Jim Shrosbree

Lecture Abstract:

“All paintings create some uncertainty….Our engagement with them [paintings] involves continual adjustment as we scan them for suggestions how to proceed in confirmation or disconfirmation of our response”  Michael Podro, Art Historian

The notion of an “unknown” in the moment of discovery, engaging an in-between state universal to our experience, remains a salient topic for artists. Questions about this as a constant reality necessary for life (to breathe) become known to us through the stir, and experiencing, of a play of opposite values in the art process.  Through the growing and changing interaction between his sculpture and painting, Shrosbree poses questions about the uncertain relationship between interior and exterior worlds that, for him, have led to consciousness as a primary reality and fundamental condition. How this relates to hallucination is an open question. However, the condition in which things are done becomes key in uncovering fresh insights about the capacity to move ahead, fortified by the clarity of the moment.

Workshop Abstract:

From one perspective, most of what we are continually experiencing is uncertain. That brings a question of how we prepare to meet circumstances with flexibility while anchored in a structure? Art arises out of a condition. This workshop addresses a co-existence of opposite values that might set up the conditions to enliven the fluidity of a path forward. Materials will be simple and experience can range from beginning to veteran experienced artists. We all start from where we are and move toward a more integrated understanding of what we are becoming.

Biography:

Jim Shrosbree earned an MFA in Ceramics at the University of Montana, Missoula and a BFA in Painting from Boise State University. His work has been exhibited widely and is in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Los Angeles County Museum, Edythe and Ely Broad Museum, University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Mint Museum and the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art.  His awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Iowa Arts Council, and NEA/Idaho Arts, and Humanities Commission.  Residencies include Yaddo, MacDowell, Watershed Center for Ceramic Art, American Academy in Rome, Knox College. Shrosbree has been a visiting artist and guest lecturer at numerous universities and art institutions such as Cranbrook Academy of Art, University of Washington, UC-Davis, Bard College, Penn State University, Alberta University of the Arts, NYU, and University of Iowa. He is Professor of Art at Maharishi International University, Fairfield, Iowa where he lives and works. Shrosbree’s work is represented by Paul Kotula Projects in Detroit, MI.