Exhibition - I'm Hunting Myself: The Unattainable Prize

We want our images/products to function as a bit of a non sequitur in an environment of conspicuous production and consumption.
--Rollin Beamish and Andrew Schell.

Emerging Montana artists Rollin Beamish and Andrew Schell examine the notion of individual identity in today’s collective society, and they do this through mixed media art that itself blurs the boundaries between their own individual artistic identities. I’m Hunting Myself will include explosive form and color: new work created as a collaboration between the two artists. Merging sculptural and painted forms, their commanding works lay claim to gallery spaces in a way that paradoxically reinforces our cultural institutions even as the two artists criticize our society’s materialism and sustainability.

Beamish and Schell visually comment on the “hybridization” of all of us today—unable to function, for instance, without automobiles or computers—through works that reflect a chaotic hybridization of human figures, animals, and fragments of the built and natural environment. Figures tumble through space, surprising and perplexing the viewer, who is led to contemplate such timely topics as material needs, genetic engineering, and loss of individuality. These somber topics are presented through visually seductive and intensely colored forms that seem to belie their important message.

The YellowstoneArt Museum is proud to present the work of these artists, whose incisive message, sophisticated aesthetic, and high quality work deals with topics central to art world dialogue. Rollin Beamish, Assistant Professor of Painting at MSU-Bozeman, and Andrew Schell, part of the art faculty at MSU-Billings, both joined the Montana art community in 2006. Their approach is indicative of the complex, layered thinking that informs today’s best artists.

Curated by the artists and the YellowstoneArt Museum’s Senior Curator Robert C. Manchester, this exhibition will be on view only at the YellowstoneArt Museum.

Exhibition dates:March 14, 2008 - June 15, 2008.

Opening Reception:Thursday, March 13, 2008, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.