RAC2: Rochester Artists Collaborative
An Exhibition Series for Local Artists
To provide consistent and meaningful opportunities for Rochester artists to exhibit their work, Rochester Art Center initiates a new program this fall—RAC2. This exhibition series is dedicated to presenting the work of local artists and providing our primary audience, the residents of Rochester, with an opportunity to connect with artistic practices in their own community. As the title suggests, this series is organized in close collaboration between Rochester Art Center and the RAC2 Advisory Committee, comprised of local artists, arts instructors, arts organization leaders, and members of the community at large. This committee, with support from RAC staff, will oversee and guide all aspects the gallery program. As an exhibition series designed for local artists, only residents of Olmsted County were eligible to submit proposals for consideration. The series will run for 7 months, from October 2011 to May 2012, and will be presented in a dedicated location on the third floor of Rochester Art Center.
Rochester Abstraction – In Paint, Paper, and Metal
Featuring work by Karl Friedrich, Michele Heidel, and Pat Dunn-Walker
The second exhibition in the RAC2 series will feature three local artists exploring contemporary trends in abstraction, each in their own very different way.
Rochester native Karl Freidrich has returned to MN after studying and working in NY, NY. Karl will exhibit a large scale, site specific, welded steel sculpture. He has an uncanny way with metal, crafting angles and using light, that will allow him to make these massive forms appear to dance and flow through the gallery space.
After a long career in arts administration and establishing her successful fiber arts accessories business (Fennel Studio), Michele Heidel has returned to making two dimensional art works. From cereal box printing proofs to public restroom floor tiles, she collects and recreates patterns in a way that removes all context. The resulting delightfully clean and understated drawings have us taking another look at the patterns that surround us.
Pat Dunn Walker has been an active and valued member of the Rochester art scene for two decades. She brushes, scrapes, pours, stencils, and drips brilliantly colored paint across her surfaces. She also collages on a great variety of found materials: magazine and comic clippings, seeds, sequins, scraps of metal etc. However, she is able to balance all this dynamic visual activity with a complex geometry and a repeating, unifying circle.
RAC2 is supported by Rochester Downtown Alliance, Paul & Maggie Scanlon and The Judy & Jim Sloan Foundation.