Katie Bretzman & HML at Inver Hills Community College
Interact is thrilled to announce the upcoming opening of Rhythm and Color, an exhibition by Katie Bretzman and HML in Gallery 120 at Inver Hills Community College.
Rhythm and Color considers the movements of an artist’s hand as well as the intimate landscapes created through this accumulation of marks. Repeated gestures abound in Katie Bretzman's patchwork schematics and HML’s wearable soft sculptures.
Bretzman describes her quilt-like drawings as aerial views of living spaces and scenes from home. To make them, she carefully repeats a series of vertical strokes, using a systematic rotation of the same markers throughout a piece. In these vibrant studies, some about the size of a blueprint, Bretzman meditates on her experiences in domestic spaces and built environments. Blocks of color stand for rooms, windows, and doors, their perimeters determined by the thickness of the marker and the number of strokes she makes. Together they invite the viewer to wander through an arrangement of private moments, traversing fields of lime, tangerine, black, gold, and inhabiting Bretzman’s prismatic scenes.
HML’s corporeal soft sculptures are medleys of found material, bound with thread by hand or with the mechanical hum of a sewing machine. Stitches accumulate to join soft ribs, deltoids, breastbones, and pectorals in fabrics sourced from thrift stores and friends. The series explores the intersection of disability, gender identity, and sexuality. “The suits break down the body into a form that you can see from the inside out, which is a huge part of disability,” says HML. “If it’s not seeable, people don’t recognize it. And if it is seeable, it comes with being ostracized. With the suits, I’m thinking, here’s a body that someone will treat me better in. I make them androgynous so they’re usable by all people.”
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Katie Bretzman has presented work in exhibitions at Make Studio (Baltimore, MD), HGA Architects & Engineers (Minneapolis, MN), Artspace Jackson Flats (Minneapolis, MN), and Interact Gallery. She has practiced at Interact since 2018.
HML has recently presented work at Jennifer Lauren Gallery (Manchester, UK), Second Shift Studio (St. Paul, MN), Gamut Gallery (Minneapolis, MN), Textile Center (St. Paul, MN), and the Minnesota Museum of American Art (St. Paul, MN). In 2023, she was an artist in residence at Interact Gallery. HML has practiced at Interact since 2016.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
When | March 4 – April 5, 2024
Where | Gallery 120, Fine Arts Building, Room FA120 at Inver Hills Community College, 2500 80th St E, Inver Grove Heights, MN, 55076
Gallery hours | Mondays and Wednesdays: 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays: 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. These hours are subject to change. Please contact janell.hammer@inverhills.edu to confirm before visiting.
Artist meet and greet | Tuesday, March 12, 2-3 p.m. Free and open to the public.
The artist meet and greet coincides with Midterm Mixup, an arts, music, and theater festival that builds upon the creative community at Inver Hills Community College. Drop-in workshops, student work, and performances will occur in the Fine Arts Commons. This event is also free and open to the public.
ACCESSIBILITY
Gallery 120 is located on the first floor of the Fine Arts Building at Inver Hills Community College. There is a free parking in the lot directly outside the building. Please reach out to janell.hammer@inverhills.edu for more accessibility information.
Images (above): HML, Battlestar Gallactica, 2023, mixed fibers, approximately 33 x 30 x 5 inches (left). Katie Bretzman, Untitled, 2023, marker on paper, 9 x 12 inches.
Image descriptions: HML's wearable soft sculpture on the left is composed of found materials. A shiny silver material is used to create a pointy shoulder plate and tubes around the arms. Light blue fabrics with patterns on them compose soft ribs, breastbone, deltoids, and coils around the neck. Katie Bretzman's patchwork drawing on the right is composed of fields of pink, blue, orange, green, black, and yellow marker.