Regan Golden: Grow Closer
September 9 – December 9, 2022
Closed October 15–18 and November 23-27 for college breaks
Regan Golden describes collage as unruly, unfinished and undisciplined—the perfect medium for reflecting life during a pandemic. Golden’s immersive large-scale collages in Grow Closer are a progression through the four seasons, cultivating an awareness of the landscape from the perspective of a gardener, parent, citizen, teacher and artist.
Golden’s collages resonate with the emotional tenor of the place she calls home. Her relationship to the land is shaped by indigenous authors, ecologists, and community activists in her neighborhood who share stories of its history. Through the specificity of the wildness that immediately surrounds her Minneapolis home and by engaging with the landscape over the course of several years (elements of these collages were created as early as 2017), Golden’s work reflects Minnesota’s dramatic seasonal rhythms and a changing climate.
By cutting, rearranging, and scanning her material, she creates digital photographs that explode a frame usually enforced by a viewfinder or the edge of the page. The resulting images and sweeping compositions express a relationship with landscape that is temporal, dynamic and fully engaged. Ultimately, the plants she observes over time give her confidence in the resilience of nature and hope for the future.
While the exhibition’s visual language centers seasonal change in the natural world, there is an important subtext to consider: each of us creates our own collage of relationships, work, home life, community engagement, and more. The overlapping—and sometimes even messy and chaotic—facets of our lives do not fit easily into compartmentalized frames. Grow Closer serves as an invitation to grow closer to ourselves and our environments.
This exhibition is engaged with and displayed on occupied Očeti Šakówin and Wahpekute land now known as Minneapolis and Northfield, Minnesota.
Programming
Friday, September 16
5-7 p.m. Opening Reception | Flaten Art Museum
All are invited to an opening reception with artist Regan Golden. This event is open to the public. Visitors are required to be fully vaccinated and boosted for COVID-19. Masks are recommended.
Tuesday, September 27
6 p.m. Artist Talk with Regan Golden | Viking Theater, Buntrock Commons
Golden will trace the development of her work on view in Grow Closer. This event is open to the public. Visitors are required to be fully vaccinated and boosted for COVID-19. Masks are recommended.
Friday, December 9
3-5 p.m Collab and Collage | Flaten Art Museum
Join us in the making of a collaborative collage inspired by Regan Golden’s Grow Closer exhibition. Stop by and stay for as long as you wish. Warm beverages and snacks will be provided. This event is open to the public. Visitors are required to be fully vaccinated and boosted for COVID-19. Masks are recommended.
About the Artist
Regan Golden is an artist, teacher, and writer based on occupied Očeti Šakówin and Wahpekute land now known as Minneapolis, MN. Over the past decade, Golden’s work has focused on urban plants as a source of healing, joy, and a way of understanding the impact of climate change locally. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at such venues as the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, IL; Lawndale Art Center in Houston, TX; Gallery 44: Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto, ON; Cue Foundation in New York, NY; the Rochester Art Center in Rochester, MN; Soo Visual Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. Golden’s essays and reviews have appeared in publications including New City, Modern Painters, Art Lies, March Journal of Art & Strategy, and MNArtists. In Fall 2021 Regan Golden joined the full-time faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design as an Assistant Professor in Fine Arts.
Acknowledgements
This exhibition is generously supported by the Glen H. and Shirley Beito Gronlund Annual Exhibition Series Fund at St. Olaf College.
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