Gregory Euclide
Gregory Euclide is an artist and teacher living in the Minnesota River Valley. His work has been featured in The Nature of Nature at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2014-2015), Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape at MASS MoCA (2008-2009), Otherworldly at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York (2011), Small Worlds at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio (2011), and presented as a solo exhibition, Nature Out There, at the Nevada Museum of Art (2012). Euclide’s work has been reviewed and featured in publications such as Art News, Sculpture Magazine, Art Ltd Magazine, Hi Fructose Magazine, and Juxtapoz Magazine. His work is also featured on the 2012 Grammy Award-winning album covers of the musical group Bon Iver and on the cover of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #43. Euclide was awarded three Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grants through the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Jerome Foundation Residency through the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary. Additionally, he was a recipient of the 2011-12 Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists and the 2015-2016 McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists. Euclide received his MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Artist Statement
The depiction of land has often been used as a means of celebrating or critiquing culture. The use of pastoral views, banal architecture, and everyday trash problematizes the traditional definitions of a natural landscape. Through the process of transforming and miniaturizing materials found in the land, objects, in their new context, are no longer discernible as natural or man-made. The juxtaposition of representational modes and materials creates a hybrid space where the romanticized and actual intermingle. Contrasts between the flat, painted vistas and artifacts from the land expose the illusion of representation and subsequently confuse the pictorial space, calling into question the authenticity of the objects. The forms fracture the pictorial space, at times inhabiting the frames, robbing them of their ability to define a single view and inviting a phenomenological exploration by the viewer.
What is your first memory of creating?
While I am sure there were many examples of being creative prior to this, I recall a study hall in 5th grade where the teacher had a bunch of laminated Audubon prints in a cabinet. I would grab 18 x 24 sheets of paper, which filled up my entire desk, and start reproducing them vigorously in pencil. I’d go through half a pencil in an hour. The girl in front of me kept turning around like, “What on Earth are you doing back there?” At one point, she complimented me on my drawing, which was a big deal since I was painfully shy and had such a crush on her.
What is your relationship to your medium? What draws you to it?
I am constantly exploring new materials and ways to best express the concept of my work. I create works in sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and mixed media. I see art as a force, not as a medium one has to master. It feels very incomplete to only do one thing.
What is the main thing you hope your audience takes away from your art?
I want the viewer to think about the relationship between their life and the natural world. I want the viewer to feel a sense of wonder and, at the same time, maybe question their understanding of the construction of the concept of “landscape.”
Tell us about a challenge you overcame last year.
I quit my teaching job of over 25 years. I decided I wanted to spend more time with my kids playing outside and engaging with my practice full-time. I won’t say that I “overcame” the uncertainty of the transition; I am still in it. But it does feel rewarding to be working on my practice daily.
What is your main goal or resolution this year in terms of your art practice?
I’d like to establish a ceramics studio and also find a few more places to show my work nationally. Now that I am making work full-time, I have a body available for gallery and museum shows.
