quentin Young

James Young is a Christian artist, born in 1936 on the "West Side" of St. Paul, MN, a place of multiple ethnic and religious groups. He graduated from Macalaster College with a BA in art education and taught art in public schools for 32 years. He continued his education with an MFA in painting at the U. of the Americas in Mexico City. In 2008 Mr. Young was an artist-in-residence at the Henry Luce Center in Washington, D.C., and in Prague, Czech Republic in 2009.

James Quentin Young creates his art from old metal, wood, and other found objects. He has been an early advocate for recycling and renovating discarded items. His skill in restoring furniture, his study of jewelry making, and an MFA in painting are combined to make beautiful and provocative works of art. They may tell a story or simply be unique artworks in which the viewer recognizes bits and pieces from his own past.

Artist’s statement:

The color blue has been an occasional color in my art over the past 56 years. It seems the natural thing because we live on a blue planet. Recently that color is emerging frequently without a conscious effort on my part. Although I am known for the crosses I make, I have lately felt freer to create whatever happens. I have not stopped making crosses, and while making the Blue Series crosses often emerge due, I believe, to the Holy Spirit at work. A new direction in my work deals with the warming of our planet Earth, with examples of how it is affecting our animals and waters.

Gallery at Cross
Shawna Gilmore

www.shawnagilmore.com @shawna_gilmore

Born and raised in the Upper Midwest, Shawna draws deep from the winter-forged well of her overactive imagination. Her narrative, vintage-infused paintings explore many topics such as childhood, animals, nature, patterns, humor, metaphors, space, and fairytales. Shawna graduated in 2000 from the University of Minnesota-Duluth with a BFA in Studio Art, with an emphasis on drawing and printmaking. She has exhibited both locally and nationally. Her work is part of private collections worldwide. Shawna lives with her verbally talented husband (Eddy), their twins and a menagerie of critters in a lively neighborhood near lovely Lake Superior.

Artist’s statement:

Mulberry Street is a collection of paintings based on a fictional neighborhood. Just as homes within any neighborhood can vary in style and substance, so too are the homes on Mulberry Street.

Home is a place of retreat and recovery, but also a place of domesticity and work. On Mulberry Street you’ll find homeowners escaping into the wilds of their house like Jane. Others like Timmy and Tina’s family may be busy tidying their house throughout the seasons. Some homes like George’s may experience peculiar events. And still others seem like the set of a woodland storybook.

The concept for this work came one day as I looked out at my own neighborhood and marveled at how varied and unique each home and occupants were. Not only do the people vary in age and stage but we all have different tastes, interests and activities. The beauty of the Mulberry Street series is the endless possibilities it holds. It combines my love of interior/exterior play and builds on characters I’ve introduced in previous work.

Gallery at Cross