Riverland Community College

 "Transitions", a new multi- media exhibit/ installation by Simon Huelsbeck is currently showing in the James Wegner Art Gallery at the Austin West campus of Riverland Community College. The gallery has been transformed into an environment, and the unusual placement and positioning of the exhibited works has been chosen specifically by the artist to interact meaningfully with the gallery space.

 "Transitions" refers to the flux of time, and many of the objects and images in the show suggest frozen time, sealed in resin or cast frames made by the artist. The overall spare and wintry white quality of the show hint at somber deliberations about the small passing moments in life and the attempt to somehow preserve them. The impulse behind collecting souvenirs, scrap booking and saving old snap shots is common to all of us, and the show is a thoughtful meditation on this universal theme, often tinged with a sense of loss.

 Says the artist: "My experience as a parent has provided me with an awareness of the extraordinary in an ordinary life, as simple as finding the subtle nuances of value and color in an overcast sky. It is the brevity of our existence that I want to preserve, capturing what would have been missed At the same time I want to draw attention to the need to capture life itself, like the need to escape death, in the face of inevitable change and transformation."

 Huelsbeck has exhibited frequently in Minnesota and nationally. He has a Master of Fine Art degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and has been on the Faculty at Rochester Community and Technical College since 2005. He has been a recipient of an MN State Arts Board Initiative Grant and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. The artist has numerous articles about his work in print.