Elemental Forces and Other Work

MEDIA RELEASE
October 5, 2018

Joseph Nease Gallery: Exhibition/Artist Talk /Collaboration between Choreographer Laura Goodman and Artist Karen Owsley Nease

“Elemental Forces and Other Work”

As part of the Minnesota Ballet’s Fall performance, the Rite of Spring and Other Dances, choreographer Laura Goodman has taken on the challenge of interpreting visual art into a new ballet. Basing her choreography on the wave paintings of Karen Owsley Nease, Goodman explores the elemental and generative forces depicted in Nease’s artwork. Goodman’s sensuous and powerful piece is titled "Curl, Uncurl and...".

We are pleased to announce the opening of a special limited-time exhibition of the Karen Owsley Nease paintings that inspired Goodman’s choreography and are the projected backdrop for the October 19 and 20 performances of the dance piece at the DECC. These works will be on display at the gallery the week before the Fall performance, and the week after, October 17 through 27, culminating in an Artist Talk at the gallery with Nease and Goodman on Friday, October 26 at 6 pm during the Downtown Duluth Arts Walk.

In addition, Joseph Nease Gallery will have a curated showing of related and complementary works by gallery artists.

About the Artists:

A former professional ballet dancer, Laura Goodman is a ballet instructor and choreographer. Her career began at the Minnesota Ballet as a trainee in 1999-2002. She continued to dance soloist and principal roles at the City Ballet of San Diego; Canyon Concert Ballet in Fort Collins, Colorado; and the Metropolitan Ballet in Minneapolis. In 2003 Laura was a finalist at the New York International Ballet Competition. She first choreographed for the Minnesota Ballet as part of the program Moving Beyond, which premiered her piece Rounding the Apse on September 23, 2016. In the News Tribune, Lawrance Bernabo commented, “The verticalness of this captivating piece reminded me of Agnes de Mille’s ‘Dream Ballet’ from ‘Oklahoma!’ albeit without the stylized rigidity.” Additionally, she has choreographed a multitude of student pieces over her tenure as an instructor, including co-creating a story ballet What Makes A Rainbow for young dancers. She has staged many works by other choreographers here at the Minnesota Ballet, as the rehearsal assistant at Canyon Concert Ballet, and as the Director’s Assistant for the Metropolitan Ballet. During her career as a ballet dancer she danced the works of such choreographers as Agnes de Mille, George Balanchine, Antony Tudor, and José Limón.

Karen Owsley Nease is a visual artist whose artwork is rooted nature and her connections to it. Her current series of wave paintings come from studying reference photographs made of particular Lake Superior waves coming ashore. Her paintings act as “portraits” of distinct entities, built up through multiple layers of thinly applied glazes of oil paint. Gesturally applied with a small rag on her finger tip, each layer is a response to the one preceding it. The motion of Nease’s hand is analogous to the motion of the wave, allowing close study of its unique form, surface and facets.
Originally from the Kansas City metro area, she has spent much time on and around working farms and rural woodlands since early childhood. Her work is informed through her practices of habitat restoration, watershed protection and environmental philosophy. Respect for craft and a deep knowledge of materials are also important in the creation of that artwork. Through travels, she discovered the imposing beauty of Lake Superior and moved to Duluth, Minnesota in 2013 to be nearer to it. Karen is a lifelong painter with a concurrent interest in design. She earned a BFA in Painting/Printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute, and two Architectural degrees from the University of Kansas. Her work is in corporate, museum, and private collections.


For further information please contact the gallery’s manager, Amanda Hunter, by email at [email protected] or by phone at 218.461.8380.