Collection: Interact at University of Iowa Health Care

Interact and Project Art at University of Iowa Health Care are pleased to present a display of work by Kaia Burg, D.D., Mike Harris Jr., Teazu Juah, and Matt Zimdars.

September 18, 2024 - January 20, 2025 | University of Iowa Health Care

Working across drawing, painting, and collage, the five artists explore identity, anatomy, and ecology. In her drawings, Kaia Burg distills personal experiences and interests into simplified shapes, arranging them in dramatic compositions that stretch to the edges of the image plane. In her portraits of famous Black women, D.D. finds solidarity with writers, artists, and athletes. In his paintings of bees, flowers, and farm scenes, Mike Harris Jr. contemplates the interdependence of bees and humans. In her energetic flag paintings and drawings, Teazu Juah weaves elements of family history and aesthetic research to craft new emblems of profound meaning. In his Nostrilogy series, Matt Zimdars puts noses of all shapes and sizes in the limelight, using collage to explore his favorite body part.

Purchases may be collected after the exhibition closes from: UI Health Care, 200 Hawkins Drive, Project Art Office 8023-B JCP, Patient and Visitor Activities Center, Level 8, Elevator F. Alternatively, Interact can ship purchases to non-local buyers.

About the artists

Kaia Burg

Practicing at Interact since 2021

Kaia Kathleen Burg’s wildly energetic drawings transport the viewer into a world defined by expressive marks and charged colors. In her work, Burg distills personal experiences and interests into simplified shapes, arranging them in dramatic compositions that stretch to the edges of the image plane. Many of her recent drawings depict people, butterflies, and other animals, all with smiling faces. Oblong shapes may represent trees or flowers or figures; triangles may stand in for mountains; loosely symmetrical patches of color may represent butterfly wings. Burg draws on her own memories and inventions to develop each composition, saying, “It’s in my head.”

Burg has always been an artist. She has presented work in exhibitions at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, HGA Architects in Minneapolis’s North Loop, and Interact Gallery.

D.D.

Practicing at Interact since 2020

I draw the eyes first, the most spiritual part of my work, then the nose, the mouth, the cheekbones; then I draw the shape of her face & lastly her crowning glory, her hair, which finishes the base of her portrait. Using acrylic & alcohol markers, or colored pencils, I bring her to life, either filling her in as realistically as possible as to skin tone & color & texture of her hair, or abstractly, using a spray of bright colors that scream, this is me in all of my splendor. She is the Black woman singer who inspires me, the Black woman actor in all her genius, the Black woman writer I wish I could write as imaginatively as — or who I wish had been my best friend. I love them for what they give to our circle of Black sistahood, the way they reach(ed) down & pull(ed) us up toward the heavens, shouting, you can be whoever you want to be: a singer, an actor, a writer. This I know: I’ve been all three at some point in my life, to various degrees of success. I draw the Black woman artist because her superpower, ethical living, is a springboard to our energetic sensibilities, a doorway to our miraculous lives. I am because she was/is!

D.D. (she/they) is a self-taught, African American artist who has worked in assemblage, pen-and-ink, collage, oils and acrylics, and charcoal, colored pencils, and acrylic and alcohol markers. She made her artistic debut at the 2013 New York Outsider Art Fair, represented by Fountain House Gallery, which represents artists who live with persistent mental illness. Also in 2013, D.D.’s work was included in exhibitions at Fountain House Gallery and Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance. Upon her return to Minnesota in 2018, she won first place in sculpture and honorable mention in fiber arts in the Artability Art Show. In 2019, she won first place in graphic arts in the Artability Art Show. Since joining Interact in 2020, D.D. has developed her love of portraiture. She has been working on a series of drawings of famous Black women writers, singers, actors, and athletes. D.D.’s debut art book, TIME, a compilation of her drawings including portraits, will be published in September 2024 by Dog Eye Press.

Mike Harris, Jr.

Practicing at Interact since 2010

As he often says, Mike Harris, Jr. makes work about “bees, flowers, and farm scenes.” He became a bee advocate years ago after reading an article about endangered pollinator populations at the local food coop. “I thought, ‘I’m already an artist. Maybe I could do something by painting bees,’” he says. In his acrylic and watercolor paintings, pinks, oranges and greens compose vibrating skies; worker bees pollinate in effervescent swirls of color; and rolling hills are laced with luminous rows of corn.
Harris hopes that his paintings will encourage viewers to contemplate the interdependence of bees and humans, as well as rural and urban environments. “There’s so much more to a farm than meets the eye,” he says. “You might see a barn, silo, fence, and mailbox as you drive by. But once you talk to the people who run the farm, it’s a whole new world. It just opens the doors of perception to what people need. Rural communities need the city communities. We have to work together to get what we need.”

Harris has presented work in exhibitions throughout the Twin Cities, including Randomland at The White Page (2019), Groundswell (2019) at Artspace Jackson Flats (2019), and Palace of Wonder at Minneapolis Institute of Art (2012). In 2018, Harris received an Emerging Artist Grant from VSA Minnesota. In 2024, he presented work in Armadillo a two-person exhibition with Carl Clark at Interact Gallery. In addition to his creative practice and advocacy work, Harris is an accomplished long-distance runner and dedicated cyclist, commuting by bike when possible.

Teazu Juah

Practicing at Interact since 2019

Teazu Juah's deeply saturated, vibrant abstractions and representational drawings explore color, form, and symbolism. Juah takes an improvisational approach to her abstract works, using the shape of the paper and her previous marks on the page to make aesthetic decisions as she goes. For example, in order to connect one corner of a rectangular image to another, Juah draws a line. To connect the opposite two corners, she draws another line. The resulting "X" then guides the structure of the composition. Juah makes these decisions within the landscape of each piece, giving each one its own sort of logic. "It's my own way," she says.
Juah started making work when she began practicing at Interact in 2019. Since then, she has continued a body of work that has its own language, each piece a playful investigation of organic symbols and systems. She has presented work at Interact Gallery and HGA Architects & Engineers.

Matt Zimdars

Practicing at Interact since 1999

Matt Zimdars uses his art practice to catalogue his visual interests, from severe weather to future dream homes to, most recently, nostrils. Zimdars's "nostrilogy" series puts noses of all shapes and sizes in the limelight, using collage and experimental bookmaking processes to explore his favorite body part. Paging through fashion magazines, clothing catalogues, and photographs submitted by friends or that he takes himself, Zimdars cuts and tapes and glues. His assemblages of words and images are instinctive and precise, each one an amused portrayal of its subject.

Zimdars has presented work throughout Minnesota at Interact Gallery, the Thorpe Building during Art-a-Whirl, and Franconia Sculpture Park. He has presented work nationally in exhibitions at Lyndon House Arts Center, and Western Wisconsin State College, Make Studio, and Art Enables.