Sites of Exhaust: Works by MALFLOR & Nancy Julia Hicks in the Quarter Gallery

The two-person exhibition investigates the parallels between the environment, built structures, and trans bodies, Feb 21 - March 18.
Two images of artwork. At left: A latex chain coated in asphaltum—a shiny, deep brown black coating—hangs from a white plastic hook against a wall, it has broken a little less than halfway down. The bottom half is adhered to the wall and stays in place. At right: A screen-printed image of two bodies embracing on a bed with only their torsos in view, sepia ink on gray paper.
Strips of sheet latex are woven atop each other and stretched onto a canvas stretcher. There is distressed horizontal blue text at the top that reads “...ent. like a stream to a river. I concentrate…” Vertical text runs along the left side reading “...grasses, I see it and I think…” There is faded asphaltum—a shiny, deep brown black coating—painted on the weaving and conceals parts of the text.
Nancy Julia Hicks, She does not mourn the cycle of death at such a vast scale, 2022, Asphaltum and screenprint on woven latex sheeting, liquid latex, 16 x18 in.
A latex chain coated in asphaltum—a shiny, deep brown black coating—hangs from a white plastic hook against a wall, it has broken a little less than halfway down. The bottom half is adhered to the wall and stays in place.
Nancy Julia Hicks, Here she lays her call to you, 2021-2022, Cast liquid latex, asphaltum, plastic coated hook, 32 x 2 in.
A halftoned bright pink image of an oil derrick sits overlaid on a birds-eye 3D rendering of a forest. A white letter typeface is layered on top of the image reading “...umed was smoke and put together that the field was on fire. It was far…” The text runs off of the side of the image.
Julia Hicks, Controlled Burn 2, 2020-2022, Video still, 03:25, looped, Dimensions variable
A video still of the artist, a non-binary trans person, laying nude in a creek with lush greenery in the background.
MALFLOR, KROPP/VANN, 2022, Video still, 00:45, looped, Dimensions variable
A screen-printed image, largely abstract, with more density towards the bottom of the image and cloud-like forms on top.
MALFLOR, CROSS HILL, 2022, Serous fluid on stonehenge paper, 15 x 22 in.
A screen-printed image of two bodies embracing on a bed with only their torsos in view.
MALFLOR, HOOKED, 2022, Serrous fluid on stonehenge paper, 15 x 22 in.

Sites of Exhaust:

Works by MALFLOR & Nancy Julia Hicks

February 21 - March 18, 2023



Public Reception

Friday, March 17 | 6 - 8 PM | Quarter Gallery

Upcoming Closure

The Gallery will be closed March 6-13 for University Spring Break.

The Department of Art at the University of Minnesota presents Sites of Exhaust, the Regis Center for Art (RCA) Emerging Artist Program exhibition featuring the work of MALFLOR  and Nancy Julia Hicks. These artists unite their individual practices encompassing sculpture, installation, and printmaking to investigate the parallels between the environment, built structures and trans bodies. The RCA Emerging Artist Program seeks to support a diverse range of artistic practices within the visual arts, providing artists with opportunities to broaden their professional connections, build lasting relationships with their artistic peers, and gain wider exposure to the arts community in the Twin Cities. 

 

A screen-printed image of two bodies embracing on a bed with only their torsos in view.
MALFLOR, HOOKED, 2022, Serrous fluid on stonehenge paper, 15 x 22 in.

MALFLOR (AKA Kieran Myles-Andrés Tverbakk) (they/them) is a first-generation Mexican-Norwegian-American and non-binary trans artist from Houston, Texas based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. They received their BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2016 and have since participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Blue Mountain Center, and The Medium Arts. Solo exhibitions include A Complex Desire at Sure Space, But The Skin Of The Earth Is Seamless at Hair + Nails, In Tending To at the pH Gallery, and HULDRA at The Medium Arts.

 

Artist Statement

MALFLOR (b. 1994 Houston TX) is a transdisciplinary conceptual artist working primarily in sculpture and installations. They are interested in how we separate ourselves into legible categories and how this legibility fails us by reinforcing otherness. Informed by personal experience and the poetics of material culture, MALFLOR creates artwork that addresses themes of separation, reconnection, humanity, nature, queerness, multiplicity, becoming, and returning.

 

Strips of sheet latex are woven atop each other and stretched onto a canvas stretcher. There is distressed horizontal blue text at the top that reads “...ent. like a stream to a river. I concentrate…” Vertical text runs along the left side reading “...grasses, I see it and I think…” There is faded asphaltum—a shiny, deep brown black coating—painted on the weaving and conceals parts of the text.
Nancy Julia Hicks, She does not mourn the cycle of death at such a vast scale, 2022, Asphaltum and screenprint on woven latex sheeting, liquid latex, 16 x18 in.

Nancy Julia Hicks (they/them) is a non-binary print and installation artist and educator from Houston, TX now based in Minneapolis, MN. Through visualizing the body as object and machine they illustrate and negotiate infliction of pain on the environment, space, and othered bodies. They’ve exhibited work at Dreamsong, Nightclub at Night, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in the Concourse Gallery, the Soap Factory, the Highpoint Center for printmaking, the Soo visual arts Center, and other locations. 

 

Artist Statement

Nancy Julia Hicks’s work visualizes human relationships to natural and built space through printmaking, sculpture, and video. Pairing materials that rest between resilient and gentle with seemingly precarious forms and structures, they implicate the body’s relationship to the social environment. Through materials like human hair and latex, building materials like chain and stone, and natural materials like dirt and wood shavings, they create visual narratives that visually layer the entanglement between the body, constructed space, and land. 

 

Share on:

Related News

Curtis Ingvoldstad and the LOTI Pencil, the 20-foot-high sculpture of a No. 2 pencil he carved out of a tree trunk.

Curtis and the giant pencil

Meet Curtis Ingvoldstad (BA in Art, ’01), the sculptor who created the LOTI Pencil, a 20-foot-tall yellow No. 2 pencil he carved from a tree trunk with a chainsaw.

UMN Art logo on yellow. "Stay curious. Make Art."

Art News + Happenings

Check out the latest Art News + Happenings e-newsletter!
Subscribe for news and opportunities every Tuesday afternoon.

Children playing in a spraying fire hydrant on the sidewalk.

Adger Cowans: Seen and Unseen

The Quarter Gallery at the University of Minnesota, in association with the University Libraries, is proud to present Adger Cowans: Seen and Unseen, a solo exhibition of

More Art News