About the artwork:
In this painting, the artist has depicted a rigid yet complex formation of students, presumably in a school or other institution. The stiff feel of the subjects’ postures is juxtaposed against their childlike yet uniform attire. The image is a good example of Beatrez’s interest in the unsettling rituals of our everyday lives.
Emma Beatrez’s artistic process encompasses sculpture, painting, video, and installation, with influences ranging from the occult to her midwestern upbringing. Her recent paintings explore core psychoanalytic notions of the symbolic, the real, and the emergence of new meanings through the distortion and recontextualization of established iconography.
About the artist:
Drawing on influences including the occult, her midwestern upbringing, and the hidden and overt symbolism and rituals inherent in our everyday lives, Emma Beatrez’s work encompasses sculpture, painting, video and installation. In her oil paintings, Beatrez harnesses magic from the commonplace with a keen eye for the subtleties of gaze. Her recent paintings explore core psychoanalytic notions of the symbolic and the real as well as the emergence of new meanings through distortion and recontextualization of established iconography. Images flicker between personal and public open source, taking shape in a constant state of flux. Like a game of telephone, everything comes full circle in the end, altered through the degradation of transference.
Emma Beatrez (b. 1995, New Prague, MN) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. They graduated from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2020 with a MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art and received their BFA with an emphasis in painting at North Dakota State University in 2018. Beatrez is the co-founder/curator at Night Club gallery in St. Paul alongside artist Lee Noble.
Solo shows include “Polyester” (HAIR+NAILS NY, 2025), “Device of Love” (Nemeth Art Center, Park Rapids, MN, 2024), “TECHNOLUST 3000” (HAIR+NAILS, Minneapolis, 2022), “Quarter Turn” (Fierman Gallery, NYC, 2022), and “Emma Beatrez: Electric Arc” (Rochester Art Center, Rochester MN, 2020). Other recent shows include a two-person show at LVL3 (Chicago), and group shows at Enari (Amsterdam), Nathalie Karg Gallery (NYC), Swivel Gallery (Brooklyn), Anthony Gallery (Chicago) and in collaboration with Lee Noble at the Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis). Emma Beatrez is represented by HAIR+NAILS Gallery, Minneapolis/NYC.






