Interviews: Frank Huerter

Frank Huerter, Sardines, 2019, chalk pastel over acrylic on muslin, credit: © Frank Huerter, courtesy of the artist

Frank Huerter (b. 1998) is an artist originally from Omaha, Nebraska. Having an affinity to art in high school, Huerter enrolled in the Kent Bellows Mentoring Program offered by the Joslyn Art Museum. He currently goes to school at the Kansas City Art Institute [KCAI] and is working towards earning a BFA in painting.

I interviewed him at Elmwood Park while he was on his summer holiday in Omaha. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Jonathan Orozco: Are you originally from Omaha?

Frank Huerter: Yeah.

JO: Were you interested in art in your childhood?

FH: Yeah. I remember my first interactions with art. I was always doing little doodles of clothing. It was pants and shirts with hearts on them because I was seven. Yeah, I feel like I’ve always had an interest in it and just never really stopped, but didn’t necessarily start taking it seriously until high school.

JO: Were your parents creatives? Did they expose you to art? Did you go to the Joslyn or other galleries?

FH: Yeah. I remember going to the Joslyn when I was younger. I had an uncle who was really involved in the arts and my sister would babysit his kids and me and he had paintings hung up all over his house and I feel that was my first interaction with contemporary art. He was very interested in contemporary painting. So that was an outlet. 

Frank Huerter, Council, 2019, chalk pastel over acrylic on muslin, credit: © Frank Huerter, courtesy of the artist

JO: Which high school did you go to?

FH: I went to Omaha South.

JO: Were you a part of the Kent Bellows Mentoring Program?

FH: Yeah. That’s where I met Tom White and Erin Paulson.

JO: The way they described it is that they made lifelong friends and mentors. Who introduced you to it?

FH: The way I was introduced to Kent Bellows, my cousin had told me about it. She had heard about it through word-of-mouth and texted me about it and said that I might be interested in it. I applied my freshman year and I got in.

It just really changed my perspective and my relationship to art. It made me really take it seriously. I had Angie Seykora as a mentor at one point. She’s amazing. I look up to her. Her and Bridget O’Donnell. I had never taken my work seriously until I had an artist that I looked up to take it seriously. So through those two, it just changed the way I was feeling about it. It really made me feel like it could be something more than just a hobby.

JO: So, when you graduated, what schools did you decide to go to?

FH: I wasn’t going to further my education for a long time. It was not necessarily the plan. I last-minute applied to the Kansas City Art Institute. I ended up getting a good enough scholarship that made it make sense for me to go. I’m glad that I continued to do something. 

Frank Huerter, Two Friends, 2019, chalk pastel over acrylic on muslin, credit: © Frank Huerter, courtesy of the artist

JO: When you applied, did you already have a set style or preferred medium?

FH: When I applied, I was definitely interested in painting. The way Kent Bellows works is that all mediums are accessible to you. You don’t have to pay for anything. Because of that, I was able to filter through a lot of things that maybe I would have gotten stuck on if I had to pay for them and not ended up liking them in terms of material. I was able to explore material at a much quicker rate than other artists at that age, and I think that was one of the biggest advantages of Kent Bellows.

So when I ended Kent Bellows, I was doing acrylic paintings on pieces of wood with a cover of clear, thick, resin, which I never would have been doing if I didn’t go to Kent Bellows because resin is expensive. That was my preferred medium when I was applying to schools.

JO: What about now?

FH: Right now, I’m a lot more interested in installation and curation. I’m still doing paintings, and I still think I’ll always be doing paintings. Curation as a medium has really piqued my interest in the past couple of months, and installation has as well.

Frank Huerter, Boy by Candlelight, 2019, chalk pastel over acrylic on muslin, credit: © Frank Huerter, courtesy of the artist

JO: What are you majoring in?

FH: I’m majoring in painting.

JO: How long have you been at KCAI?

FH: I’ll be a junior next year; this upcoming year.

JO: About your work, what have you been up to?

FH: I’ve been making small paper collages and small textile collages and then paintings on muslin. That’s what I’ve been working on while I’m in Omaha. That's what I ended my semester with sophomore year. I just fell in love with that array, like, placing them in conjunction with one another. So that’s what I’ve been doing while I’m here.

JO: You recently had a group show at Split Gallery. What kind of work did you show there?

FH: I showed everything I had worked on this summer. I think it was nine paintings on muslin. The paintings were layered chalk pastel on top of acrylic underpainting. I had a grid of paper and textile collages. I think there were 24 of them.

JO: How’s KCAI?

FH: It’s really good. My first year there was rough, but my second year there was a lot better. It feels like the same sort of thing that happened at Kent Bellows where I find people that I really respect, and how seriously they’re taking their career as an artist, and then they also show me respect and they take me seriously. It feels validating. That’s what happened my sophomore year, and that has kept me going.  

Frank Huerter, credit: © Frank Huerter, courtesy of the artist

Frank Huerter lives and attends art school in Kansas City, Missouri.

His Instagram handle is: @r1f9h9j8.