Gallery 120: Inver Hills Faculty Exhibition

Now thru Wednesday, November 24, 2021 • Ceramics, Painting, Photography work on exhibit

The Inver Hills Faculty Exhibition is showing now through Wednesday, November 24, 2021, at Gallery 120. Art shows and exhibitions are hosted at Gallery 120’s brick-and-mortar location in the atrium of the Fine Arts building on the Inver Hills Community College campus in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. Gallery 120 is also online.

Artists exhibiting their work at Gallery 120 include Wendy Olson, MFA, ceramic faculty, Rob Kolomyski, MFA, painting/drawing faculty, Paul Wegner, MFA, photography faculty, Erika Ritzel, MFA, photography faculty, Joel Froehle, MFA, art faculty, Jay Jensen, MFA, art faculty, and Rachel Sonenblum, college lab assistant. The exhibition is also available for viewing at Gallery 120 Online.

WHAT: Inver Hills Faculty Exhibition

WHO: Artists: Wendy Olson, Rob Kolomyski, Paul Wegner, Erika Ritzel, Joel Froehle, Jay Jensen, Rachel Sonenblum

WHEN: Now thru Wednesday, November 24, 2021

WHERE: Gallery 120

Fine Arts Building
Inver Hills Community College
2500 80th Street East
Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076
General: 651-450-3000
Gallery: 651-450-3101

Artist bios

Wendy Olson, MFA
Ceramics Faculty

Wendy Olson received her B.F.A. in Drawing and Painting from UW–River Falls, and her M.F.A. in Ceramics from Kent State University in Ohio. Wendy lives in rural western Wisconsin with her husband and two sons. She has taught ceramics and drawing courses at Inver Hills for 20 years. She exhibits her work actively and is represented by four galleries both regionally and nationally.

The content of Wendy’s work is a visual journal of her life. This new body of work is influenced by the idea of layers in her life. This transfers to Wendy’s work in layers of shape, images, narrative, and meaning. With these layers come ideas of duality: Past and present, forces of good and evil, and duality as it exists in people and in life. The effort to transcend what she has experienced is always present; the effort to connect the commonplace with the universal and the universal back with the commonplace. Wendy combines drawing and painting bright colored figurative images on functional pottery and sculpture as a form of storytelling, using characters, scenes, and events from her daily life, often in a humorous way.

Rob Kolomyski, MFA
Painting/Drawing Faculty

Rob James Kolomyski is an artist and educator based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Most recently his work has been selected for inclusion in the 2021 Drawing Discourse juried exhibition at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. His work has also been showcased at the Rosalux gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Manifest gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio, the First Street Gallery in Chelsea, New York, The Painting Center in Chelsea, New York, The Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts in Brownsville, Texas, and the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei, Taiwan.

As an educator, Rob holds a K–12 teaching certification and a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in painting from Michigan State University. He has taught all levels of college, including graduates, for institutions ranging from the community college to tier-1 research institutions. Currently, he is a tenured professor at Inver Hills Community College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he teaches beginning to advanced drawing and painting.

Paul Wegner, MFA
Photography Faculty

Paul Wegner joined the faculty at Inver Hills in 2005. Prior to 2005, Paul taught at Napa Valley College and Solano Community College. He completed his M.F.A. at the San Francisco Art Institute and his B.A. at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Paul’s work is been inspired by personal experience with places and people. His favorite thing about working in photography is the camera gives a person an excuse to go to places they might not have gone and talk to people that would not have been approached. He has been the recipient Minnesota State Arts Board Grant and Metropolitan Regional Arts Board grants.

Erika Ritzel, MFA
Photography Faculty

Erika Ritzel received her B.F.A. from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, and her M.F.A. from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. A majority of her photographic work deals with space, family, memory, nostalgia, and loss.

Ericka received a grant in 2002 from the Illinois Humanities Council to complete a project on the flood of 1993, which destroyed her father’s hometown; Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grants in 2008, 2013, and 2018. Her work has been exhibited at the Palm Springs Art Museum in California, the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul, the Minnesota Center for Photography, the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona, the Medium Festival of Photography in California, the Carlisle Photo Festival in England, and at the GuatePhoto Festival in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Joel Froehle, MFA
Art Faculty

Joel Froehle received a B.A. in Studio Art and a B.A. in Biology from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and later received an M.F.A. in Artisanry–Ceramics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Joel is currently an art instructor at Inver Hills and Minneapolis College. He creates functional pottery and ceramic sculpture from his home studio in Northfield.

Quiet and Loud 2021, Mixed Media on Ceramic

Jay Jensen, MFA
Art Faculty
College Lab Assistant and Gallery 120 Coordinator

Jay Jensen has taught Ceramics, Intro to Art, and Digital Art at Inver Hills since 2004. Jay received his M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cites. The main concerns that drive his work are function, form, and surface. Working as a graphic designer for 10 years and his interest in printmaking have recently inspired the surface treatment of his pottery.

Rachel Sonenblum, MFA
College Lab Assistant

Rachel Sonenblum began working at Inver Hills in 2004 after she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) from the University of Wisconsin–River Falls. Rachel returned to school in 2009 to pursue a post-baccalaureate program in ceramics at the University of Florida. In 2010, she started an M.F.A. in Art at the University of Southern Illinois in Carbondale. She returned to the Twin Cities after graduation in 2013 and began working at Inver Hills again in 2014. Her favorite media for personal use is clay, but she enjoys helping students gain confidence as they experiment with all media.