Jonathan Thunder and Robb Quisling
RECEPTION: January 25, 1 – 3pm with ARTISTS CONVERSATION at 2pm
EXHIBIT: January 25 – March 28, 2025
EXHIBIT STATEMENT
Loaded features the work of Robb Quisling and Jonathan Thunder. The two artists bring their own experiences with alcohol addiction and recovery to bear on the visual imagery of their work, exploring the substance as both a seductive chemical as well as a force of entrapment. Their artwork serves as a poignant reflection on this complex relationship that ultimately celebrates the resilience offered by shared creative endeavors.
Robb is a printmaker and installation artist who lives and works in Duluth, MN. He has exhibited in Chicago and locally at the Duluth Art Institute. His work centers on themes of connection and human interactions. He works as an art teacher at Hermantown High School.
Jonathan Thunder attended the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM and studied Visual Effects and Motion Graphics in Minneapolis, MN at the Art Institute International. His work has been featured in state, regional, and national exhibitions, as well as in local and international publications. Thunder is the recipient of a 2020 Pollock – Krasner Foundation Award for his risk in painting. Since his first solo exhibit in 2004, he has won several awards for his short films in national and international competitions. His painting and digital work is in the permanent collections of multiple Museums and Universities. Thunder infuses his personal lens with real-time world experiences using a wide range of mediums. He is known for his surreal paintings, digitally animated films and installations in which he addresses subject matter of personal experience and social commentary. Jonathan is an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, and makes his home and studio in Duluth, MN.
JONATHAN THUNDER ARTIST STATEMENT
The body of work that I’ve produced for this exhibit comes from my experience as a person who has overcome an addiction to alcohol. That journey taught me that my life is like these birchbark vessels, they only hold what we put in them. In creating this body of work, I kept in mind that I didn’t want to make an exhibit that feels like anti-alcohol messaging, but rather simply shows my perspective as someone who made the decision to live without it. A decision that came as a result of relying on alcohol heavily prior to taking my last drink in October of 2013.
Ironically, as the obsession to drink has left me years ago, to create this work, I thought about drinking all the time.
It’s important to note, that I don’t hate drinking, in fact, I loved it. Robb Quisling and I would often discuss the irony of this exhibit with humor. To create an exhibit about drinking meant to think about drinking, to plan to think about drinking and to get away to be in solitude and make work about drinking. All of the behavior that we both agreed was characteristic of our drinking days. Our graveside humor was often fuel in our studio visits, discussing what it was like in the before days, what things lead to our decision to sober up, and what life is like now.
It’s my honor to share gallery space with my friend and colleague Robb Quisling on a theme that I feel is rarely discussed. Robb’s razor sharp instincts have been great to engage with during the creation of these pieces we collectively bring together to the Kruk Gallery UW-S.
Image: Now & Then – Jonathan Thunder. Two vessels represent two tastes. One with salty accompaniments, the other with sweet. A rabbit skull sits in the foreground as a reminder to us all that time is what we make of it.
ROBB QUISLING ARTIST STATEMENT
“Loaded” can refer to being drunk, but also, it is about double meanings and implication.
As an alcoholic making work about alcohol, this seemed like the perfect title.
My plan was to make work showing the arc of progression from early drinking to addiction.
My series includes larger than life shiny images of bottles. It also includes installation pieces about how addiction finds its way into domestic life. Some of those works include a bar/closet combination and liquor bags that retain the shape of the absent bottle.
Making art has been part of my recovery since entering the “program” in 1994, but hasn’t become as cohesive and deliberate until beginning a collaboration with artist Jonathan Thunder.
My recovery and art practice have overlapped. Our weekly meetings and studio visits have informed my work and even encouraged me to try a new medium. The practice of recovery by way of making images makes me grateful to show “Loaded” together With Jonathan at the Kruk Gallery At UWS.