Cornell alum explores humor, absurdity in contemporary life in ‘Edens and End Times’

MOUNT VERNON — The Cornell College Peter Paul Luce Gallery will present “Edens and End Times” by Twin Cities-based painter and Cornell alum James Ostrander from Aug. 29 to Oct. 12.

In his figurative paintings, Ostrander parodies his own life. He searches for humor and sorrow in human behavior and shame in complicity with a cultural inheritance that has privileged some through the exclusion of others. Ostrander engages the Western art historical canon through emulation and caricature. His work references the sublime pathos of the Romantics, the nightmarish alterity of surrealism and the titillation of Rococo pastorals.

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Caught between an inheritance of impossible ideals and material realities, his painterly avatar “Orstranger” struggles through would-be Edenic suburb-scapes, laid low by an unyielding cast of flora, fauna and environmental waste.

Ostrander is an artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He earned an master of fine arts degree in painting from the University of Notre Dame in 2022 after earning a bachelor’s in painting from Cornell College in 2013. His work has been exhibited at numerous galleries, including Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago and at Kylemore Abbey Global Centre in Connemara, Ireland.

Ostrander will discuss his work at an artist lecture at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, in McWethy Hall’s Lecture Hall, Room 222. Following the lecture, a reception for “Edens and End Times” will take place in the Luce Gallery from 4-6 p.m. Both the lecture and reception are free and open to the public.

Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2-4 p.m. Sundays. There will be a second reception to coincide with Cornell College’s 2025 Homecoming on Saturday, Oct. 11, in the Luce Gallery from 3-5 p.m.

For additional information, contact Luce Gallery coordinator Brooks Cashbaugh atbcashbaugh@cornellcollege.edu.