Sosin & Sosin Gallery reviews

Review by Pamela Hill Nettleton, SPACES magazine, December 2006

In the midst of the Northeast Minneapolis arts district, where young artists sport multiple piercings, rent studios, and live in lofts, stands a one-story building occupied by a nice couple of retirement age. But there is no culture clash here: Georgette and Henry Sosin are renowned and respected artists, at work in their gallery/studio on Washington Street Northeast .
The Sosins re-envisioned the one-time corner grocery store. Today, intricate wrought-iron gates open to a courtyard and the sleek, modern gallery space inside. Georgette, also a sculptor, works mostly in paint these days in a studio tucked behind the main gallery, where she installs exhibits by invited artists - or displays by the Sosins themselves. Henry hand-builds clay pots in his studio on the lower level.

Tuesdays through Saturdays, the Sosins devote five hours a day to the studio and their separate creative tasks. Georgette paints ethereal visions of creation, unity, and how mere humans might carry the wisdom of the universe around in their bones. Her work is deeply spiritual, even mystical, and moves some gallery visitors to tears. " I think sometimes the artist has antennae out picking up things in our culture that other people don ' t tune into, but they respond to it when they see it in an artist ' s work, " she says. Her work is displayed at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and Temple Israel in Minneapolis, and Unity Hospital in Fridley; among her many exhibitions have been those in New York City, Paris, and the C. G. Rein Gallery and the Catherine Nash Gallery in Minneapolis.

Henry, a retired surgeon who also taught at the University of Minnesota, studied pottery with Celine Charpentier at the College of St. Catherine and learned additional techniques at the Northern Clay Center. He hand-builds pots, coil-by-coil, rather than throwing them onto a wheel. It's a more ancient technique that allows him to control the texture of the surface and the broken-eggshell openings of some of his pieces. "When archeologists find remains of human cultures, they find bones, gemstones, precious metals - and pots," Henry says. "It's one of the permanent kinds of human art."

The Sosins welcome visitors during art events such as Art-A-Whirl and Art On The Town, and their gallery is also open to visitors by appointment.

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