HAIR + NAILS is pleased to announce RELIEF: three fresh approaches to building surface — an exhibition of new paintings by Minneapolis artists Kim Benson, Rachel Collier, and Sheila Wagner — to open October 27, 2018 and running through the end of November.

H+N have long had their eyes on the work by these Minneapolis painters. They give the three distinct gallery spaces — front room, back room, basement — over to the artists. Each artist claims their own turf yet their paintings are close enough for us to feel the bounce and tension between their unique materials, sensibilities, practices.

Kim Benson’s oil paintings on canvas marry her interests in 17^th Century Dutch still life, decay (compost, erosion), and lace floral patterns. Rachel Collier’s work aims at classic “struggles” of abstraction: the flatness of paint, the fetishization of the grid, the hand at work and its blatant removal, striving “to achieve trompe l’oiel without really trying”. Sheila Wagner brings new paintings with complex textures, the dense surfaces built up with cardboard and spackling paste along with paint and oil pastel.

Artist bios:

Kimberly Benson currently works in Minneapolis, MN. She received her MFA from the University of WI-Madison and a BFA from the College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, MN. Her paintings have been exhibited widely in both solo and group shows across the Midwest, including MANA Contemporary in Chicago, IL, Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, WI, and Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND. She has attended residencies at the Jentel Foundation in Banner, WY, Soap Factory Emerging Artist Program in Minneapolis, MN, and McCanna House through the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND.

Rachel Collier is a Minneapolis-based artist currently working in a West Bank studio. After graduating from SAIC in ‘07 she travelled and lived all over the US, exhibiting in DIY spaces, local galleries and art fairs along the way. Her recent work is non-representational and large in scale, combining painting, printmaking and sculptural elements.

Sheila Wagner is an artist living and working in Minneapolis. After completing her BFA at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2013, she has had various solo exhibitions at venues and temporary spaces in the Midwest. Most recently in 2018, she participated in group shows at the Poor Farm (Manawa, WI) and Usable Space (Milwaukee, WI). Wagner’s recently published work includes “Pictures of Health” (WOPOZI, 2018) and “The Iris Has it” (QXIZ Editions, 2017).

Kimberly Benson, Pink wall (Vanitas), 2018, oil on canvas, 30″ x 24″.

Rachel Collier
Untitled
2018
Xerox Mono-print

“Fixed Signs”
(2018)
colored pencil, oil pastel, oil paint on sparkling pasted on panel
20.5″ x 24″