American
b. 1946, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota

John Hruska’s involvement with contemporary art began at a young age. Inspired by the early work of Robert Rauschenberg, Hruska began making sculptures with found objects while still in his early teens. In high school Hruska began studying photography, and upon graduation took a position as photographer for an advertising agency. this was the start of a career that spanned decades and took him around the world shooting photographs for several high profile corporations, as well as doing fashion photography.

Throughout his time in the commercial photography world, Hruska never stopped pursuing his art photography. Besides conducting photography classes in Mexico for the University of Minnesota, Hruska and a fellow photographer founded a major photography gallery, which was in operation from 1986 to 1998, and was among the most important such galleries in the five state area. His photographs are also in many private collections.

Hruska has retained his commitment to the idea that photographs are documentations of an event and therefore should not be altered through any post-production manipulations. This commitment, in conjunction with his early love of sculpture, led him to the body of work that has been his focus for the last five years. His process entails submerging objects in layers of water and colored dyes which are then frozen. The resulting sculptures are then lit and photographed – freezing them as a photographic image before they dissolve.