Recent graduate Cameron Jarvis ’15 didn’t take long to get his art into another exhibition. Just two months after commencement and his participation in the Senior Studio Art Majors’ Exhibition in the Hillstrom Museum of Art, the young artist will have his work hanging in a one-man show titled Here and Somewhere Else: Artwork by Cameron Jarvis. The show will open on August 1 at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral (519 Oak Grove Street) in Minneapolis and will remain on display through the month. Hours for the gallery are Monday-Friday 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday 8:00 a.m. – noon and Sunday 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. An artist reception will be held at the Cathedral on Sunday, August 9 from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Here and Somewhere Else: Artwork by Cameron Jarvis will include new paintings and prints along with a few older works by Jarvis. The main them of the exhibition is cityscapes with a focus on the relationship to the constructed world. Says Jarvis, “The subject matter comes from various locations where I have spent time in the past few years from Cottage Grove to St. Peter, Berlin and London.” In his artist statement for this exhibition of Collage Cityscapes, Cameron writes, “We all dwell in this physical world, and as humans we seek to change our surroundings for our own benefit. I am interested in the worlds we create for ourselves in the form of buildings and cities. These artificial oases shelter us from the elements and make survival easier, but they also shelter us from each other and from the complexities of the natural world.”
“My paintings are a documentation of my time spent in these constructed environments. I work with the tension that occurs between the structure and chaos inherent in all cities as we impose right angles where they don’t naturally exist. This strict order starts to get diluted as infrastructure decays and is rebuilt incrementally. To this end, I build up layers of paint in my pieces, beginning with loose, freely painted compositions, and slowly work towards realism in form and color. I employ tape, stencils and panes of glass to separate layers and contain the free expression of my brushstrokes. My interest is in the way buildings function as monuments to human existence, collecting layers of memories from people passing through.”
Jarvis is not a stranger to the exhibition space or pushing himself to create an exhibition. In 2013, with the support of a Presidential Grant awarded through the Kendall Center at Gustavus, Jarvis and assistant professor of art/art history Betsy Byers created an exhibition for the St. Peter Arts Center. That exhibition, DEPARTURES: New Works by Cameron A. Jarvis and Betsy Ruth Byers, focused on the theme of “departure.” Like the relationship to the constructed world in Here and Somewhere Else, the departures theme was seen as both a physical and a mental connection. Working with images of natural landscapes and shorelines, Jarvis saw his work in “departing from observations and then moving back to it.” In addition to gaining valuable experience as a young painter, Jarvis noted the challenge of creating an entire body of work for one show in just 8 weeks. And painting aside, he was even more surprised about “all the other stuff” that has nothing to do with applying paint to canvas.
The experience gained in painting and “all the other stuff,” has helped guide Cameron Jarvis to the point where he is comfortable creating a solo exhibition just 2 months after graduation. Here and Somewhere Else: Artwork by Cameron Jarvis runs August 1-31 at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral (519 Oak Grove Street) in Minneapolis. Hours for the gallery are Monday-Friday 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday 8:00 a.m. – noon and Sunday 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and an Artist’s Reception is scheduled for August 9 from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. Admission is free. Additional information on the artist is available at his website: http://www.cameronjarvisart.com/
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