Just in time for the post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza is Jill Barle's "Warhead." The silkscreen show, an MFA thesis exhibition at UMD's Tweed Museum of Art, examines the connection between war and consumerism.
Needless to say, it's not a happy-go-lucky viewing experience.
"I want them to be kind of unsettled when they see my work," Barle said of what those out in Budgeteerland can expect from the new show, which opens Tuesday. "It's not going to be, you know, pretty pictures on a wall."
She continued by saying that excess and consumer spending has long been a concern of hers.
"When I first started the masters program at UMD, I was thinking about branding and how much of an impact my job has on me -- just getting people to buy things they really don't need," Barle said. "I was trying to figure out a way to work with those ideas and how that's kind of morally troublesome for me."
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The Coleraine-raised artist, who's been in Duluth for about a decade now, said this awareness was somewhat magnified by her day job.
"The deeper I got into my career as a designer," Barle said, "the more I realized that I make a profound impact on people with my work, in terms of advertising."
Advertising? Ironically enough, she makes a living designing for Edina's upscale boutique brand Hot Mama.
"For my day job, I sell -- or hopefully sell -- people on buying $200 pairs of jeans," Barle said. "That's what I do for a living. [Laughs] So you can see the need for this art that I've created.
"... I'm putting out a message that, you know, I'm hoping that they buy what [my employer is] selling. I have this sort of moral, ethical dilemma of whether that's OK. I kind of use my silkscreen and my printing as a way to balance that."
When asked, then, if she was some sort of a militant "anti-shopper" to compensate for the way she pays the bills, Barle just laughed: "By no means do I, like, shop at thrift stores," she said. "... I'm a big shopper. I consume -- heavily. And I enjoy it. But I'm also conscious of what I'm doing, and I think that's just what I'm trying to get people to think about: to be conscious of what they're doing."
The artist's life is an interesting dichotomy as she walks the tightrope between consumerism and consumerism-based cultural criticism.
"But I feel better about it when I'm in my studio creating these pieces," she offered. "There's a nice balance there. I can't do one without the other, that's for sure."
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Among the artists Barle credits as inspiration to her, perhaps none shine brighter in the "Warhead" series than Oakland's Peter Gronquist.
"He has done some interesting work," Barle said. "He'll take weapons, like AK-47s and real rocket launchers, plate them in gold and put [designer labels] like 'Versace' and 'Chanel' on them. I think that's really interesting."
Most recently, Gronquist's gold-plated rocket launchers got some A-list exposure when British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen showed up for the L.A. premiere of "Brüno" carrying one.
"I hope with my own work," Barle added, "I get people to think about consumerism and how our country has sort of [Pauses] pushed consumerism on us. Well, it doesn't really push it on us, but we live in this land where we expect things. We're obese and we're lazy and we have this instant gratification. I hopefully just expect [people who see 'Warhead'] to just kind of think about that."
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"Warhead," Jill Barle's MFA thesis exhibition, will be on display from Dec. 1-7 at UMD's Tweed Museum of Art. An opening-night reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m.
