ARTIST RESUME

Paula Barkmeier
4230 Basswood Rd. St.Louis Park, MN 55416
952-926-3505
E-mail: pbarkmeier@comcast.net

EDUCATION: B.A. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 1990
B.S. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 1995

AWARDS: Jerome Mentor / Protogee Scholarship Grant, Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota, Mentor Program, 1999-2000

2008: Vine Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. “Nature: Provocations, Reflections, Abstractions.”

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS: 2008: Vine Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. “Nature: Provocations, Reflections, Abstractions.”
2008: The Casket Art Building, Minneapolis, MN. “Fall Show.”
2008: Premier Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. “Genus Elephas.”
2008: The Casket Arts Building, Minneapolis, MN. “Art-a-Whirl.”
2008: Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN. “Situations.”
2007: Coffman Art Gallery, University of Minnesota. Two-person show.
2006: The Keg House Arts Building, Minneapolis, MN. “Art-a-Whirl.”
2006: Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN. “W.A.R.M. Juried Exhibition: Our Roots.”
2005: Coffman Art Gallery, University of Minnesota. Three-person show.
2003: The 700 Building, Minneapolis, MN. Two-person show.
2002: The 700 Building, Minneapolis, MN. Two-person show.
2001: Sirena Gallery, Taos, NM. Solo show.
2000: The Soap Factory, Minneapolis,MN. “W.A.R.M. Mentor Program Exhibition.”
2000: The Austellung of Payerbach, Payerbach, Austria. “100 Sacred Visions.”
2000: The 700 Building, Minneapolis, MN. “The 700 Building Exhibition.”
2000: Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Wayzata, MN. “The Figure Show.”
1999: The California Building, Minneapolis,MN. “Art-a-Whirl.”
1998: Winchester Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. Group-show.
1998: Lizards Artistic Expressions Gallery, Duluth, MN. Group-show.
1998: The Wyman Building, Minneapolis, MN. “W.A.R.M. Nineteenth Annual Juried
Exhibition for Women.”
1998: Cornucopia Art Center, Lanesboro, MN. “Expressions of Spirit.”
1997: Washington Galleries – Northern Women’s Art Collective, Duluth, MN. “Up
Against the Wall.”
1997: Ozark Heritage Arts Center and Museum, Leslie, AK. “Hope Lights a Candle in
The Darkness.”

STATEMENT - Delusions
“Delusions” is a modular installation with interchangeable images and forms, creating interchangeable dialogue. Different perceptions of reality are questioned. Where do animal and human meet? Distinct images and forms remain physically and ethereally interwoven and interdependent. Fully rendered images are juxtaposed with simple line drawings. An image continues and penetrates another field, creating the unforeseen. Human and animal parts morph to form new species. Strangely sculptured creatures engage in intimate conversation. Boundaries between the conscious and unconscious realms are blurred.

Many of the otherworldly creatures inhabiting my menagerie are hybrids of real entities in nature and imaginary forms. These hybrids are formed on single or combined canvases, on mylar sheets, and through sculptures of various mediums. These created beings are more revealing than representations based on real qualities of known species. They crosscut categories and force us to question the relationships between these creatures, and how they interact with us in our dreams, psyche, and everyday existence. Single or multiple images and forms combine human and animal elements, signifying the shaman’s transformation. The shaman will ask, are we in ordinary or nonordinary reality here?

Combined images and forms create a dynamic whole, carrying more power and significance than any of its individual parts. Both interconnection and disconnect are represented through webs, veins, branches, roots, umbilical cords. Fluid forms interpenetrate and overlap to create the unexpected stories: a wild hyena is tamed with a red bonnet (image #6). Three canvases of varying sizes and depths come together to form a devil-horned baby that stares innocently at the viewer, with serpent body, while entangled in the threads of a spider’s web (image #7). A star-nosed mole sprouts a pink breast-like appendage (image #8). A scaled infant seeks connection through umbilical cord to a weeping sea turtle (image #9). These stories are formed, but not fixed. I see these images as part of the collective consciousness: archetypes that hold universal meaning. The viewer will be either engaged with, or repulsed by these images as they touch upon both the wild and instinctual parts within us all.