By Amanda Dyslin
The Free Press
LE SUEUR — There were cameras, microphones, lights flashing, important people milling about. A typical night at a high-profile event in Los Angeles.
In the midst of it all, however, was someone not so used to the fuss. At least not this level of fuss.
Gregory Euclide, an artist who lives in Le Sueur, found himself to be quite the attention-getter last weekend at the opening of the Who Killed The Music Grammy Exhibition above the Grammy Museum in L.A. Euclide, by knowing the right people and also being quite talented, was asked to be one of 15 artists across the country to submit work for the exhibit, which was curated by artist Kris Lewis and Will.i.am of the hip-hop band Black Eyed Peas.
Having opened Saturday to lead up to the Grammy Awards Sunday night, the exhibit’s purpose is to benefit the Grammy Foundation and the I.AM Scholarship Foundation, both of which support young people in the arts and media, respectively.
At the opening, lots of important people from the music industry were looking at the work. Among them was Will.i.am, and he had a favorite piece — a relief work containing a landscape image on paper with acrylic, vinyl, cassette tapes, compact discs, found foam, goldenrod, moss and sponge, among other things.
“He looked at my piece, and he got all excited about it,” said Euclide, who attended the event with his live-in girlfriend, Jennifer Andrashko. “He was running around asking people whose it was.”
When Euclide was pointed out as the artist behind the piece, called “What eroded under the grid and became something more than sediment,” Will.i.am went over and raised his fist.
“That’s my claim to fame,” said Euclide, 35. “I bumped (fists) with Will.i.am.”
Andrashko knew very little about art before meeting Euclide. And a question she seems to have to ask him often, because of his humility and quiet nature, is: “OK, is this a big deal?” He sold a piece to the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, for example, and found every which way to not celebrate the achievement.
“He really doesn’t get excited,” Andrashko said. “He’s pretty grounded in the process of making the art.”
But at the Grammy exhibit, Andrashko found a perfect spot out of the way to sit and watch all the energy and attention surrounding Euclide’s piece. When the mob learned Euclide was the man behind the work creating all the buzz, the press swarmed, she said.
It was nice to celebrate the moment with him, and he actually did admit he noticed all the interest in his work and the exposure — perhaps Euclide’s understated version of a self-pat on the back.
For Andrashko, she definitely understood what the fuss was about.
“I always, always like his work, and I really love this piece,” she said. “I think it’s incredible.”
Euclide’s recent work contains a mix of landscapes painted on paper, which he shapes into three-dimensional sculptures that stand out from the wall. The foundation of the pieces, the wrinkled paper, contains landscapes drawn from memory, photo transfers based on nature photography, pools of paint and objects, such as pine needles and bark.
Euclide lived in the Twin Cities until recently and has shown in San Francisco, L.A., New York and Miami, among other places, as well as worked for a month in Hungary. He’s been written about in a variety of magazines — most recently a big spread in the national magazine Hi-Fructose — and his work has been published several times in the highly competitive juried book “New American Paintings,” editions of which are published
regularly and circulated internationally.
Euclide also is represented by the prestigious David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, which also represents an artist who knows Will.i.am. So Smith was asked to bring several artists to the show. Euclide was among them.
Euclide was asked to interpret the theme “Who Killed the Music” in the submitted piece, which could mean anything from the death of the full-length album to musicians breaking boundaries and “killing” the genres that came before them.
Euclide looked at the challenge from a historical standpoint, he said.
“I am a landscape painter who very much loves to collect music,” he said. “So this was not a huge stretch for me.”
The piece he submitted will be auctioned. Half of the proceeds will go to the foundations and the other half will go to Euclide. He has no idea what to expect in terms of profits.
But more than just the exposure of the one piece, Euclide was excited to make contacts. Some gallery owners saw the work and liked it, and he was offered a show at a high-profile gallery in L.A.
“I realized the power of schmoozing, the power of being able to network,” he said.
Despite having shown work in so many galleries, Euclide said he didn’t have much success in the Twin Cities. He showed at the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis and didn’t sell a single piece.
“There seems to be strong interest in the work everywhere but the Midwest,” he said.
So, he and Andrashko decided to get out of the city and move to Le Sueur, into the beautiful river valley, he said.
Euclide teaches high school art in Prior Lake part-time and also teaches at Carleton College, but he’s had to take sabbaticals as personal career opportunities have emerged. Despite his success in showing his art, Andrashko doesn’t think he’ll stop teaching. He loves his “day job” and even keeps in touch with former students.
“He’s very, very good at it,” she said.
What Andrashko appreciates most about Euclide’s work is you don’t have to
be an art scholar to understand it. The art is simply beautiful.
“It’s appealing to people whose viewing lens isn’t rooted in art theory or the study of different mediums and uses,” she said. “If you could have seen the looks on the faces of the people at the exhibition.”
For more information about Euclide’s work, visit www.gregoryeuclide.com/.
