Beyond Function

Arts + Literature Laboratory (ALL) presents Beyond Function, a national juried exhibition of three-dimensional forms that construct, obstruct, and reimagine function, juried by Gail Simpson. An opening reception will be held on Friday, May 27, 7-9pm, and the exhibition will be on view through June 18, 2016. Gallery hours are Tues-Sat 11-3 and by appointment. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Simpson commented, “Useful objects can be both utilitarian and aesthetic in varying degrees, but it’s not useful to think of function as simply trying to accomplish something practical. Provocation, reflection, pleasure, and personal or social transformation can also be the function of an object. All of the artists in this exhibit are offering substantial ideas about our attachment to, and expectations for, the objects with which we surround ourselves.”

The twelve artists included in this exhibition are: Celine Browning (Chicago, WI), Jeremy Entwhistle (Morgantown, WV), Frankie Flood (Whitefish Bay, WI), Jaclyn Jaconetta (Providence, RI), Mie Kongo (Evanston, IL), Erica Meier (Hartland, WI), Michael Neville (Hamtramck, MI), Jeremy Nuttall (Madison, WI), Joseph Pine (Madison, WI), Jayson Randall (Coon Rapids, MN), Allison Roberts (Madison, WI), and Gabriel Strader-Brown (Madison, WI).

Juror Gail Simpson:

Gail Simpson is a sculptor and public artist who works on projects individually and as part of Actual Size Artworks, a collaborative team with Aristotle Georgiades. She has an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and resides in Stoughton, Wisconsin. Her public art projects can be seen in Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Kansas, North Carolina, Nevada, Illinois and other locations nationally. She has also exhibited temporary projects around the United States and Europe. Her projects reflect her interest in the built and natural environment and her involvement with local community issues. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Céline Browning

Céline Browning is an artist, art writer and educator based in Chicago and Boston. Using the vocabulary of surrealism, Browning deconstructs, combines, and repurposes familiar functional objects, creating an uncanny visual language that reimagines what these objects signify.

Jeremy Entwistle

Born and raised in upstate New York, Jeremy Entwistle received his BFA from Alfred University in 1998 and his MFA from West Virginia University in 2007. Currently, Entwistle is the 3D and Sculpture coordinator for Fairmont State University in Fairmont, WV and runs the cast iron program that has partnered with area universities and art education institutions to promote the cast metal arts in the region.

Frankie Flood

Frankie Flood is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee where he teaches Digital Fabrication and Design and is Director of the Digital Craft Research Lab (DCRL) at UWM. Flood is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he received his Master of Fine Art degree in Metalsmithing.

Jaclyn Jaconetta

Jaclyn Jaconetta is an artist who lives and works out of Providence, RI. She recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015 with a BFA in Sculpture. Her commitment to critical inquiry, object making and a feminist politics informs her studio practice. Her achievements include being a four year recipient of the RISD Scholarship Award for Academic Excellence, as well as being a nominee for the International Sculpture Center’s 2015 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.

Mie Kongo

Mie Kongo grew up in the outskirt of Tokyo, Japan and now lives and works in Evanston IL, where she makes multidisciplinary work: ceramic sculptures & installations, 2D work and porcelain designed objects. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions, “Unknown game series” at Dan Devening Projects + editions, Chicago, IL, "Beyond Function" Arts and Literature Laboratory, Madison, WI, "Reformat: Digital Fabrication in Clay" Lillstreet Art Gallery, Chicago, IL, “Circle in a Square” Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL. She has been showing her porcelain products at Paul Kotula Projects, Ferndale MI and Room 406, Chicago IL, Lillstreet Art Gallery, Chicago, IL. Residency: Shigaraki Ceramics Center, Shiga, Japan, European Ceramic Work Center, ‘sHertogenbosch, Netherland, “Intonation 2013” Deidesheim, Germany. She received BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Currently she is... Read More

Erica Meier

Erica Meier is a Wisconsin based Artist living near Milwaukee Wisconsin. She received her Bachelors of Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater in 2009, and received her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in 2013. Meier is currently the resident designer and Metalsmith at Waterford Precision Cycles developing and building internationally renowned bicycle frames. She exhibits her work nationally and internationally and has taught at such universities as UW–Madison and UW–Parkside and will be the lecturer at UW–Whitewater in Fall 2016.

Jeremy Nuttall

Jeremy Nuttall is from San Diego, California, and is currently an MFA candidate in Metalsmithing and Jewelry at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Joseph Pine

Joseph Pine is currently enrolled as an MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Jewelry and Metalsmithing. In 2013, Joseph received his BFA in from the State University of New York at New Paltz after studying under the tutelage of renowned artists Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Jamie Bennett, Kerianne Quick, Arthur Hash, and John Cogswell. Joseph worked as the Instructional Support Technician for the Metal program at SUNY New Paltz from September 2013 to January 2015.

Jayson Randall

Jayson's experience as an artist began during frequent trips into the secluded beauty of the Boundary Waters-Quetico wilderness area. Jayson is intrigued by the colors he sees in nature that can only be reproduced by experimenting with different techniques and mediums.

Jayson Randall is a 4th generation industrial artisan. As the world moves forward at an ever-increasing pace, Jayson is compelled to preserve industrial objects from another time and give them a new life. Jayson Randall sees beauty in the rough, scarred exterior of forgotten machines. He is inspired to showcase them by creating modern, electronic, interactive, audio-visual devices.

Born in New York, Jayson Randall grew up in northern Ontario before moving to Minnesota. He currently resides in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, where he continues to produce innovative and deeply personal works of art.

Allison Roberts

Allison Roberts is a mixed media artist using a range of visual art techniques to convey her concept driven work. Roberts is an MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where her work has broadened to encompass sculpture, photography, and projection art. She holds a BA in art and journalism from Indiana University–Bloomington (1988) and an Art Education certificate from UW–Madison (1992). Roberts continued to develop her artwork while teaching and moving internationally, exhibiting her artwork in the U.S. and the U.K. She completed a MA in studio art at Minnesota State University, Mankato (2013). Roberts has successfully pursued grants and exhibition opportunities, including a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant (2014) and two Jerome Fiber Artists Project Grants (2014, 2009). Roberts was accepted into the MFA program at University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2014 where she continues to exhibit her work separate from her academic program. Roberts’s work was... Read More

Gabriel Strader-Brown

Gabe Strader-Brown, originally from Burlington, Vermont, graduated from Beloit College in 2007 where he studied studio art and anthropology. Between 2007 and 2012, he worked for various art organizations including The Soap Factory and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and RARE Gallery in New York City. In 2008 he co-curated the Soap Factory's volunteer biennial Minimal/Manimal. He has exhibited and participated in exhibitions and events at venues such as The Soap Factory, The Art Shanty Projects and the Duluth Art Center in Minnesota, the Wright Art Museum in Beloit, Wisconsin and MANA Contemporary in Chicago, Illinois and Jersey City, NJ. Strader-Brown received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2015, and continues to exhibit in Madison's art venues. In 2015 he attended Anderson Ranch Art Center's artist residency program in Snow Mass Village, CO, and was awarded International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary... Read More

Zero-Craft Corp. + Ebitenyefa Baralaye

Zero-Craft Corp. is an experimental design studio founded by Mark Dineen and Michael Neville in 2015 and based in Detroit, MI. ZCC engages with art and design as highly compatible disciplines and is focused on conceptual craft research as it applies to both art and design.

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Beyond Function

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