Artist Bio Images

08 Oct 2018–10 Oct 2019

Aaron van Dyke & Kelsey Olson

  • Info

Untitled Wall Project

“We have been interested in building something ‘from the ground up’, something ‘before’ the artwork that is also an artwork. A related appeal for us is the simultaneous creation of the artwork and its support. There is something interesting and absurd to us in building everyday materials (drywall, in this case) ourselves. This ubiquitous material, always hidden under layers of paint, is made by the acre in factories around the world (cheap and uniform), yet we labor over custom mixes of various powders to make a ‘substandard’ (nonuniform) version. Of course, even this is done all the time by people making
various ‘bespoke’ products.
This wall is meant to support other art work, and to some extent, the program itself. In this way it can seem to sink into the background. The wall is caught between rising up—being built as an artwork from raw materials—and sinking, retreating into the background as support for another work or a boundary within the space.”

  • Info

Untitled Wall Project

“We have been interested in building something ‘from the ground up’, something ‘before’ the artwork that is also an artwork. A related appeal for us is the simultaneous creation of the artwork and its support. There is something interesting and absurd to us in building everyday materials (drywall, in this case) ourselves. This ubiquitous material, always hidden under layers of paint, is made by the acre in factories around the world (cheap and uniform), yet we labor over custom mixes of various powders to make a ‘substandard’ (nonuniform) version. Of course, even this is done all the time by people making
various ‘bespoke’ products.
This wall is meant to support other art work, and to some extent, the program itself. In this way it can seem to sink into the background. The wall is caught between rising up—being built as an artwork from raw materials—and sinking, retreating into the background as support for another work or a boundary within the space.”

Kelsey Olson

Kelsey Olson is an artist living in Minneapolis. She received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2010 and was awarded the Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship in 2016/17. Olson has had solo exhibitions at venues and temporary spaces in Minnesota including the Rochester Art Center, and has participated in group exhibitions at David Petersen Gallery and St. Cloud State University. She helped create and run They Won’t Find Us Here Gallery in Minneapolis, which ran from 2010-2012, and has organized other publishing projects and exhibitions since that time.

Aaron Van Dyke

Aaron Van Dyke is an artist and teacher living in Minneapolis. He has taught art, theory, art history and mentored graduate students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and St. Cloud State University. Van Dyke was a visiting artist at Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2012, has run the summer school at the Poor Farm (Manawa, WI) since 2009, and was Education Coordinator at Midway Contemporary Art until early 2017. He founded and helped run Occasional, a gallery in St. Paul, MN for seven years. Van Dyke earned an MFA in studio art from the University of British Columbia and an MA in art history from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.