Jamie Weinfurter presents ‘building castles in the air,’ her first solo exhibition outside of academia. The artist invites all to join her in remaking the gallery space and celebrating the everyday. Based on her life experience of receiving a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in the spring of 2019, Weinfurter creates site-specific installations and sculptural reconstructions of domestic objects that discuss the impermanence of memory based on her own memory loss, the irreverence for everyday commodities to instead honor “the little things’, and queer homemaking and arts accessibility in safe spaces that exist unbounded by American social structures of value.

In this exhibition, Weinfurter addresses preconceived associations ingrained in household objects as uncanny reconstructions that resemble the original item but take on new function and purpose, similar to her recovery after the TBI. RISO printed wallpaper of distorted architectural forms establish new space, transparent memories are projected as ephemeral reimaginings, and cast metal, assembled wood, and stiffened fabric redesign the domestic interior of the gallery to question and be accountable for our actions in current society to accommodate for the intangible future. The existing queer narrative that has always subtly prevailed in American culture of unspoken dress codes, queer signaling, and identity through performativity take shape as personal signals and reframed spaces in this exhibition to build an open and more accepting space. These steps lead to the potentiality of equitable and inclusive environments, and viewers are encouraged to dream, to welcome with open arms, and to build castles in the sky.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Jamie Weinfurter is a working 3D artist and instructor based in Iowa City, IA that is researching queer homemaking, consumer culture, environmental sustainability, and arts accessibility in site-specific collections of non-archival installations. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point with an emphasis in 3D in 2018. She has since participated in numerous juried national exhibitions and group shows in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, California, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Canada. She has had solo exhibitions at the University of Stevens Point and the University of Iowa, as well as a two-person exhibition in Minnesota in 2020. She has created site-specific, outdoor sculptures at Josephine Sculpture Park in Frankfort, KY; Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum in Solsberry, IN; Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN, Stevens Point Sculpture Park, in Stevens Point, WI; and Salem Art Works, in Salem, NY. She also installed temporary public sculptures in Lafayette, CO; Deerfield, IL; Norfolk, NE; and Rochester, Bemidji, Delano, Park Rapids, Hutchinson, Hopkins, and Eagan Minnesota.

Jamie was a K-12 substitute elementary school teacher from 2019-2020 before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has since completed an artist fellowship at NE SCULPTURE | Gallery Factory which progressed into a Program Assistant position in 2021. Jamie has been an Artist-in-Residence with the Keep Lincoln & Lancaster County Beautiful program in Lincoln, NE in the summer of 2022 and a Session I Foundry Studio Artist at Salem Art Works in the summer of 2023. Jamie began her graduate candidacy at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA in 2021 where she became the Exhibition & Event Technician for the School of Art & Art History and a member of the Graduate Engagement Corps. She is an instructor of record for the Elements of Sculpture and Undergraduate Sculpture I courses from 2021-2024, teaching metalworking, woodworking, and plaster/wax casting techniques. Jamie has received an MA degree from the University of Iowa in the spring of 2023 in Sculpture & Intermedia, with a secondary in Ceramics, and has received her MFA in Sculpture & Intermedia with a secondary emphasis in Printmaking in May of 2024. Jamie will be teaching mold-making and metal casting workshops at Salem Art Works in June and July of 2024.

Follow Jamie on Instagram: @jaybyrdart