SIGNE STUART
Signe Stuart's professional history spans over fifty years, beginning in the early 1960's. Her approach to art making relies on experimentation with painting materials and forms, often breaking from the standard rectangle and concepts of framing. Stuart has lived and worked in diverse regions of the United States: East Coast, Pacific Northwest, Northern Plains, and Southwest: residing now in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Since 1972, Signe Stuart has had 18 solo museum exhibitions including those at the Sheldon Art Museum, Lincoln, NE; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND; American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis, MN; South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, SD and the Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM. Her work has also been included in many museum group exhibitions, among them the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; Burchfield Penny Art Center, Buffalo, NY and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Mminneapolis, MN. Stuart's numerous solo gallery shows over this time range geographically from: Jan Cicero, Chicago; Peter M. David, Minneapolis; Kate Ganz, NYC; Anderson/O'Brien, Omaha and William Siegal, Santa Fe.
From 1989 to 2014, Stuart created several room size installations incorporating sound, light, and sensors, utilizing industrial materials styrofoam, tyvek, and vacuuforms. These environments focussed on implications of diverse connective systems and cultural interventions in nature. Installation effects ranged from meditative to sensory overload. Onomatopoeia, one of Stuart's 60 foot wide abstract narrative scroll paintings was the subject of a new music composition by composer Jonathan Chenette, (Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY.) Onomatopoeia premiered with a performance at the Albuquerque Art Museum in 2010 in conjunction with the exhibition Crossing Boundaries: Synesthesia in American Art.
During her career, Signe has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Painting Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts mural commissions, a South Dakota Arts Council Artist Fellowship and a New Mexico Experimental Glass Workshop Fellowship. She received several purchase awards including a Ford Foundation Purchase - Seattle Art Museum. Teaching, lectures and artist residencies include: Professor of Art, South Dakota State University; visiting artist, Williams College, MA; U-Cross Foundation Residency, WY and Cowles Visiting Artist at Grinnell College, IA.
Exhibition catalogs featuring Stuart'swork include: SIGNESTUART:FIFTEEN (Sara Woodbury) Roswell Museum and Art Center, 2015; Exhibitions 5 & 6 (Mary Anne Redding), Preston Contemporary Art Center, Mesilla, NM, 2011; Romantic Materialism , Untitled Artspace, Oklahoma City, OK, 2008; Patient Process (Don Doe, Leslie Wright), Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell, IA, 2001; Signe Stuart: Retrospective (James Yood), South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, SD, 1995; Signe Stuart (Laurel Reuter) Civic Fine Arts Center, Sioux Falls, SD, 1989. Press reviews/articles in newspapers and magazines include: Signe Stuart at William Siegal (Jan Adlmann) Art in America, 2014; Creative Trinity (Nancy Zimmerman) Santa Fe Trend; THE Magazine (several reviews from 1998 to 2016) and Chromatic Waves of Signe Nelson (Jan Van der Marck) Artscanada, 1971.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Observations and questions about mysteries of the universe, life and consciousness are sources of visual ideas for my paintings and constructions.
Making these works is an ongoing process of experimentation and negotiation between ideas and materials.
I want my artworks to resonate with viewers and move them toward seeing this is that: everything as a consequence of endless shape-shifting, combining and recombining.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis, MN
Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, CT
Blanden Art Museum, Fort Dodge, IA
Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID
Cedar Rapids Puiblic Library, Cedar Rapids, IA
Dahl Art Center, Rapid City, SD
Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE
Miami Airport, Miami, FL
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM
New Mexico State Capitol Art Foundation, Santa Fe, NM
North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND
Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND
Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM
Salt Lake City Public Library, Salt Lake City, UT
Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, OR
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE
Sioux Falls Airport, Sioux Falls, SD
South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, SD
Southwest Minnnesota State University Museum, Marshall, MN
Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
University of New Mexico Museum of Art, Albuquerque, NM
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT
Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls, SD