UNDERWENT - Jesse Albrecht

September 25, 2024 - March 25, 2025

The artists in this exhibition use their practices to express, research, and process personal experiences. The art practice becomes a partner in the evolution of understanding, the continual processing of something they have undergone. A variety of mediums and techniques within this exhibition reveal a glimpse into an ongoing exchange. In the artwork, an idea of feeling can escape. this visual release allows the artist to externalize and examine an experience in its fluctuating moments, intricacies, and depths. Vulnerability is present in the sharing of a personal experience that allows an internal dialogue to manifest outside of ourselves and resonate with others.

One of the featured artists in this exhibition is Jesse Albrecht. While at the University of Iowa, Albrecht's graduate art education was interrupted when he was deployed to Iraq in 2003. In 2010, the Iowa City Police Department transported him to the UI Health Care emergency room following his call to the Veteran Suicide Hotline. In 2019, he spent seven weeks at the Trauma Recovery Unit at the VA Hospital in Helena. Along with other veterans, he continues the ongoing process of healing from the trauma of war. Albrecht's vessels are used to store, carry, and record his deeply personal experience of war and its aftermath.

Albrecht strives to be honest and accountable to the enigmatic experience of Iraq - "the most beautiful and most horrific aspects occupying the same space at the same time, and the unfolding journey home." In prevailing years, Albrecht has discovered a powerful strength with the optimistic and empowering culture of his daughter's world. His work considers the complex and often contradictory positions he finds himself in as a veteran, a white man, a patient, a friend, and a parent.

Jesse Albrecht served as a combat medic with A Co 109th Area Support Medical Battalion in the Iowa National Guard. Working with veteran ceramic artists significantly influenced his decision to return and complete his MFA at the University of Iowa. Originally from Wisconsin, Albrecht now lives and works in Belgrade, Montana. His work is in numerous permanent collections such as The Library of Congress, The National Archives, The Smithsonian, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jesse Albrecht, Kintsukuori, Ceramic, 2023, 18" x 10" x 10"