Sure as a fish in the sky; bird in the sea is a group exhibition nestled in the space of certainty and self-determined uncertainty. This exhibition is a close examination of what it means to be in and outside of a space, nature, and one’s own body. A critique of one’s access or prohibited experience in the world this exhibition engages conversations of childhood and cultural memory, safety and bodily autonomy.

About the Artists

Krista Anderson-Larson is a visual artist and independent curator working in Saint Paul, MN. Their sculpture, installation, and video work explores themes related to domestic spaces and sexual identity through materials ranging from found objects to oil paint. Anderson-Larson is a 2022 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support

for Individuals Grant recipient, and was awarded the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award in 2016 from the International Sculpture Center in Hamilton, NJ. Their work has been included

in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and has also been featured in several publications including Sculpture magazine and Art in America.

Danae Antoine is an Afro-Caribbean multi-disciplinary
artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her work utilizes drawing, painting, textiles, and sculpture. Through her practice, she seeks to dissect and understand femininity in patriarchal structures. She is currently pursuing her BFA at Georgia State University. In recent years, Danae has had public art around Atlanta, including The Beacon, Underground Atlanta, and the Atlanta Beltline. Coming up in 2022, she will begin
a residency at Anderson Ranch and has exhibited at MINT Gallery, Hous 11 Studios, and The Bakery.

Cecily Bohmann is a Minneapolis based artist, performer, and leatherworker from Milwaukee, WI. They received a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. They have exhibited work at Boneshaker Books and Fresh Eye Gallery. Bohmann’s work often deals intimately with spaces and internal worlds occupied by queer people, seen and unseen, politicizing the joy and uplifting the longing in vibrant color and care. To themself, they classify their paintings as magical realism.

Their life and practice have been inspired by the thriving and uniquely interconnected queer community in the Twin Cities. Cecily has been involved in performance, social media and event planning for House of 1000 Queers, an alternative and horror inspired drag night created and hosted by illustrator and performer Anne Lehman. Alongside creative partner

and leatherworker Robert McGrady, they have created and launched Switchgrass—a line of leather gear and wearables prioritizing the use of industrial waste produced at their workplace.

Sarah Buezis is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer living and working in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She holds a BFA in Industrial Design from UW-Stout and is an alumni of the ONE School for Artists. Her work has been shown in Minnesota and Maryland, and featured in Truly Magazine, Fall 2021 and Spring 2022. In 2020 she was selected for participation in the Eastside Co-op Creative Feed program. Sarah has self-published two artist books; Eating for Two (2019, and Make The Dust My Homeland (2021).

Ira Elliot Corbett began studying ceramics in their hometown of Rochester, Minnesota, and earned their AFA from Rochester Community and Technical College in 2016. Ira continued their studies at the University of Wisconsin River Falls, where they graduated with their BFA in Ceramics with a Minor in Drawing in 2019. They were one of two recipients of the Warren Mackenzie Advancement Award in 2019 from Northern Clay Center. Elliot currently works as a local tilemaker and resides in Minneapolis while continuing their artistic pursuits.

Jade Hein uses sculpture as a means to venerate the structures found on the earth’s surface as well as the
life within it. When thinking about the space the work occupies Robert Smithson’s theory of the Non-Site has been particularly influential. Reflecting on two identities: the original site from which it is inspired and the sculptures in

a gallery space. The ultimate goal is to provide a collection of objects that permit a viewer to travel within their own imagination as well as within hers.

Grover Hogan is a queer, Black and Mexican multimedia artist from Houston, Texas, currently based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They received their Bachelor of Fine Arts from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and is currently working as an interdisciplinary artist and art teacher. Their work focuses on their relationship to their identity, their performance of social roles, and how they move through hierarchies within a white supremacist culture. View their work on Instagram @ThriftShopTV and at groverhogan.com.

I’m an artist who loves to create beautiful tactile objects, joyful drawings, and multilayered collage. To do this I follow the trail of my intuition to decide shape, color, materiality, and image. I love art that is perfectly imperfect and that is what I hope I can lend to the conversation. ~Alex Kalil

Sophia Kosel is a 23 year old artist, yoga teacher, and aspiring fashion designer. Recently she studied abroad in Florence, Italy studying fine art and fashion design while catering to her free spirit where she regularly traveling throughout Italy and Europe. She hopes to continue her art while traveling and eventually receiving a degree in fashion design.

Jamie Kubat is a multidisciplinary artist and educator working primarily in printmaking, textiles, and book arts. Drawing on their experiences as an autistic person with a rural upbringing, their work blends storytelling, material specificity, and a love of nature into an exploration of their queer & disabled identities in relationship with the world around them. When not noodling around the studio or print shop, they’re probably in the woods, dreaming of gardens, or finding animals to pet.

Emma MacLean is an artist, educator and maker who recently moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a disabled person, she is interested in art and accessibility in all its forms. Whose stories do we tell, whose do we not? Who is invited to see/hear/smell/touch those stories, be in those spaces? How do we tell bodies that they are welcome or not? Emma uses quilting, embroidery and other textile arts to explore visualization of invisible things - like pain and illness. Her work is inspired by the many women in her lineage who made art, but would never call themselves an artist.

Marcus Rothering is a ceramic and fiber artist living in downtown Minneapolis with his rescue poodle Pansy. From Duluth, MN he shows his perspective of growing up along the shore with pieces inspired by Lake Superior agates
along with personal narratives expressing his vulnerabilities. Being black and queer is a large theme throughout his work expressing the difficulties navigating these identities. His ceramic forms are inspired by African and Haitian folklore, particularly the spirits and demons entwined in those stories. He received his B.A. in Studio Art and minor in Digital Media from Metropolitan State University focusing on ceramics and fiber. Handbuilt techniques are incorporated with his ceramics and he uses a tufting gun to create his rugs. He will begin his MFA at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in the fall.

Walter Smits is a queer multimedia artist examining the intangibility of memory, childhood, and sexuality through filmmaking. Concocting a methodology called “Playground Absurdism,” they explore a curiously imperfect approach to meaning within the ephemeral. Their lens is youthful and curious, broken down into collages of spontaneous language and fragmented imagery.

Walter has been inspired largely by artists who invoke the feeling of “play” in their work. By their own definition, play is the act of giving into impulse with exaggerated mindfulness. In other words, having a non-restricting goal in mind that finds its meaning as it unfolds. Play also calls back to being a kid, it invokes spontaneity but also delivers something that feels carefree and fun.

Walter has shown work in various festivals around the world including Franconia Five Minute Film Festival, the non- syntax experimental film festival in Tokyo, and 2020 Film and Video Poetry Symposium.

Soon-Wai Wong has been creating artwork with the support of Fresh Eye Arts, a program of MSS Minnesota, over the
last five years. Fresh Eye Arts provides artist career support to artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Through our assistance, Soon-Wai’s art career began to grow, having his artwork displayed in solo exhibitions at The Show Gallery Lowertown and an exhibit at the MSP Airport. Soon-Wai has also participated in group exhibitions and art fairs in the past five years, including St Paul Art Crawl and Powderhorn Art Fair.

Milan Warner (b.1998 in Rockville, MD) is a multimedia artist based in Maryland, primarily working in sculpture. She spent her most formative years in a provincial area of the Philippines which informs much of her current work. She completed her BA in studio art from the University of Maryland in the summer of 2021. In August 2021, Warner participated as an artist in residence at Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota where she completed her first public sculpture. In January 2022, she began her artist residence at the Arlington Art Center in Virginia where she further expanded her body of work.

Ari Zuaro was born in 1996 in Yangchun City, China, at the time a small village mainly devoted to rice farming. Adopted and raised in New Jersey, Ari currently works in Minneapolis. A multi - media artist their works primarily focus on how cultures shape identity and the ways in which people perceive themselves in various spaces.

Graduating from Carleton College with a bachelor’s degree in religion and studio art in 2018 Ari has spent the past
few years living in intentional community and teaching in Atlanta. Experiencing the mass uprisings during the summer of 2020 as well as the resurgence of anti asian sentiment, Ari’s work continues to address race, trans-national experiences and immigration. This past year Ari was featured

in a group show at the Northfield Arts Guild while working as the Educational Associate at Carleton.

Focusing on the historical aspects of ancient Chinese culture and modern consumerism Ari’s work has begun to take shape through sculptural installation and 2D-objects, including tiles and collaged wall boards. Using elements and materials from “the home” Ari seeks to understand
all an object or space can hold. Finding inspiration from common historical items such as traditional reusable Chinese wallpapers made of linen, strings of cash coins, and the terracotta warriors’ plate armor Ari’s work mimics these relics bringing them into the present and creating ways to physically bring stories from the past forward in attempts to reconnect to cultural roots. At a time where place and belonging are at the forefront of social discourse many people continue to seek places where they feel they might belong amongst family, friends and in community.

These themes and ideas are rooted in a long line of artists who have been exploring these concepts from mainland China or across the world. Ari’s work plays off of Chinese artists like Ai Wei Wei and Cai Guo Quang whose works reflect a historical narrative as well as question our built society. Looking to contemporary asian artists such as Chiharu Shiota who engages object and space as well as Yun Fei Ji whose scrolls reference a traditional practice, Ari’s work situates itself amongst those who are working through object or story to find the links between place and people.

Images courtesy of Nicole Thomas

Exhibition and catalog made possible through support from Fresh Eye Gallery. Free (PDF) and POD copies of the catalog are available here.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Thank you to the following individuals who supported this project:

Krista Anderson-Larson, Danae Antoine, Cecily Bohmann, Sarah Buezis, Ira Elliott Corbett, Jade Hein, Grover Hogan, Lauren Hughes, Olivia Jenkins, Alex Kalil, Sophia Kosel, Jamie Kubat, Drew Maude-Griffin, Emma MacLeon, Jes Reyes, Marcus Rothering, Nico Sardina, Walter Smits, Soon-Wai Wong, Milan Warner, Ari Zuaro