Ambiguity is a frequent theme of Battle Lake artist Kristi Kuder’s work, and her latest exhibition, opening January 9 at the Waage Gallery on M State’s Fergus Falls campus, continues to explore that theme.
The exhibition is titled “Delicious Ambiguity,” which Kuder explains was inspired by something the late comedian Gilda Radner once said: “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”
Primarily a print, fiber and wire artist, Kuder uses a variety of materials to express how ambiguity leaves an imprint on people’s lives. For her wire sculptures, she treats wire mesh like fabric and wire like thread to stitch, knit and felt various forms – sometimes using eyebrow tweezers to deconstruct the wire mesh, thread by thread.
“Delicious Ambiguity” features several of Kuder’s wire sculptures, along with some of her paintings, a dozen or so cyanotype prints, and a series of encaustic mono prints. The exhibition will be on display through February 28.
“My interest as a maker focuses on the ambiguous aspects in our daily life,” says Kuder. “In a world where boundaries are blurred, facts are distorted, and presence and absence intertwine, I'm compelled to dig into the emotional core of what this means.”
“Most recently,” she adds, “I’ve been viewing ambiguity through the lens of ambiguous loss; a grief that occurs when both the presence and absence of a loved one coexist. Conditions such as mental illness, immigration, war, divorce, Alzheimer’s, and the pandemic are challenging to understand and have become ubiquitous and very relevant.”
Kuder’s works have been featured in over 50 solo and group exhibitions regionally, nationally, and internationally, and have been included in several publications, including Surface Design Journal, Southwest Journal and others. She has a bachelor’s degree in art education from Minnesota State University in Moorhead and is an alumnus of the Women’s Art Institute at St. Catherine University.
A full-time artist, she maintains her studio near her home on Otter Tail Lake and is known around the area not only for her artistic talents but also her active involvements in local and statewide arts organizations. Currently the Chair of the Art of the Lakes Board of Directors, Kuder has also served as a grant panelist for the Minnesota State Arts Board. She was a featured artist at the Minnesota State Fair Studio in 2019, and for the past several years has led occasional art-making retreats and intensive workshops.
She is a Lake Region Arts Council McKnight Fellow and two-time recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.
For more information about Kuder, visit her website, kskuder.com.
An Artist Reception with Kuder will be held on Thursday, Jan. 26 from 1-3 p.m. in Legacy Hall on the M State Fergus Falls campus. Free and open to all, it will be a shared reception with Ashley Kunz, the artist behind a separate exhibition that’s also opening at the campus on January 9, in the Charles Beck Gallery.
Both the Charles Beck and Waage galleries are free and open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.