Before we were deconstructionists, we were mountains with unshakable foundations. But there’s a stagnation in being a mountain, stuck in place and made to bear witness to that which it must move to change. Bit by bit, piece by piece, those constructs which we once held, and which once held us, are broken to rubble. And like robins at the break of day, we emerge as reconstructionists blushing into a riot.

Artist Talks: Wednesday, April 29, 12-1:15pm. Free and open to the public.

For ASL interpretation and/or other accommodations, please contact bcrahn869@stkate.edu .

ARTIST STATEMENT

Art is part of the everyday for me, it permeates my life, and it is deeply personal. Art is something I want to care for within myself and to keep close. At this stage in my life, I am finding myself interested in studying the cycles of my art practice over time. Looking at my past art practices – in photography, painting, drawing, book arts, and fiber arts – I am finding a desire to revisit these mediums, but with fresh eyes.
 

The art I am making now is driven by experimentation with materials such as paper, paint, fabric, and glass. My approach is a careful practice of technique while finding room for playfulness. So, I’m leaning on intuition, and the making becomes an abstraction of the technique. I’m delighted by how line, shape, color, texture, and pattern emerge as I work with each medium. Each piece is a surprise.

ARTIST BIO

Brooke Dierkhising is both student and staff at St. Kate’s. Her personal art practice is grounded in extensive effort over time. Art sometimes shows up as a job, sometimes as learning, other times for fun, often as a touchstone when experiencing change, for healing, and for spiritual connection. Now, she is seeking an art degree from St. Kate’s to deepen her experience with art. Her previous pursuits include teaching art in Chicago Public Schools, publishing a book of nature meditations for children, founding two arts-focused summer camps and a before-school program (two in Minneapolis and one in rural Wisconsin), and participating in two group art exhibitions. With an unfailing love for all things artistically made by hand, she continues to move and change with her art practice, leaning into both uncertainty and possibility.
 

ARTIST STATEMENT

As an artist, I am inspired by natural phenomena, and the ways they can be mimicked in art through color and texture. I gravitate towards smooth soft textures, and vibrant colors, the qualities in nature that soothe me and spark joy. These sensory qualities ground my work and shape the materials I choose. Imperfection is an essential part of my practice. I see it everywhere in the natural world, in the blemishes on leaves that interrupt their symmetry, in the curving branches of trees that have lost old limbs, on the mountains weathered into new forms and in the mineral buildup that  partially blocks a stone’s surface. In my own work, imperfection appears through the warping of clay as I handle it or in a pulled strand of yarn, creating a bubble in the fabric that never quite goes away. I enjoy returning to these details that stand out to me once a piece is finished;the details that stand out the most are those that were unexpected when I started making. This creates a cyclical process where I can draw from previous works and experiments to find new ideas.

ARTIST BIO

Kathryn Lewis is a ceramic and fiber artist from Minnesota. She is an Honors student at St. Kate’s, where she is majoring in Art. After graduation she will be joining an outdoor education fellowship at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center. Kathryn’s art focuses on connection to nature, experimentation, and sensory experiences.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Cathartic.

The word assigned to that easy exhalation I felt once my camera finally managed to find its focus as I stood on the church’s lawn. Just before the hitch in my breath when I pressed the shutter. And once again following the slam of the car door as we sped away, all my anger in that photo.

In the release of ink from my pen as I drew the sword and the leaves and around the holes in my story. In those moments of total devotion to the fine details. In the precision of my knife as I autopsied the sky by carving out its stars, mirroring the light that illuminated her face and his jaw. In the careful construction of the world I built, and the depths of its shadows that I don’t understand. And through this exploration– of life and color and dimension– I’ve lost and found myself again and again, each time adding to my body of work.

Catharsis. The seamless transfer of breath and life from my body to that one.

ARTIST BIO

Amara Moss is a Minnesota-based artist pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Art at St. Catherine University, from which she will graduate in May 2027. Since beginning her education, she has been featured in the University’s publication, Ariston, and in the exhibitions Shifted, Roots Intertwined, and CONSTRUCT/CONSTRUCT. In addition to her visual art practice, Amara is passionate about writing and education. She is a member of the St. Catherine University Honor Writing Society and interned at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in winter 2026.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The spaces we move through are haunted, metaphorically and literally, by the matter from which they are constructed. No emotion or action is ever completely obliterated– only diminished, tangible throughout its transformation; an extended exercise in the equality of action and reaction. In the words of Charles Babbage, “the air itself is one vast library”.

As an artist, I work with multiple mediums in combination with print to explore cycles of inner conflict, the body as a filter, and the various ways in which the past haunts the present. The process of printmaking provides an opportunity for a highly physical exploration of time and aberration, and through impression, transfer, overlap, and modification, my pieces make up a study of the ways a place may be transformed. With constant absorption of events and emotions, they become perpetual depositories of human experience, where objective record has the potential to reappear in various forms, intruding upon our understanding of the present.

In an era of conflicting public memory and rising temporal disjunction, it has become more important than ever to examine our relationship with the past. Haunted spaces, exhibiting recall through their phenomena, invite us to challenge our understanding of place and time through ontological upset. In the same way, by reexamining our relationship with more metaphorical “spectral presences” in the historical record, we have an opportunity to shake the violence of a colonial archival process that, in turn, haunts our present memory. Through this lens, the ghost becomes a symbol of objective truth– disruptive, and constant– independent of perception. I would ask us to interrogate our reflexive aversion to the haunted, and to consider the possibility that what we perceive to be uncanny is, in reality, a latent lesson.  No place is without history. No material is without history either.
 

ARTIST BIO

Quinn Schuetzle is aTwin Cities-based printmaker. After graduating from Perpich Center for Arts Education in 2018, she completed her freshman year at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design before returning to Minnesota to apprentice in confectionary and pastry arts. During the following years, she had the privilege of working as a cake decorator for multiple bakeries in the Twin Cities.

As an artist, she works with multiple mediums in combination with print. Her work is informed by historical research and driven by experimentation.

Quinn returned to undergraduate studies in 2023 and will graduate from St. Catherine University in 2026 with a BA in studio art and a minor in history. She is active on the staff of Ariston, the university’s annual student art and literary publication, and as a volunteer for the Outdoor Sculpture Corps, where she received training from the Midwest Art Conservation Center in collections preservation.

In addition to the Catherine G. Murphy gallery, her work has been exhibited in the Rudy Perpich and Tony Basta Galleries in Golden Valley, Minnesota, Frederick Layton Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and as a permanent installation for Victory Vintage, a boutique in Linden Hills, Minnesota. She plans to remain at St. Kate’s to pursue a master's degree in library and information science with a focus on archival work. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

While ceramics and collage are the primary mediums I work with, I love to experiment with a variety of materials and techniques. I often think of the medium I use as another artist in the process, because of the impact it has on the final product through its limitations, inclinations, and the inspiration I get from the material and process itself. Through my collaboration with the artist that is clay, I encounter destruction and fragmentation. While many of my pieces are planned out, there are also many that are formed by expanding little accidents into beautiful designs and forms. These mistakes are often what inspire me to experiment with different materials, forms, and techniques. One method of working with clay that has been prominent in my work is taking a bone dry, wheel thrown piece of pottery, and breaking it. I then create an entirely new form out of those pieces using a mix of slip and epoxy. I also like to use slip, glaze, and underglaze, to play with texture, pattern, and design. 
 

ARTIST BIO

Laney Schwartz is a multimedia artist from Minnesota. She is also a St. Kate’s art student with a focus on art history and ceramics, and a minor in classics. Art of all kinds of mediums has always been present in her life, though she was introduced to wheel thrown pottery in her final years of high school, Through her process of working with pottery, Schwartz discovered an affinity for themes of destruction and fragmentation. Her artistic influences include St. Kate’s Professor Emerita Monica Rudquist and are shaped by a deep engagement with history, anatomy, nature, architecture, mythology, and folklore.