Wednesday, September 11 — Saturday, October 12, 2024

Artist’s Talk: Wednesday, September 11, 5-6pm
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 11, 6-8pm

The Mueller Gallery at Caldwell University is excited to present Remnants, an exhibition featuring designer, illustrator, and artist Monte Antrim and landscape photographer Linda Kuehne.  The exhibition will be held from Wednesday, Sept. 11 to Saturday, Oct. 12. An artist’s talk will take place at the Mueller Gallery on Sept. 11 from 5 to 6 p.m., followed by a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Through their individual observational and creative practices, Monte Antrim and Linda Kuehne both connect their own backgrounds to their encounters with landscapes and architecture to impart specific and pertinent social commentary. Antrim’s sketches and paintings document his awareness and absorption of his milieu through line work and/or brushstrokes that fluctuate between gesture and rigidity, drawing viewers into the essence of a space and that which occupies it. Kuehne’s integration of reflections from glass windows into her shots of a desolate street and its abandoned buildings strengthen their sense of emptiness and neglect, producing a foreboding atmosphere.

Antrim’s work informed by his experience of the city: its cars, buildings, bars and people. In this context, the sketchbook has been central to all aspects of his creative life as his practice of constantly drawing his surroundings has given him skills and confidence to develop and communicate his ideas and designs.  While studying architecture, Antrim began his sketchbook process to hone his drawing abilities in the pre-digital era. His drawing practice and the sketchbook itself have remained integral to his professional career as an architectural designer and design visualization consultant for over three decades. Additionally, his paintings, drawings and prints almost always originate in the sketchbook. “The sketchbook process, of course, is important beyond practical considerations. The meditative pleasure of drawing, of engagement with a moment through observing and recording, is an essential part of my daily life, and the sketchbooks remain an archive of my trajectory…” says Antrim.

Kuehne photographs the suburban landscape as a way to understand her impulse to flee what she interprets to be tight constraints of small-town living, based on her personal experiences growing up in a suburb outside of New York City. She has continued to photograph suburbs and cities across America to explore the role that architecture plays in conveying the spirit of a place and the health of a community. Having focused on this subject matter since 2008, Kuehne’s photographs convey the sense of unease of living in a country where infrastructure is often crumbling and suburbs experience problems similar to those of larger cities. “I also want to challenge the view we Americans have of ourselves as living in a country that is always progressing, ever expanding. The reality of these photographs tells a different story”, says Kuehne.

Monte Antrim (b. 1966) grew up on a farm in Indiana. After earning an undergraduate degree in Architecture, he moved to Seattle in 1990 and worked as an architectural designer. In 1998, he moved to New York City and lived there until 2023, working in architecture and design visualization and earning a master’s degree. He currently lives in Indiana and is a Professor of Architecture at Ball State University.

Linda Kuehne is a contemporary American photographer. Her work explores the cultural implications of the human impact on the landscape in suburbs and cities across the United States. She mixes realistic depiction with abstraction as a means to convey her vision in an instinctive, emotional, and poetic way. She is interested in the role that the natural landscape and the built environment play in conveying the spirit of a place and the health of a community. She received a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. Starting out with a dark room in her basement after college and printing silver gelatin prints, she now works digitally. Her work has been exhibited in art galleries and museums, including a two-person show at the Katonah Museum of Art, the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, a solo show at Kean University, A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, and most recently, a two-person exhibition at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut. She lives and works in New York.