Ceramic artist Anna Kruse’s solo exhibition, entitled "Surface Tension," will be on display in Peninsula College’s PUB Gallery of Art March 3 – May 12, 2022. Kruse will also host a March 10 Studium Generale presentation online, beginning at 12:30 pm via Zoom.
“Surface Tension is an exploration of the manifestation of relationships throughout one’s life,” Kruse said. “The impetus of this work is my personal experience with love and loss with my own family, friends, and partners. The relationships of one’s childhood often dictate their attachment style later in life.”
Kruse said her work expresses moments of potential, of loss and protection, and defense.
“The space between two people, words left unsaid, a hand reaching without reciprocation, these moments are the catalyst for the work,” she said. “I represent the narrative of lives colliding, through two parts almost touching and forms completing one other. Protective shells and spikes make one contemplate the defensive nature that can often take shape when one feels hurt or betrayed.”
The imagery in her solo exhibition is derived from the defense characteristics in plants, spikes and thistle acting as visual warning cues, synonymous with crossed arms or raised voices, the artist said. The work creates moments of tension with two points almost touching, forming a heavy space resting in the between. Or, by pulling the viewer into an array of repetition where shadows distort depth and movement.
“Muted colors speak to reservation, loss, and hesitation, while brighter ones incite feelings of potential and growth,” Kruse said. “The work explores these moments of almost coming together, of consuming the other, of lives intertwining, it represents the spectrum of defense to embrace, holding you in moments of almost touching.”
Kruse received her Master of Fine Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She completed a Post Baccalaureate at the Oregon College of Art and Craft before moving to Maine to work at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. She obtained her B.A. with honors in Psychology and Studio Art from the College of Wooster. In 2021, she was nominated and awarded the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture. She has shown her work across the United States.
Originally from Columbus, Ohio she grew up as an only child spending most of her time outdoors in the garden with her imagination, this impacts her work today. She began teaching in Peninsula College’s Community Education Program in the fall of 2021.
"Anna Kruse has created all of the artwork for her exhibition while she has been the Artist in Residence here at PC," Ceramics Instructor Steve Belz said. "PC's Community Education Ceramics program is expanding with Anna's excellent teaching. I have heard many great reviews about Anna's teaching from her students."
Both the exhibition and the online Studium event are free and open to the public.
Join the Zoom Meeting at https://pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/82278252780, Meeting ID: 822 7825 2780.
For more information contact Michael Paul Miller at mmiller@pencol.edu(link sends e-mail), or Dr. Kate Reavey at kreavey@pencol.edu.