Fresh Eye Arts, a fine arts studio program supporting local artists with disabilities, is celebrating its fifth anniversary this month with an impressive new show. Fresh Eye Jamboree will bring together their full roster of more than 60 studio artists for an exhibition that spans styles, mediums, and subjects. The show will be on view at Fresh Eye Gallery in South Minneapolis from June 4–28.
As part of the program, Fresh Eye artists are provided with studio space and supplies, guidance from professional teaching artists, and opportunities to exhibit and sell their work. They also receive access to a variety of adaptive art-making tools that enable people of all abilities to express their creative vision. This leads to a variety of artwork that is as diverse as the artists creating it—a quality that Jamboree honors through its floor-to-ceiling presentation of paintings, textile art, glass art, and more. “I’m looking forward to seeing all the different types and styles of art,” says Joah Bingert, a mixed media artist in the program. “The diversity of art from the program represents what Fresh Eye Arts is!”
The new show will be the first time that all 60+ Fresh Eye artists will exhibit work together. Many of the artists, however, are no strangers to having their art in the spotlight: earlier this year, artists Dede Decker, Lynda Mullan, and Soon-Wai Wong were selected to participate in their first national art fair during San Francisco Art Week. More recently, Fresh Eye Arts was commissioned by Special Olympics Minnesota to create a mural to be displayed during this month’s USA Games. These milestones for the program come just in time for their fifth anniversary.
Fresh Eye Arts was launched in 2021 by MSS, a day and employment services provider for adults with disabilities in the Twin Cities Metro. Since then, it has grown considerably, adding two art studios in St. Paul and Brooklyn Park along with its original studio in Eagan. A community art space, Fresh Eye Gallery, was also opened in 2021 and regularly hosts exhibitions of artists with and without disabilities, workshops, artist panels, and other public events. In celebration of their anniversary, the program is hosting community get-togethers at their studios and gallery throughout the year, including an open house at their Brooklyn Park studio on July 16 from 4–7 p.m. An opening reception for Jamboree will be held at Fresh Eye Gallery on June 5 from 6–8 p.m. For more information, visit https://www.fresheyearts.org/events.
