BRAD WIDNESS
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Brad Widness received his BA from Augustana College, Sioux Falls, in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking; and his MFA from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, also in Drawing and Printmaking. He has taught Drawing, Printmaking, Watercolor, Design, and Digital Media at Minnesota State, Mankato, as well as January interim courses at Gustavus in Bookmaking and a Bookmaking workshop at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis. Brad’s work has been selected for many juried regional and national exhibitions, and his work is included in numerous printmaking portfolios and traveling exhibits around the country. Highlights from the last ten years include participating in an invitational exhibition at the MAPC Conference in Minneapolis, receiving a McKnight Fellowship, and having work selected from an open portfolio review for exhibit at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking. On three occasions his work has been selected for New Print Exhibitions at the International Print Center in New York City. Brad’s work is driven by an abiding fascination with the interior landscape of memory and imagination, coexisting with the physical spaces in which we daily move and act. The urban and rural landscapes of the Midwest along with the everyday interior environments of our dwellings provide him with a continual source of inspiration.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
My work has steadily evolved into a variety of expressions of the relationship between object, time, space, and memory. The focus is on connections between the tangible and intangible realities of life, as it is lived and deeply reflected upon. The continuous process of visually questioning, creating, destroying, experimenting, editing, and remaking of space, matter, and form into meaningful expressions of this connection has constantly fueled my practice.
ANN KRONLOKKEN WIDNESS
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Ann Kronlokken Widness received her BA from Augustana College, Sioux Falls, in Painting; and her MA from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, in Fiber. She has taught both Fiber and Design as an adjunct instructor at Minnesota State, Mankato. Ann’s work has been exhibited in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Illinois and has found its way into numerous private and public collections. Her work combines drawing, painting, fiber, and collage. Ann has been making art since childhood, and it has always been a source of comfort, joy, and endless fascination. She finds her inspiration in music, story, theology, myth, nature, and especially ancient art of all kinds.
Ann also holds an MA in English from Minnesota State, Mankato and currently works as a technical writer.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I make art because it has always given me joy. I share what I have made in the hope that it will bring some measure of joy to the viewer as well.
My work is very intuitive – I don’t set out to make any sort of statement or tell a story. But when I look at what I’ve done, I can see that a story is there, and it is always the same one: that of the human soul’s path through a world full of challenges and unknowns. I try to leave my work as open‐ ended as possible but also include some element of recognizable imagery that the viewer can use as an entry point into the piece. My hope is that something in the work will provoke curiosity, perhaps even at an unconscious level, and engage the viewer’s imagination with the deeper mystery of life. What is happening here, exactly? What are we so afraid of? Where are we going and where did we come from?