Kolman & Pryor Gallery Announces "Absence" - A Performance Art, Painting, and Technology Installation by James Holmberg

Via an August 11 e-announcement from Kolman & Pryor Gallery:

 Absence runs September 11 though October 30, 2021

Artist Reception Saturday, September 18, 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Kolman & Pryor Gallery is thrilled to present a performance art, painting, and technology installation by its first Project Space grant recipient, James Holmberg. The Project Space initiative provides Minnesota visual artists with the funds, time, and exhibition space to create a project that significantly advances their careers. Holmberg’s project, Absence, investigates loss, memory, and transformation through a painting process of  accumulation and erasure captured with video and experienced via QR codes.

The exhibition begins Saturday, September 11, 2021. An artist reception will be held on September 18, from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m., during Northrup King Nights, the Northrup King Building’s quarterly open studio evening. The exhibition closes October 30, 2021.

“The Project Space has given us a new way to be of service to Minnesota artists,” says gallery co-founder Anita Sue Kolman, who launched the program this year with gallery co-founder Patrick Pryor. Adds Pryor, “With his grant, James has sent his artistic practice in a new direction and taken the next step in his artistic evolution.”

Holmberg is well-known as a painter. A long-time artist with Circa Gallery, he also frequently exhibits at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). “The grant has completely given me the freedom to explore some of the conceptual ideas I’ve been grappling with for a long time,” he says.

Absence includes six canvases that Holmberg painted, scraped off, washed with mineral spirits, and painted again 12 times, while he was recording the process on video. Each canvas is accompanied by a QR code, allowing viewers to use their smartphones to access a time-lapse video of the painting process. By doing so, the process retrieves the images attached to each painting that now only exist in the cloud.

“In my day job, I co-founded a company to develop digital spaces focused on memory preservation; how can we bridge the analogue and the digital in a dignified way?” Holmberg explains, “This project gave me the opportunity to dovetail my two interests - technology and art.” While the canvases retain the ghostly memories of previous paintings, generating a sense of loss and impermanence with each iteration, they’re also digital assets through which memories remain intact.

In part, Holmberg says, “I’m questioning the importance of an image, of a painting, at a time when we’re mostly sharing images via cell phones, which in turn brings up questions about the numbing abundance of imagery.” The work also investigates feelings of creative loss, “which is uncomfortable and challenging for me,” he adds. “The real core of the show is about absence and presence and transition, and the ability to let go.”

The exhibition also includes a pedestal on which Holmberg troweled all of the paint or “content” from the canvases. “The pedestal is a collective of all the canvases and paint that was used. It’s a sculpture.” 

“That’s the Pandora’s box that Project Space allowed me to open up,” he adds. The program awards artists $10,000 and exhibition space to show their projects. “I was able to focus on larger, more conceptual questions such as the importance of the artist’s hand and the changing value of an image.” As Kolman explains: “One reason we decided to give the grants is so the artists don’t have to worry about commercial value, but rather could explore artistically to advance the scale, scope, and aesthetic character of new work.”

For a preview of the show, please contact Anita Sue Kolman at anita@kolmanpryorgallery.com or 612-385-4239 or Patrick Pryor at patrick@kolmanpryorgallery.com or 612-280-7812.

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Kolman & Pryor Gallery is located in Studio 395, Northrup King Building at 1500 Jackson Street NE, Minneapolis. For more information, please call: 612-385-4239 or 612-280-7812, or email: anita@kolmanpryorgallery.com or patrick@kolmanpryorgallery.com or visit: kolmanpryorgallery.com.