Chris Larson is a multimedia artist who lives and works in Saint Paul, Minnesota and is represented by ENGAGE Projects in Chicago, IL. He earned his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Sculpture from Yale University in 1991. Over the course of his career, Larson has received numerous prestigious awards, including the New Work Project Grant from The Harpo Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, a Bush Artist Fellowship, the McKnight Artist Fellowship, and a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a Professor of Art at the University of Minnesota. Larson’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at prominent institutions such as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN; the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, NY; and The View Contemporary Art Space in Switzerland. His art has also been presented at major biennials, including the 2nd Biennial del Fin del in Ushuaia, Argentina; the 4th Bienal de Montevideo in Montevideo, Uruguay; the 2014 Whitney Biennial in New York City; and the 11th Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2018, Larson presented a comprehensive 10 year survey exhibition, Chris Larson: Function is Redundant, at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, OH. In addition to his gallery and museum exhibitions, Larson’s film work has garnered international recognition, with screenings at several film festivals, including the World Premiere of Stillness of Labor at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), the Tabor International Film Festival in Croatia, the DTLA Film Festival in Los Angeles, CA, and the Mediterranean Film Festival Cannes-Milan-Athens, among others. Larson’s work is represented in the permanent collections of several prestigious institutions, including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg, and the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, among others. In 2019, he co-founded Second Shift Studio Space in St. Paul, MN, a nonprofit residency program and gallery dedicated to serving artists/makers/thinkers whose gender identity has historically marginalized them.

http://www.chrislarsonstudio.com

Jonathan Herrera Soto (b. 1994) holds a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from the Yale School of Art. Recent solo exhibitions of Herrera Soto’s include “Twice the Legal Minute” at Hartford University, “All at Once” at Brown University, and “In Between/Underneath” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. He is a recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, Yale Prison Education Initiative Fellowship, and the Koopman Distinguished Chair in the Visual Arts at the Hartford Art School. Jonathan has exhibited with HAIR+NAILS in group shows “The Light Comes in the Shape of the Voice” (H+N NYC, 2026), at Feria Material (Mexico City, 2026), “Together” (H+N Minneapolis, 2024), “Freshly For You” (H+N NYC, 2024), “PAINTING SHOW” (2022), “The Human Scale” (Rochester Art Center, 2022), NADA Chicago Invitational (Chicago, 2019), and his solo show “Always Tomorrow (Siempre Mañana)” (2021).

http://www.jonathanherrerastudio.com

Instagram: @deterritorialization

Sophia Chai (b. Busan, South Korea) likens her practice in photography to retracing the medium to its mother origins, as a natural phenomenon of light, space, and perception. Working within her studio, she explores the camera’s optics as both a physical and philosophical inquiry, drawing from ancient Mohist thought. Using minimal materials and an analog view camera, Chai constructs abstract compositions that oscillate between drawing, painting, and three-dimensional space. Her recent work engages language through Hangul, mapping the spatial logic of Korean vowels onto the studio to examine felt seeing. By distilling photography and language to elemental forms, Chai treats the studio as both an optical chamber and mouth-space where perception collapses and reassembles through light. Chai’s work has been widely exhibited at venues including Klaus Gallery, Luhring Augustine, A.I.R. Gallery, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, among many others. Solo exhibitions include 106 Green (NY, 2016), Rochester Art Center (2020), Hair + Nails (MN and NY, 2020, 2023, 2025), and Light Work (NY, 2024). She is a recipient of the 2024 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, with additional support from the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, and The First Ten. Recent press includes Artforum, MUSEÉ Magazine, and Document Journal. In 2024, she completed her first permanent public artwork in Rochester, MN. Chai holds a BA in chemistry from the University of Chicago and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is represented by Hair + Nails Gallery and is based in Rochester, MN.

http://www.sophiachai.com

Instagram: @sophiachainyC

Manal Kara is a self-taught Moroccan-American artist and poet based in Gary, IN and Ridgewood, NY. They work across sculpture, installation, photography, video, and text, using a bio- and eco-semiotic framework to elaborate a poetics of the disenfranchised, dislodge hegemonic ontologies, and devise new ways of theorizing the world. Recent solo exhibitions include The Wild Thing Rides Again, Hair+Nails, Minneapolis (2024); Syntax-Semantics Interface, M. LeBlanc, Chicago (2024); Sacred Topologies, Deli Gallery, New York (2023); Hypothèses, Pangée, Montréal (2022); Conjectures, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles (2022); and Xylem & Phlöem, No Place, Columbus (2021). They have attended residencies at Bed-Stuy Art Residency, 8th House, Shandaken: Storm King, ACRE, Ox-Bow, September Spring at the Kesey Farm, and Project Freewill. Their poems have appeared in various print and online publications including Changes, The Poetry Project, Poets.org.

http://www.manalkara.com

Aaron Spangler is an American sculptor and printmaker best known for his monumental sculptures. Reinterpreting the ancient technique of woodcarving, Spangler carves elaborate reliefs into wood. He then coats them in layers of black gesso and graphite, producing the distinctive matte-black surfaces that define his work. While carved bas-reliefs remain Spangler’s most recognisable works, his artistic practice extends across multiple media, always grounded in craftsmanship and the physicality of making. His woodcuts often fragment and recombine elements of the human body with motifs drawn from the natural world, resulting in rhythmic, abstract patterns. Rooted in the rural culture of Minnesota, his works combine myth, rural folklore, and history under the uniform density of a pervasive black. Born in 1971 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Spangler attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he obtained a BFA degree. In 1997, he was awarded the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant and, in 1998, the Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship. In 2010, he was the recipient of McKnight Artist Fellowship for Visual Artists. Over his thirty-year career, his work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, including the group exhibitions “The Spectacular of Vernacular” at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 2011, and “Working Thought “at The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, in 2022. His artworks are part of the permanent collections of several important museums worldwide, including The Art Gallery of Ontario; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York; and the Saatchi Gallery, London. Splangler is Vice Chair of the Nemeth Art Center, Minnesota. He currently lives and works in Park Rapids, Minnesota.

Instagram: @aaronwspangler