Andy Messerschmidt : Agroccult
June 30 - July 28, 2012
opening reception : Saturday, June 30, 6 - 9pm
closing artist talk with music accompaniment : Saturday, July 28, 6 - 9pm

Agroccult explores how supernatural agencies scar and obliterate an idyllic landscape. Stemming from his fascination with mysticism in various landscapes, Andy Messerschmidt's works incorporate topics and imagery ranging from occultism, auras, axis mundis, crop circles, burning bushes, orb luminosities and prehistoric shaman lairs. Also included in the exhibition will be selections of drawings on tondo panels incorporating blueprints and vistas of a dystopic Babel.

Andy Messerschmidt (1976, Illinois/USA) currently lives and works in Ely, Minnesota at the conflux of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and the rim of the Canadian Shield to the north. Andy has shown extensively in New York at Plane-Space Gallery for seven years and continues to have shows in the United States and abroad. Recently, he has exhibited in Japan, Germany, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Philadelphia and St. Louis. His ongoing, ten year study and series of paintings on paper focus on occult phenomena in the landscape. He received his MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, in 2002 and earned his BFA from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois in 1999.

Andy Messerschmidt is a fiscal year 2011 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.