Artists Kait Arndt, Ashley Hope Carlise, Rian Kerrane and Ricki Klages have formed a new artist collective and will converge for a conversation at the Emmanuel Art Gallery about their shared and individual artistic practices.
I make work based on my personal experiences. My work changes depending on my location and my environment, physical as well as social. I respond to my surroundings and am interested in depicting this response visually. I like to think of my work as fitting into three basic categories: project based, sculptural, and utilitarian. While these categories are separated, they are connected based on my approach to the making process.
We are asked and at times volunteer to make a transition, to disseminate from one place to another or from one moment to another. The western landscape is vast and varied, diverse at every view and it continues to penetrate the seeds I choose and the moving pictures I present. I, myself, am a transplant within the west so it is easy to create a dimensional snapshot of a journey where the wind decides where you are going and where you may end up. I do this within each sculpture, drawing, or installation creating a set where the viewer is asked to imagine as a child and place themselves in a seed being dispersed by chance or by choice. There is no end but a constant movement towards something. I ask the viewer to remember this moment as they are making a transition in their lives and positively reflect on the journey and experience itself versus where it may end.
Rian Kerrane applies cast and fabricated sculpture, site specificity, installation and printmaking as methodologies to examine the critical interconnection between social, environmental and personal themes. Kerrane deliberately incorporates commonplace or industrial objects alongside highbrow traditional art materials. Cultural conformity shifts and evolves, and reflection on the tropes of society sway her interest in upcycling and reuse. For her the studio and gallery are a laboratory for a kind of pseudo-science and a physicalized celebration and critique of late modern culture.
Born in Galway, Ireland, Kerrane received her BA in Fine Arts Degree from the University of Ulster at Belfast she earned her MFA from the University of New Orleans, Louisiana. Currently residing in Denver, Colorado, Kerrane is Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Colorado Denver. Maintaining strong connections to Ireland, she runs a study abroad summer program at the Burren College of Art in County Clare. Her work shows nationally and internationally with exhibitions in Germany, Latvia, Italy, Austria, Mexico and Ireland. Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Columbia, Ukraine, Brazil, Japan, and Wales are some of her far-ranging exhibits with the Artnauts collective.
A board member for the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance since 2008, Kerrane also contributed to curating and steering with the International Conference in Contemporary Cast Iron Art (ICCCIA) in Latvia in 2014, Scranton, Pennsylvania in 2018 and Berlin in 2022.
Ricki Klages was born in Stuttgart, Germany. As an Army Brat, she has lived throughout the US and Asia, including Korea and Hawaii. She received her BFA from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and her MA and MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio; University of Montana, Missoula, Montana; Carson/Masuoka Gallery, Denver, CO., Epping Forest Museum, Waltham Abbey, City of London, United Kingdom; the Joint Research Center, Ispra, Italy, Galerie Knud Grothe, Copenhagen, Denmark and Colorida Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal. She has received many awards in Juried exhibitions, including the jurors' choice award from The Butler Institute of American Art, Baer Award in Painting from the Wyoming Arts Council, two Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship Grants and several Best in Show awards including, “Contemporary Art Survey”, National Juried Exhibition, Lincoln Center, Ft. Collins, CO., and “Into the Woods”, National Juried Exhibition, Cape Cod Cultural Center, South Yarmouth, MA. She has been featured in juried publications, "New American Paintings" and the “International Painting Annual 9 times.
Ricki started teaching at the University of Wyoming in the Department of Art in 1995. She is represented by William Havu Gallery, Denver, Colorado. She served as Head of the Department of Visual and Literary Arts from 2006-2021, University of Wyoming. She is represented by William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO., and Galerie Knud Grothe, Charlottenlund, Denmark.