A Project Space Grant Exhibition
January 11 – March 1, 2025
Artist Reception
Saturday, January 18, 2025
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Artist Talk
Saturday, February 15, 2025
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Kolman & Reeb Gallery is pleased to present its next Project Space grantee exhibition, Bucolic Topographies, by Lisa Truax. With her abstract, wall-based ceramic pieces, Truax explores the intersections of nature and human influence to create a sense of connection with our natural world, asking us to examine our relationship with innate tendencies to seek connection with nature and other life forms.
Maintaining a studio in the Mississippi Bluff River Valley just outside of Winona, Truax is constantly collecting locally sourced items. These materials and the processes used to incorporate them are important conceptual factors in her work. Truax achieves a unique synthesis by blending traditional ceramic ingredients with natural elements like granite, clay, and sand from the region, along with recycled items such as glass, metal, and waste glaze. These components transform during the firing process, melting, flowing, and fusing in surprising ways. Her creations evoke abstract representations of landscapes, caves, bodies of water, and even microscopic life forms, reflecting the intricate interplay between nature and human influence.
Continuing with the modular format found in past shows, Truax builds a cohesive body of work in this exhibition that explores our evolutionary history and the tendency to seek connection to our natural environment. Because of the resources provided by her Kolman & Reeb Project Space Grant, Truax’s techniques significantly increased in complexity. By building layers, creating glaze tests, and using traditional methods to expand her palette, Truax uses surface textures and colors in new and complex ways.
“Lisa’s show incorporates individual pieces to create a whole,” says Anita Sue Kolman, Kolman & Reeb Gallery co-founder and co-partner. “What’s great about this approach is how these stand-alone pieces can be shown as individual works or as stunning, larger installations. Jodi and I are excited to have Lisa’s unique approach to ceramics in the gallery.”
Jodi Reeb, gallery curator, and co-partner, comments, “Lisa’s show is more like an overall installation created by an array of individual pieces. Deeply inspired by her local environment, Lisa expands on and advances her work using soda ash firing techniques and found materials such as clay and soil, which create impressive color combinations. I’m excited to see how visitors respond to her dimensional ceramic wall sculptures.”
Lisa Truax is a ceramic artist who has exhibited regionally and nationally in group and solo exhibitions, including the Northern Clay Center and the American Swedish Institute. She was an Artist in Residence at Isle Royale National Park in 2022 and has work in the collections of hospital facilities in Michigan, Nevada, and Georgia. Maintaining a studio in Pickwick, Minnesota in the Mississippi bluff country, Lisa works as an artist and educator. She holds an MFA in Ceramics from Michigan State University and a BFA from Carthage College.
