Painting the Place Between, a new documentary film produced by Gustavus art professor Kristen Lowe, will be premiered at St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theatre (10 East Exchange Street) on Friday, December 6 at 7:30 p.m. A reception at 6:45 p.m. will allow members of the audience to meet the four artists featured in the documentary and to view their work prior to the premiere. A question and answer session with the artists and the producer will follow the screening. Tickets for the premiere of Painting the Place Between are available at the Fitzgerald Box Office.
Painting the Place Between is a 2-year project by Professor Lowe and features the work of four contemporary Minnesota artists: Betsy Byers, Jill Evans, Holly Swift and Andrew Wykes. Connections to Gustavus include Betsy Byers, a member of the art and art history faculty at Gustavus, and production crew member Ryan Taylor ’05. Although not members of the department, both Jil Evans and Holly Swift have recently presented residencies and lectures on the campus.
Lowe’s documentary focuses on the work of these four Minnesota artists who work with a common thread — the land. Their work includes land and water, virgin prairie and woodland as well as farmland and urban areas around Minnesota. With a desire to connect with the world around them through their work, each artist asks (in uniquely different ways) whether they “shape or are shaped” by the land around them. Trailers from the documentary were included in a Twin Cities Public Television story which aired in September 2012. During the MN Original program, Lowe spoke of her own studio work in drawing and its relationship to filmmaking and shared her creative storyboards for the feature length documentary Painting the Place Between.
In describing her reason for making the film, Lowe wrote, “Through the physicality of the painted surface — the ‘place between’ the artist, the viewer, and the landscape — these artists shape a vision of our natural space as mediated by the artist’s subjective experience and the legacy of painting on canvas. Confronting unpredictable weather, time constraints and internal doubts, the audience sees in semi-abstract and often emotional works evidence of the role the painter plays in how we view and interpret one subject we all have in common, our land.”
Funding for Painting the Place Between was provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, USA Projects (now Hatchfund), the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as well as private donors.
Kristin Lowe’s documentary film Painting the Place Between will be premiered at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul on Friday, December 6. A “pre-premiere” reception with Kristin Lowe and the artists will begin at 6:45 p.m., with the screening of her documentary at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available through the Fitzgerald Box Office: http://fitzgeraldtheater.publicradio.org/
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