Getting art displayed at a gallery is usually a lengthy process with a lot of waiting on a response – which in Sandra Felemovicius’ experience, is often a “no.” But for her current showing at the new Kickernick Gallery at the corner of First Avenue and 5th Street South in Minneapolis, the process was easier than she’s ever dealt with before.
Felemovicius is one of a dozen artists whose work is on display at the gallery, which opened in late September. She was on an Aish trip to Israel in 2014 with building owner Kristi Oman, who continued to follow Felemovicius on Instagram and watch her work develop over the decade.
Sandra Felemovicius shows a triptych of her art at the Kickernick Gallery in Minneapolis (Lonny Goldsmith/TC Jewfolk).
“Kristi reached out to me,” Felemovicius said. “This never happens; you have to understand: there’s a huge process with a regular gallery that you have to submit your work. Then they talk, you wait, you wait again, and you wait more, and then finally they will get back to you. And hopefully will be a yes.”
Felemovicius has several canvases at the Kickernick Gallery, as well as some smaller trays, and two longhorn skulls. While she uses different colors and brush strokes in each of the canvas paintings, she was going with a similar theme throughout her collection.
“It’s based on nature, movement, and really immersing myself in the canvas,” she said of her work which she describes as abstract and contemporary. “It’s almost a dance I do with my canvas.”
Felemovicius said she “provokes” the canvas, which to her is starting with some strokes and backing off to see what she has.
“The first few strokes are very random. And then you go back in and you start again,” she said. “It’s almost this coming in and out into the painting and reacting to what you have already.”
She said she takes lots of photos of nature that help give her inspiration.
“I kind of want to have that feeling of movement, of having some sort of depth into the painting where you can go in and out as well, as a viewer, yeah, that you have that gutteral reaction to what you are seeing. And so you can respond. Instead of being such a flat surface, I want you to feel that movement.”
Felemovicius talked about a painting workshop she attended in Santa Fe, N.M., earlier this summer. She said the group stood outside to take in nature, and she was moved by the silence that was “deafening.”
“It moved me to a place where I was seeing grass moving, but it wasn’t making any noise,” she said. “I wanted to create that suspension of time into the series.”
Felemovicius writes in her artist statement that her painting pulls from, in part, her Mexican culture and her Mexican-Jewish heritage. She and her husband, Isaac, moved to Minnesota from Mexico City in 1992. She graduated from Minnesota College of Art and Design, and finding no jobs available, went to Dunwoody to study drafting. She went to work as a drafter for an interior designer and as an art teacher at Talmud Torah of Minneapolis.
“I had my baby girl and the first year, Rabbi Ettedgui let me bring her with me to class,” she said.
Fast forward to 2006, and Felemovicius needed to do something new, so she rented space in Northeast Minneapolis and has been there ever since. She knew it was a big leap from teaching and drafting to striking out on her own.
“It was the jump that I knew I needed to push myself to become more of a professional artist, versus just doing it at home and it just being a hobby,” she said. “I knew I could trust myself, because I knew I loved it so much. Even if I didn’t sell anything, I would show up every day and just work and work and work until the first sale. And then it’s like, okay, somebody else likes what I’m doing enough to buy my work.”
After starting in a basement studio at the Keg House, Felemovicius has been – along with dozens of other artists – in the Casket Arts Building for about 15 years in a studio with big windows and lots of light and no fear of staring at a blank canvas wondering where to start.
“For me, it’s the best feeling ever, because the possibilities are endless,” she said. “You can do anything. It’s like a clean slate every time.”
Walking through the Kickernick Gallery, Felemovicius explains the method behind her work. One thing she doesn’t do is overthink.
“When I start a painting, it’s all gut; I’m not putting my thinking cap on yet,” she said. “It’s just doing the strokes and going in and out and not thinking, and also trying to find a childish energy, where you are just doing things without thinking, and then at the very end, then your thinking process, your design process, comes front and center to finish the piece. But I can’t start with that thinking cap because I would screw it up.”
Sandra Felemovicius signature on a painting (Lonny Goldsmith/TC Jewfolk).
Felemovicius said that after 20-some years of painting, she knows what she’s looking for.
“I always want to have strokes that are very strong, maybe a very big brush. And then using a very thin brush to come back and create other lines where it makes it even more attractive, even more conversational. If I use the same brush for every stroke, you wouldn’t have the same connection,” she explained. “I feel like I’ve done a lot of trial and error, and so now I know, like my gut is telling me.
“As an artist, I have that freedom to paint and to paint something that makes me feel good because in the world that we’re living in right now,” she said. “I’m a very proud Jewish/Mexican/American artist, and I want to convey that there is hope, there is freedom, there is happy places, And not everything needs to be violent or aggressive.”
