Emmett Ramstad

Artist Statement

My sculptures explore body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space. In my work, familiar care products —toothbrushes, tissues, toilets, towel dispensers— are exhibited in repetition and exaggerated scale, becoming communal domestic sites. I am interested in making visible bodily need fulfillment (cleansing, voiding, masturbating, crying) and the labor of tending to ourselves and others. In my installations, visitors are offered places to reflect on their own histories of touch, care, and survival. This work is shaped by the history of queer archival practices where what is deemed “important” or “archival” is interrogated and ordinariness is celebrated.

Emmett Ramstad, someone's in here, bathroom stall door, peephole, fence posts, ladder, worn tennis shoes, 2022, 6'x2'x3'

Bio

Emmett Ramstad’s sculpture investigates the intimate ordinary. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has exhibited artworks widely, including solo exhibitions at Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Rochester Art Center. He is a recipient of numerous awards including a McKnight Fellowship for Visual Artists, an Onassis Eureka Commissions Grant, a Jerome Foundation Franconia Sculpture Park Fellowship, a Forecast Public Art Research and Development Grant, and a Leeway Foundation Art and Change grant. He has performed in productions with collaborator Maxe Crandall and with The BodyCartography Project, in addition to making costumes and sets for five touring contemporary dance productions. His work is in collections at The Minnesota Museum of American Art, The Weisman Art Museum, Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Second State Press. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Art at University of Minnesota.

www.emmettramstad.com