Strangeness Should Flow Like Sugar is a collection of prints, installation work, and drawing rooted in an exploration of the sugar lift aquatint etching process.

This exhibition was created to accompany Gustavus Adolphus College’s 2025 Nobel Conference, Sugar: Bringing Sweetness to Life. I began with an intensive period of research both in and out of the printmaking studio. Within the studio, experimentation, tests, failures, and unexpected results drove the visual output of the printed work. I also drew from a number of diverse sources to reflect on the history and impact of the sugar industry as it relates to my art practice including Ulbe Bosma’s The World of Sugar, Danielle Dutton’s Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other, and Victor Shklovsky’s Theory of Prose. 

In commitment to creating art/strangeness from the daily and familiar, the visual language in this body of work is entirely drawn from my observations of my own back yard in Southern Minnesota during the summer of 2025. Mimicking material refinement, this imagery is filtered through sketches, then drawings, and finally through the highly labor-intensive sugar lift aquatint etching technique. Immersing myself in the mundanity of daily scenes and repetitive processes, I articulate a reverence for the earthly materials and human labor of everyday life.