FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Daydreaming at Midnight
Recent Paintings and Sculptures by SHOCK UC MSK
Chambers Hotel Gallery, Downtown Minneapolis
April 18 – May 10, 2025
Opening Reception + Artist Talk: Friday, April 18, 6 pm–Midnight (Talk at 7pm)
Saturday, April 19: Gallery open 1–6 pm + 9 pm–Late | DJ sets: GIRLBLUNT & ST. XOSE
Sunday, April 20: Music in the Courtyard, 3–7 pm | DJ sets: GIRLBLUNT & YASMEENAH
Joe Ellis Art and Modern Day Me are proud to present Daydreaming at Midnight, a solo exhibition of recent paintings and sculptures by Minneapolis-based artist SHOCK UC MSK, on view at the Chambers Hotel in downtown Minneapolis from April 18 through May 10, 2025.
This marks SHOCK’s first-ever gallery presentation at the Chambers—and the beginning of a new chapter for the downtown space. It also represents a full-circle moment for its collaborators: SHOCK, Joe Ellis, and Modern Day Me are all alumni of Juxtaposition Arts, the North Minneapolis organization that has shaped generations of Twin Cities artists and cultural leaders.
Like much of SHOCK’s work, this exhibition came together through hustle, collaboration, and deep creative trust built over decades.
The show features new works, many created inside the abandoned Pillsbury Mill factory in Springfield, Illinois—where SHOCK built a hybrid studio in 2024, making murals, sculptures, and paintings in solitude and near-complete silence. Painted on salvaged surfaces—electrical panel covers, HVAC ducting, metal sheeting—these works are physical records of movement, memory, and transformation. Using spray paint, rollers, homemade markers, and brushes, SHOCK works in call-and-response with each object—letting texture and gesture guide the form.
His understanding of painting is rooted in experience, not theory: years spent painting trains, rooftops, and warehouse walls taught him to respond to space, scale, and time. Some works are pure abstraction. Others depict masked figures—graffiti writers in motion—captured with reverence and rhythm. Together, they offer rare insight into a world shaped by adrenaline, solitude, and a refusal to wait for permission.
A new installation by Minneapolis-based artist HotTea will greet visitors in the hotel’s courtyard. Known for transforming public spaces into immersive meditations using unconventional materials, HotTea’s never-before-seen work honors the creative bond between the two artists and sets the tone for the exhibition—a gesture of trust, energy, and welcome.
When most of the city is asleep, SHOCK is painting—dreaming in color, writing in code, and building a new visual language from the ruins. These aren’t just paintings. They’re records. They carry the urgency of risk and the echo of something ancient, made visible once more.
The gallery will be open Saturdays and by appointment.
Contact: joe@joeellis.art
