Inside the World of Emma Beatrez
Minneapolis-based artist Emma Beatrez conjures a world where the rituals of small-town life teeter on the edge of myth. In a standout selection of recent paintings, Beatrez dives deep into the imagery of cheerleaders, pep rallies, and bonfire spectacles, turning symbols of youthful Americana into scenes pulsing with danger, desire, and dark energy.
Their recent Polyester at Hair + Nails exhibition offers a fittingly visceral lens into this transformation. As the show’s text describes:
“Clad in polyester vestments, extremely flammable, Beatrez’s priestesses speed through their sportive katas in ecstatic trance, a choreography of escalating risk, summoning danger, the adrenaline surging, melding individuals into the group, their eyes glinting in the camera flash or the fire, and a fairly ordinary secular tradition transmogrifies into an otherworldly ritual emblematic of America’s conflicted priorities.”
In the tension between ritual and recreation, Beatrez’s work thrives here, capturing the fever dream of a Friday night bonfire and turning it into a reckoning with power, spectacle, and cultural contradiction.
Beatrez holds a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and is also the co-founder and curator of Night Club, an experimental gallery in St. Paul, run alongside artist Lee Noble. Together, they continue to push the boundaries of how Midwestern narratives are told and who gets to say them.
