The Nomad Gallerist: Q&A with WICK's Tessa Wick

 

On view now in the lobby gallery of the A-Mill Artist Lofts is LIVE LAUGH LOVE, a collection of new paintings and sculptures by Guy Nelson and the inaugural exhibition at WICK, curator Tessa Wick's latest venture. A "nomadic gallery" by design, WICK promises four shows a year at this and other locations, allowing Wick the chance to work slowly and deliberately with artists to create new exhibitions.

Nelson's paintings and sculptures act as a sort of expressionist documentary of prairies and woodlands in turmoil, pairing saturated colors and cheerful brushstrokes with dark silhouettes and a brooding disquiet. Log sections pepper the gallery's cement floor — bound with cords, stuffed with shims, and tagged with hot pink — seemingly in response to the industrial environment itself. The paintings are playgrounds for mark-making, focusing in on wisping grasses and tree trunks, finding in observation both the mundane and the fantastical.

With Nelson's show closing this weekend (with a reception on Saturday from 5 – 7pm) and new events on the horizon, we sat down with the curator to talk about the future of WICK and, through the lens of Nelson's artwork, of the natural world. 

 

Guy Nelson, The Ashes of Light, 2024. Acrylic on linen, 36 x 30"

 

Russ White: So tell me about WICK. How did it get started?

Tessa Wick: I’ve been independently curating in Minneapolis for the past three years. And the first show that I did was actually here in A-Mill, which is the former Pillsbury flour mill. I was curating in other galleries and more transient spaces, producing around four shows a year. I felt after a certain point, I needed something more concrete, in terms of branding, in order to give better visibility to the artists — instead of being this random curator in a random space doing a random show. The plan is to stick with the same structure that I had before, doing four shows a year, except now, giving it a title and hopefully creating some more momentum.

I don't know if there's anybody else doing it in Minneapolis, but being nomadic is something relatively new. Some people/projects that really inspired me was Alexander DiPersia, who runs what he calls a transient space for exhibitions. And then there's this nomadic gallery called Gisela Projects that operates between New York And Mexico City. And so looking at those two was really the impetus. Why don't I just do something like this in Minneapolis? 

 

RW: What has changed from your freelance consultancy to being WICK?

TW: I feel like I'm getting more people in actually, because it's easier to find. Having a website and an Instagram presence actually does wonders, instead of just posting personally. Before, it was pretty much word of mouth, almost underground, unless you saw it on my personal Instagram. It was kind of a struggle, and I don't think it was a great service to the artists. So this is nice, because I, and the artists, can still have freedom and be free range, choosing from all these different spaces, while simultaneously allowing my curatorial pursuit and now the gallery to be more concrete at the same time.

 

One part of the gallery space at A-Mill Artist Lofts. Photo courtesy of the gallery's Instagram.

 

RW: So the plan is for there to be two shows in this space at A-Mill per year and two more elsewhere?

TW: Yeah. Normally two here, and then usually do something in a more permanent space, maybe working with another gallery, or a place where shows have been done before. And then a more transient space that perhaps has never been activated or hasn't served as a so-called exhibition space. One of the main reasons for kind of going between all these different spaces is that everything is very critically curated, and I think responding to site is really important. It lets me choose the right space for the right artist or artists.

And to dive into the A-Mill space specifically, it's a historic building, and there's a lot going on in the gallery. I mean, the rough limestone walls, concrete floors, exposed beams, and pipes. It's not an easy space to work with. Some pieces really jive with the space and have a great dialogue. I think some of Guy’s works are really doing that right now. However, some shows I’ve worked on in the past contained works that would have got lost via the architecture and the walls which is why it is important to consider site in respect to the work. WICK is extremely intentional about installation and the exhibiting of works. This is the whole thesis or point of being nomadic; the ability to operate in spaces to showcase artists and their work with the utmost intentionality and respect.

 

Guy Nelson, Bundle, 2018. Resin, paracord, 6.5 x 14 x 8"

 

RW: How did you choose this show as the first one?

TW: To provide more context, the first show that I actually ever curated in Minneapolis was here, and Guy was one of the artists that was in that group show. And so I've been essentially working with him for three years, and it happened quite organically. We just started talking more about his work. He’d been making this body of work that's currently on view right now, and we just got further into dialogue and decided to do a show.

We've been working on the show for the past eight months. A lot of the shows that happen with WICK and also in the past, I'm usually planning them up to a year in advance, which gives me time to actually research and write and forge a relationship with the artist and their work — really get to know them and how they would like it displayed and working more collaboratively.

Currently I'm working probably about four months ahead of time. And that was one of the main reasons for doing the shows quarterly as it gives me that time in between to be really dedicated to a specific show and specific artist or artists’ work.

 

RW: Moving through this collection of works, especially the row of smaller paintings, I was getting a real sense of a forest kind of re-growing after a fire.

TW: Some of the show gets sinister and quite bleak at points. That's definitely prefaced in the long wall of more intimately scaled works; while installing the wall I was thinking in terms of a sort of neo-Big Bang — climate change and the world burning and going under water and icebergs melting — all of this utter chaos, yet somehow nature prevails. When a huge light strikes, shuttering the forest to silence, it slowly is reborn and begins anew. 

 

Top: Guy Nelson, The Thick of It, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 14 x 11". Bottom: Guy Nelson, Today and Tomorrow, 2024. Acrylic on linen, 40 x 36"

 

RW: There's a certain optimism to the show, though — in the large, sort of enchanted forest works and especially in the child kneeling down to plant something with this blinding light emanating from the ground. There's still on that kid's face a kind of worried determination, but the work reads as fundamentally hopeful.

TW: There are only two figures in the show; they’re actually Guy’s daughters. So his eldest is looking over the gallery, and on her face, it’s such a dense look. A lot of people think she looks really sad, but I think it's just this really dense look. She's pondering what's next and what is the landscape that she's going to inherit, you know. Her sister in the back [in Today and Tomorrow, above], in my mind, is trying to harness this energy from the land.

Obviously the title being Live Laugh Love is a sarcastic or sardonic take because you think about the world as just like, everything's going to shit to the point where it's overwhelming. It’s just kind of sarcastic like, ‘What the hell am I gonna do?’ While planning the show it felt a lot darker, especially my writing in the beginning, but having the works together and arranging them the way that we did, there are moments of promise and nature prevailing. Even though there's human intervention, the landscape still grows over, responding and evolving to our narcissistic approach.

Guy’s painting is really interesting, too, because if you look at it, a lot of his mark-making is actually going upwards. So it’s as if he's physically trying conjure or manifest that positivity.

 

RW: And when this show comes down, what's going to be in this space?

TW: Other artists from the building will actually have their work up. I don't run it outside of the times when I'm in here. The beauty of a nomadic space. It belongs to no one but the one(s) who exist in the time of operation.

 

RW: Do you aspire to someday have a brick and mortar location?

TW: I don't know. I feel like it's hard to have a brick and mortar space. And I feel like for what I want to do, I don't really want to be limited by and to one space. And, you know, by having that I would feel pressured to always have a show on. And I really appreciate and value the time that I have to research and talk to the artists. I think they do, too. And I think just doing show after show after show after show just wouldn’t work, especially for my process.

 

RW: What do you think the role of an exhibition is?

TW: Umm, to exhibit artworks? (laughs)

 

RW: I mean, is it just a function of publicly sharing what happened in the studio? Or do you take a certain ownership over the exhibition as a whole? In the way that the artist takes ownership over the work that's created, is the exhibition then sort of your work of art?

TW: I don't want to assert any sort of ownership over it. I mean, it's the artist’s show at the end of the day. I think I'm more of a counterpart and sometimes a collaborator. Some artists just have actually handed me a box of works and said, ‘Can't wait to see what you do. I look forward to your write-up.’ And then some artists are in the gallery with me installing and moving stuff around with me, and we're talking about why this painting is next to this one and why we moved something over a quarter of an inch — which by the way, I love — it’s the small details for me. So it really kind of oscillates between the different artists that I work with.

 

RW: So what do you have coming up next?

TW: We’re gonna do a group show in September. Location is undisclosed as of right now. It'll be announced probably late summer, but I’m really excited about it. ◼︎ 

 

Guy Nelson, Self Preservation, 2024. Clayshay, wood, paint, artificial branch and leaves, 22 x 32 x 16"

Guy Nelson: LIVE LAUGH LOVE is on view at A-Mill Artist Lofts through Saturday, July 27, with a closing reception that day from 5 – 7pm.

To learn more about WICK, visit their website or follow them on Instagram @gallery.wick. To see more of Guy Nelson's work, visit guynelson.com or @theguynelson.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Photos by Russ White unless otherwise noted.

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This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. 

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