Top ten local artists of the decade

Minneapolis and St. Paul have been placed among the top art cities in the world, but who are the people that bring this title to the cities year after year? Here is a list of the top 10 most influential Twin Cities artists that have captured the voice of the decade and will continue to excel beyond peer competition in coming years.

10. Calpurnia Peach
Fashion
http://www.myspace.com/calpurniapeach

Former University of Minnesota fashion students Luci Kandler and Ashley Wokasch are dissipating the line between visual art and fashion design. The duo adds spice and character to their girlish cocktail dresses by screen printing patterns of salt shakers, roses and even pickles.
After deciding to start their own fashion line, the Calpurnia Peach ladies have had the courage and intelligence to break into the cutthroat fashion industry with a flash of style.

9. Jordan Herregraven
Visual

Local artist Jason Herregraven is sure to dazzle the Twin Cities in coming years. At just 19 years old, Herregraven has recently been accepted into an art academy in the Netherlands and is already wowing Minnesota with his works of epic proportion. His paintings layer dark imagery with protruding layers of paper, macabre hand prints and enough wide-stroke abstractions to bring Helen Frankenthaler to her knees.

8. TU Dance
Dance
http://www.tudance.org/

Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands have been stirring souls and defying gravity during their short run as the artistic directors of TU Dance company, based in St. Paul. TU Dance is one of the newest and most prolific dance companies in the Midwest and has already received praise from the esteemed Dance Magazine.

7. Greg Gossel
Visual
http://www.greggossel.com/

Greg Gossel draws on celebrities like M.I.A. and Michael Jackson, warning signs and 1970s romantic comic books to create several series of original, screen-printed graphic works, many of massive proportions. Gossel works by replicating iconic figures again and again but erases and alters their meaning each time through different steps of layering and masking.

6. Tracy Bennett
Jewelry
http://scoutvintage.com/Scout_Vintage.html

Tying together family heirlooms, antique finds and a myriad of pearls and crucifixes, jewelry designer Tracy Bennet's necklaces are wearable installation art. The melding of fashionable accessories and collective conscious memories results in opulent accessories for the artistically chic.

5. Ed Bok Lee
Poetry
http://www.edboklee.com/

As the son of Korean immigrant parents, Ed Bok Lee's 2005 collection of poetry “Real Karaoke People” explores Minneapolis as both his hometown and a foreign land. Lee draws from conversations with his parents, eldest brother and local imagery, perhaps the most striking of which is an African-American homeless man on Franklin Avenue. A sample line of his poetry reads, “Work your ass off and move away from this [expletive] out to the suburbs. Maybe marry a white girl.” His pictures of Minneapolis effortlessly describe it as an exhausting microcosm of the drifting American dream.

4. Alec Soth
Photography
http://www.alecsoth.com/

Photographer Alec Soth can take photos of just about anything. His work with modern fashion features wide-angle shots of a Chanel stage and Karl Lagerfeld in Grand Palais to fishermen in northern Minnesota.
Soth draws parallels between the world of high fashion and the details of everyday life in his book “Paris Minnesota” to transform a series of portraits into an examination of humanity in decadence and poverty.

3. Ruben Nusz
Concept, Abstract
http://www.rubennusz.com/Art/r_u_b_e_n_n_u_s_z.html

This Twin Cities art darling has been stirring up the town with his multifaceted skills, from smeared black and white paintings of Natalie Wood to “still life” photography featuring roaches infesting everyday objects like exit signs and bathroom sinks.

2. Wing Young Huie
Photography
http://www.wingyounghuie.com/

After being named Minneapolis' best artist in 2000 by the Star Tribune, local photographer Wing Young Huie has continued to create the most poignant and charming photography of the decade. His photographic work “Frogtown” and “Lake Street USA” details his experience in immigrant neighborhoods and youth as the only American-born son of a Chinese family.

1. Aesthetic Apparatus
Graphic
http://www.aestheticapparatus.com/index.php

With their work already plastered all over the world, the graphic art collective Aesthetic Apparatus are the voice of Twin Cities design. Designing everything from The Triple Rock Social Club's new logo to canisters for Andrews & Durham tea to posters for The Decemberists and The Hold Steady , AA is the new-age graphic design dream team repping for its generation.