Grapevine curates exhibit downtown for women artists
Hannah Grapevine, an Augustana University senior art major, curated an exhibit at the Third Eye Gallery in the Vishnu Bunny Tattoo and Piercing shop to highlight the art of women artists in Sioux Falls. When I entered the small tattoo parlor in downtown Sioux Falls, I was greeted by the warm chatter of art enthusiasts, artists and friends. The left wall was a collage of embroidery, paintings, photography and other mediums. The artists shown in the event were Amanda Burger, Rachel Funk, Maia Peterson, Mercedes Nelson and Jay Sanchez. The gallery opened Friday, Feb. 7, and the display will last until the end of the month.
In her excitement for the big opening night, Grapevine explained that the theme for the art show was storytellers because “female artists have such a rich story to tell.” Grapevine has displayed art at the venue in the past, which is why she chose Vishnu Bunny for her project. Though she didn’t have any of her own pieces in the show, Grapevine enjoys printmaking, oil paintings and figure drawings which she has shown in Sioux Falls at venues like the Washington Pavilion. To her, art is a form of stress relief that she is turning into a career. Aside from curating the exhibit, Grapevine is working on creating zine booklets with a variety of subjects.
Rachel Funk, a South Dakota State University ceramics major, displayed a variety of pieces in the show, including embroidery and photography. Her main subject matter is figurative, more specifically women and queer figures. Funk says her pieces show the body in a different way, such as “really owning your sexuality or not acknowledging that something is sexual.” The passion that Funk has to display the body in traditional and nontraditional ways expands across the canvas of her pieces.
One example of a nontraditional piece Funk created was a mermaid whose top half was a fish and bottom half was legs. Her simplistic yet brilliant style of showing off the body results in a display of empowerment in the exhibit. She has a passion for teaching art and learning new styles and mediums. Currently, she is building a shop at the farm she lives on to sell figurative ceramic pieces to the public. Even though the majority of the pieces she displayed in the exhibit were photography, Funk says she is itching to get back to ceramics.
Jay Sanchez, a graphic design major, displays her love of art through collages and prints. A sense of chaos flowed through her more abstract pieces, telling a different story to every viewer. Sanchez admitted her love of oil painting, though she also displayed a few of her creative graphic design pieces. In some of her collages, she chose to cut out random shapes with different colors as she wanted the colors to tell a story instead of the shapes.
With a gallimaufry of creative artists of different talents, Grapevine curated an art exhibit unique to Sioux Falls. Her hard work and enthusiasm for art shined through the show’s organization and exciting atmosphere.
