MPLSART Sketchbook Project Exhibition Artist Talk

Saturday, May 1st
A round robin-style artist talk featuring Destiny Davison, Christopher Carr, allison anne, Derek Meier, Stacey Combs, Leeya Jackson, Reggie LeFlore from the 2020 MPLSART Sketchbook Exhibition.

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ABOUT the ARTISTS

allison anne is a collagist, mail artist + graphic designer living in Minneapolis. Their work is the result of years of self-directed experimentation with many mediums, but explorations with paper collage have become their focus. Working with rescued, found or recycled materials as often as possible, allison uses collage, zine-making and correspondence art as ways to explore intersections and interactions between media, medium and function in their art practice. allison is a member of theTwin Cities Collage Collective that strives to provide an inclusive, safe space for individuals at all levels of creative ability to learn about collage.

Christopher Carr is a mixed media artist originating from Atlanta, GA. He has shown work in various Atlanta area galleries including AmericasMart, Elevation Gallery and Lambert Gallery of Art. Christopher moved to Minneapolis in 2008. Most recently Christopher has shown in group exhibitions at Shrine NYC and The Minneapolis Institute of Art. His work often explores themes of escapism through imagination, and typically reflects his perspective of the world around him at the time the piece is created. He is also a thoughtful and enthusiastic collector of folk art.

Derek Meier‘s work focuses on material exchange, immediacy, visual play and aesthetic dialogue. Deletion is a critical step in his creative process. He typically utilize paint and mixed media collage elements and work very fast and instinctively on many different pieces at once so that the body of work grows together. From there Derek identifies and isolates the moments he found to be successful and delete what he considers to be irrelevant. The deletion is often achieved by building small and large bodies of unmodulated color fields. Resting these next to other fields allows him to create honest, sculptural lines and forms by pinching paint together. The way landscapes are constructed is something that informs many of his paintings: the different ways their visual space is carved up and shared between natural and man-made elements and their varying agendas.

Destiny Davison is a writer, illustrator, and multi-media artist exploring the real, the unreal, and the in-between from the Midwest.

Leeya Rose Jackson is a painter, designer, and Art Director born and raised in Detroit, Mi. Her paintings and linocuts largely explore Black femme identity.

Reggie LeFlore is a visual artist who creates to praise individual and collective stories through human portraiture.  His inspirations are drawn from the concepts and philosophies of Street Art culture and Illustration – using aerosol, acrylic paint and various graphic design techniques to construct pieces in varying styles, scales and surfaces. Reggie uses visual arts to amplify both his surrounding environments and the narratives contained within them.

Stacey Combs aka stace of spades, is a freelance artist + illustrator living in South Minneapolis. She is self-taught, but have had a little help here and there. Stacey enjoys good food, music, travel, grungy ink line work, and walks (of any length) on the beach. 75% of the time she works while listening to classical renditions of video game soundtracks. Much of the work that she does is portraiture. While she does make a fair amount of fan art, Stacey often works with themes of environmental and social justice, drawing attention to unfairness and outdated social norms. Looking at her work, it might seem that she draws inspiration from the darkness in life. While that may be true, it all comes from a place of compassion and appreciation. she tries to shine light on, and even make light of, that darkness when she can… which is really the best that any of us can do.