Leslie Barlow & Shana Kaplow

Please join us for a conversation and Q&A with Leslie Barlow and Shana Kaplow, moderated by Rebecca Heidenberg. Barlow and Kaplow are both included in Dreamsong’s current group exhibition, In Search of Lost Time. We will discuss their art practices and works in the exhibition as well as their broader activities as artist organizers. Masks and proof of vaccination are required.

Leslie Barlow embraces the complexities of intimacy and belonging through the lens of her experiences as a mixed race person. Barlow’s paintings serve as both monuments to community members and explorations into how race entangles the intimate sphere of love, family, and friendship. Her studio practice is in close conversation with her work as a cultural organizer, educator, public artist, and catalyst for emerging artists of color. She’s a founding member of Creatives After Curfew, a collective of mural artists formed in response to the police killing of George Floyd; an instructor at the University of Minnesota; and founder of Studio 400, an incubator and studio program for BIPOC artists. Barlow received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Wisconsin-Stout and an MFA in Drawing/Painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 2021, she was awarded the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and in 2019 received both the McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship and the 20/20 Springboard Fellowship. Recent solo exhibitions include Within, Between, and Beyond at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2021.

Shana Kaplow’s artistic practice begins with the interconnection between the body, the space of the home, and the larger world. As the daughter of a physicist, Kaplow’s use of materials is informed by transitory states of matter that suggest unstable conditions. In her work, forces such as dissolution, evaporation, seepage, and imbalance become metaphors for unsustainable systems. Kaplow has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Tianjin Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, The Asheville Museum of Art, The Soap Factory, Rosalux Gallery, 55 Mercer Gallery, Franklin Art Works, and Weinstein Gallery among others. She was awarded The Joan Mitchell Foundation Artists Grant for Painters and Sculptors, the McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship, and The Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship. She has been an artist in residence at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, The Red Gate International Artist Residency in Beijing, China, and the Vermont Studio Center. She holds an MFA from The Maryland Institute, College of Art, a BA from Connecticut College, and was a Professor of 2D Media and Interdisciplinary Art at St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN. She is currently co-facilitator of the Conversation Lab with PF Studios in Minneapolis. She lives and works in St. Paul, Minnesota.