Challenging the art status quo

When I met Trace at Speshel Project, L.L.C., his gallery at Seven Points mall, it was the day before Thanksgiving and on the eve of a straight, 30-hour drive to Miami Beach where he planned to show his work at Art Basel, an annual, international art fair based in Switzerland.
Large, hand-drawn frames on the gallery’s walls that once drew attention to his paintings now only highlight empty spaces.
The 34-year-old Minnesota native, who prefers to use no last name, grew up in Minneapolis and the south metro, playing high school football and graduating at “PLHS.”
He tells me he’s been doing art his entire life and only original art – no prints.
On the day we met, he had on a gray vest splattered with various splotches of Neon-esque orange and other colors, his long, dark hair tucked under a black “Adidas Original, Est. 1949” that that accentuated dark, old-soul eyes.
“I want to make people happy with what I do,” he tells me.
After an eight-year stint in the National Guard, both in Minnesota and Arizona, he devoted his full attention to his career, this after first living in Miami, being homeless and having one brush with the law, he explains.
The 2020 pandemic and aftermath of George Floyd’s murder interrupted his growing local success, and commissions dried up. He says, at one point, he made ends meet by selling his art (cheaply) on the light rail.
Trace opened Speshel Project about a year ago after working out an artwork-for-gallery space agreement with Northpond Partners, the mall’s owner. That work is displayed on its parking structure’s north-facing side.
“No, I didn’t go to school for any of this because I’m living life,” he says. “In order to be an artist, I have to live life!”
Trace started Minneapolis Art Shows (MAS) with a partner about six months ago. This initiative is an online artist collective that bills itself as “the pulse of Minneapolis’ underground art scene.”
MAS along with Speshel Project want to challenge the gallery-as-gatekeeper model by providing a non-curated space for local artists and a place where they receive a 100% of the money when they sell their pieces.
“They [galleries] don’t allow you to just come in without any sort of reputation and try to sell your stuff,” he says. Here they can.
Galleries are just one aspect of a creative world he calls brutal, likening it to “the weed wrapping around your ankle when you are swimming in a lake,” he says. “Just enough to breathe every once and awhile, but you still get pulled down.”
He explains: “If anything, I want to keep uplifting other artists and telling them that everything’s going to be all right.”
Trace wants his gallery and Minneapolis Art Shows to clear a path for local artists to gain recognition more easily. “Because I do believe instead of filling out 50 applications for one opportunity, you can fill out one application [at MAS] for 50 opportunities.
“Making it work is probably the most important part of my career,” he says. “I just want to make it work.”