Am I being honest?
At the core, I make art to connect with people. As a shy and anxious person, connecting with people in an honest and open way doesn’t come easily to me. Just as reservedness is in my nature, so is spending hundreds of hours on intricate, labor-intensive, manual processes such as cutting, burning, and stop-motion animating.
It is important to me to intentionally and physically pour myself into each of my works. While making these pieces, I find myself thinking about how my process parallels the way I operate in the world, or my perception of life itself. In that way, each piece becomes a self-portrait, a reflection of who I am and how I see myself. As the process becomes the concept, the work becomes a way for me to share my feelings and perspective, to connect and be vulnerable with people.
Furthermore, meditating on what makes me tick leads me to wonder what is going on in other peoples’ lives. What are they thinking and feeling? Are they also anxious? Are they also scared? Are we really that different? Empathy makes me less afraid to be open with people. Most surprisingly, my vulnerability in sharing my struggles through my art seems to help other people feel more comfortable to open up about what they are going through. Through my work, I want to foster this empathy and help it grow.
Currently, I have focused on the relationship between time and emotion. Time stretches, collapses, and folds in on itself during grief, anticipation, peace, and all the other emotions each of us go through every day. I explore my perception of time and how I process and understand my feelings using wood, paper, and stop-motion animation.
In 2021, I was commissioned to create two five-minute music video stop motion animations. I spent months moving small bits of paper incrementally, over and over again, so each frame could be seen for a fraction of a section to create motion, painstakingly planning the movement to coincide with the music. Stretching and collapsing time in such a literal way illustrated to me clearly that the perception of time is a matter of perspective.
In 2023, I presented my first solo exhibition, titled “I am the shadows shifting, burned through and filled with light,” showing pieces made of burned wood, paper, and stop-motion animation, exploring grief, memory, anticipation, and peace, all through the lens of time.
In 2024, I was commissioned to create the stage design for the premiere of new music. Using found wood, yarn, fabric, and light, I considered how one sound, one fiber, one beam of light, might spur countless echoes and reactions.
Whether it is my personal work, or a project commissioned by someone else, my question is always the same: Am I being as honest as possible so that others feel comfortable to be honest, too?
In 2023 I had my first large-scale multimedia solo exhibition. In the last 5 years, I’ve been a project manager on Augsburg University’s “Each, together,” a photo installation that covered the facades of twelve buildings; been a project manager and co-designer for Hennepin History Museum’s “Human Toll: A Public History of 35W”; animated two stop motion animations for the Grammy nominated Seven Pillars by Andy Akiho; was an artist in residence for Guild Hall Artist Residency in East Hampton, NY; received a MSAB Creative Support Grant and ARAC Artist Access Grant; done set design and visual projection for Zack Baltich and Estuary’s live music performances; and led a workshop for the Great Northern Festival in Minneapolis.
STAGE DESIGN
2026 2025 McKnight Music Fellows: Rachael Kilgour & Zack Baltich, Sacred Heart, Duluth, MN
Lazerbeak Album Release Show, Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN
2024 Estuary Premiere, Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN
Giving, Northern Lakes Art Association, Vermillion College, Ely, MN
2023 Estuary Live Studio Sessions, Charles S. Anderson Music Hall, Minneapolis, MN
EXHIBITIONS
2023 Solo Exhibition, I am the shadows shifting, burned through and filled with light, Gage Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2020 Solo Exhibition, Untitled, Minneapolis Bouldering Project, Minneapolis, MN
2019 Alumni Show, Augsburg Gage Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2017 Two Person Exhibition, California Dreamin’, California Building, Minneapolis, MN
(with mixed media artist Amy Rice)
Roots and Wings, Silverwood Park Gallery, St. Anthony, MN
Alumni Show, Augsburg Gage Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Parts of a Whole, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN
2016 Sketchorama, The New Bohemian Gallery, Brainerd, MN
Solo Exhibition, Dandelions, Watertown Library, Watertown, MN
Branches, Brambles, and Roots, View Gallery, Old Forge, NY
2015 Alumni Show, Augsburg Gage Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Solo Exhibition, Dandelions, Augsburg Student Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2014 Solo Exhibition, We Monsters, Augsburg Student Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
GRANTS
2022 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support for Individuals
Arrowhead Regional Arts Access Grant
RESIDENCIES
2021 Guild Hall Artist-in-Residence, East Hampton, NY
COLLECTIONS
2019 Howie and Susan on a Pretty Average Day, The Sketchbook Project, The Brooklyn Art Library, Brooklyn, NYC
COMMISSIONS
2021 Pillar II and Pillar VI animations, for GRAMMY nominated Seven Pillars, written by Andy Akiho and
performed by Sandbox Percussion, two five-minute stop motion-animations made in collaboration with
Deborah Johnson
2017 Stop Motion Commission, Zack Baltich Presents Cavernous
five-minute cut-paper, ink, and stop motion-animation for live performance of Karakurenai (Andy Akiho);
Fallout Artist Co-op, Minneapolis, MN; Vermillion Community College, Ely, MN
AWARDS
2019 First Place, Alumni Show, Augsburg University, Minneapolis, MN
2017 First Place, Alumni Show, Augsburg University, Minneapolis, MN
First Place, Fleet Foxes Flyaway, Fleet Foxes and Ace Hotel, Chicago, IL
2015 Departmental Honors, Dandelions, Augsburg College Art Department, Minneapolis, MN
RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE
2024 - Marketing, Social Media, and Graphic Design Manager, Love Creamery, Duluth, MN
2015 - Freelance Graphic Designer
2021-2022 Project Manager and Designer, Human Toll, Hennepin History Museum, Minneapolis, MN
2020 Project Manager, Know Peace Murals, Minneapolis, MN
2019 Assistant Creative Director, Each, together, Minneapolis, MN
2019 Assistant Creative Director, On This Spot, Minneapolis, MN
2016 Studio Intern, Cave Paper, Minneapolis, MN
2015 Exhibitions Intern, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN
2014 - 2015 Gallery Intern, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN
EDUCATION
2011 - 2015 BA in Studio Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN