Event Link: https://www.minnesota.edu/fine-arts-events

FEE: FREE and open to the public.

Jan. 16-May 11, Mary Jo Wentz, "The Fusion of Fiber and Nature," Waage Gallery

There is a joint artist reception on February 20 from 2-4 p.m. at M State-Fergus Falls.

Wending Through Watercolor Batik by Ruth Hanson | Charles Beck Gallery

The Fusion of Fiber and Nature by Mary Jo Wentz | Waage Gallery.

Event Link: https://plainsart.org/exhibitions/?type=current

FEE: Free to attend the museum

MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies to open at Plains Art Museum

MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies travels to Plains Art Museum from Macalester College’s Law Warschaw Gallery in St. Paul, MN. The exhibit will be on view from January 18 to May 25, 2025, in Plains’ Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium and Xcel Energy Gallery.

Over the past two decades, Mickey Smith has documented significant cultural shifts in academic and public libraries, primarily across the United States, Aotearoa/New Zealand and the South Pacific. Her photography captures the evolution of libraries, from traditional card catalogs and stacks to digitization and the advent of artificial intelligence, highlighting their role as stewards of knowledge.

The exhibition features Smith’s acclaimed projects VOLUME, Denudation, and As You Will: Carnegie Libraries of the South Pacific alongside new mixed-media installations made from deaccessioned library materials donated to the project by academic libraries. Through this confluence of Smith’s oeuvre, Morphologies explores the dynamic nature of library lifecycles with striking imagery, like her trademark — never lit nor touched — captures of in-situ bound periodicals. Smith’s work considers not only the ways in which books are revered, but how libraries adapt to changes, including repurposing buildings and transitioning from physical books to online resources.

Mickey Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Photography from Minnesota State University Moorhead (1994) and
a Diploma in Jewelry Design from Hungry Creek Art & Craft School in New Zealand (2019). Mickey is an advocate and spokesperson for Harbour HoSpice Auckland. Since 2003, Smith’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States, in New Zealand, China, and Russia. Her works belong to numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art Library, Sheldon Museum of Art, and Weisman Art Museum. She has received grants and awards from the McKnight Foundation, CEC ArtsLink, Americans for the Arts, and Creative New Zealand.

“Seeing this exhibition at the Plains Art Museum feels like a homecoming. As an art student at MSUM, I spent countless hours in the Livingston Lord Library, devouring materials which profoundly shaped my perspective as an artist.”

- Mickey Smith, Artist

“We are thrilled to showcase MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies at Plains Art Museum. This compelling body of work offers a timely exploration on the shifting role of libraries in the digital age. Smith breathes new life into deaccessioned books, inviting contemplation on the preservation of knowledge, the intersection of digital and analog forms of media, and the complexities of information access in today’s world.”

- Danielle Gravon, Chief Curator and Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Plains Art Museum

An accompanying illustrated publication is co-edited by exhibition curator Heather Everhart and Laura Wertheim Joseph, PhD (newly appointed head curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum), and includes essays by Everhart + Joseph, Shannon Mattern, PhD (Professor of Media Studies and Art History at the University of Pennsylvania), and Aisling Quigley, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Liberal Arts at Macalester College).

The exhibition travels to Lincoln, NE in fall 2025, jointly presented by the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery at the University of Nebraska and Fiendish Plots.

For artist information, artwork details and images, public program details, or purchase information, please contact: Heather Everhart, director & curator, Law Warschaw Gallery / heverhar@macalester.edu

MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies is generously sponsored by Karen & Leslie Desnick and Dual Purpose/Dual Citizen Brewing Company Law Warschaw is an academic gallery, gratefully located on the sovereign Dakhóta land of Mni Sóta Maḳoce.

Plains Art Museum thanks our generous PlainsArt4All members, donors, and Organizational Partners for their support. Additional support provided by The McKnight Foundation; FM Area Foundation; The Arts Partnership with support from the cities of Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo; The FUNd at Plains Art Museum; and the North Dakota Council on
the Arts, which receives funds from the North Dakota Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.

Exhibition Tour Thursday, January 30, 6-6:45 PM, Free

Explore Morphologies, a captivating exhibition that documents the transformation of libraries in the digital age.

EVENT LINK: https://www.therourke.org

FEE: FREE to attend the Gallery and Museum

Cameron Peterson: To Color a Moment

Fri Apr 4th - Sun May 25th

Katherine-Kilbourne-Burgum/Gustavian-Gallery-Exhibit

The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, 521 Main Ave, Moorhead, MN 56560, USA  

This exhibit is presented in part by the generous sponsorship support of Naomi RaMona Schliesman Artistry and Consulting.

About the Artist:

Cameron Peterson was born 21 April 1977 in Langdon, North Dakota. He obtained a BFA from Minnesota State University Moorhead with a concentration in printmaking. His work has been exhibited at Upfront Gallery (2008), The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum (2007 & 2011), Spirit Room (2006), and Creative Arts Studio (2005). He participated in 100 Abstract at MSUM (2010). He has printed membership editions for Smoky Hill River Festival (2006) and The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum (2002, 2011).

Cameron currently lives in Moorhead, Minnesota, with Annette DuBord and their cats, Diva and Maybelline.

Artist Statement:

My prints are composed of layers of color reflecting the moment that I am in. As I cut, ink, remove ink, and press each new layer, superimposed silhouettes and profiles react and respond to one another in an intriguing, symmetric stew of contrasting forms and ideas. My inspirations come from the Arts and Crafts and Abstract Expressionist movements.

Event Link: https://www.therourke.org
FEE: FREE to attend Gallery and Museum

Annette DuBord: It's Never Nothing

Fri Apr 4th - Sun May 25th

Katherine-Kilbourne-Burgum/Gustavian-Gallery-Exhibit

The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, 521 Main Ave, Moorhead, MN 56560, USA  

This exhibit is presented in part by the generous sponsorship support of Naomi RaMona Schliesman Artistry and Consulting.

About the Artist:

Annette “Nettie” DuBord was born in Fargo, ND. She studied Printmaking at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She has exhibited in a solo show at the Spirit Room Gallery (2005), Upfront Gallery with Cameron Peterson (2008), and the Creative Arts Studio with James Ingberg (2011). She has participated in the Midwestern Invitational Exhibition at The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum from 2003 to present, the 2013 Wabi-Sabi Show at the Spirit Room, the 2014 and 2018 Great Winter Crow Show at the Spirit Room, and the 2014 Equinox Show at the Uptown Art Gallery. She recently had a show called Tough Babies at the Spirit Room. Her work has won awards at the Hawley Art Show (2002, 2004, and 2007) and a Second Place award (2003) at the Hjemkomst Center for the Taste of the Valley Exhibition. She participated in the Norn Show at the Spirit Room in 2017. In 2003 she attended Frogman’s Print Workshop and studied Waterless Lithography from Russ Zerkel. In 2016 she studied Polymer Plate Lithography at Frogman’s with Kathryn and Andrew Polk. She was selected as one of the visual artists for the 2018 Arts Partnership CSA for her piece “Sprout.” In 2017 she was selected to print the Arts Partnership’s Giving Hearts Day Thank You Print.

Artist Statement:

My images deal with everyday feelings and emotions that are a common thread for most individuals. I like to deal with insecurities that are prevalent in my own life. Body image, bad habits, interactions with others, and random thoughts populate my imagery. Humor and whimsy work into my artwork as I prefer to laugh at my foibles. Life has become so serious with the over-bombardment of media and the digital world that I want to share the humor and fun that life can be. Sometimes I just think funny things and they appear on paper. Recently I have become fascinated with non-objective imagery, which I find relaxing and healing. I am having a great time creating these new images and am pleased with the outcome. No message, no meaning. If the viewer sees something in it and it gives them pleasure then we both win.

Event Link: https://www.therourke.org/calendar.html

FEE: FREE and open to public to view.

Chris Mortenson: The Air, thin and eager like this.

Fri Apr 11th - Sun Jun 8th

Main-Gallery-Exhibit

The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, 521 Main Ave, Moorhead, MN 56560, USA  

Chris Mortenson is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts
and cultural heritage fund.

This activity is made possible by an allocation from The Longspur Prairie Fund at The Rourke.

The Air, thin and eager like this.

My work is driven by the need to understand my own connections to landscape and the relationships between cultural ideals of place and the use of the photographic imagery, which shapes and sustains how Americans think and talk about landscape. The work is rooted in the notion that, at its best, the photograph is a trace of reality, offering half-truths rather than being an authentic representation of what is inside the frame. Photographs tend to be a primary source of understanding about a place, conjuring ideas of the natural and unnatural, whether or not those representations are apt. The work I make questions the duality between our perceived notions of landscape and the realities of those landscapes, as well as the conflict felt within both natural and human-made landscapes.

The Air, thin and eager like this. is a survey of landscape through hunting and is comprised of both large color landscape photographs and portraits made using the palladium process. The practice of hunting is surrounded with emotions both for and against the killing of animals. It is often pointed to as an issue of sustainability and stewardship for the land as well as a positive economic force for rural communities for those who support it and as a bloodthirsty and unnecessary activity to those who oppose it. As a hunter who both enjoys hunting and dislikes the killing, I understand both of these arguments. This work is not an attempt to litigate those positions. It is an attempt to look at hunting as a method for understanding landscape and the conflicts it poses and what happens to the preconceived notions we have if what we are looking at doesn’t align with those ideas.

About the Artist
Chris Mortenson (b. 1979) is an artist and educator based in Moorhead, MN, where he is currently Associate Professor of Art at Concordia College. He has shown work work nationally and internationally at Coop Gallery in Nashville, TN; The Emergeandsee Media Arts Festival, Berlin, Germany; The Exhibition Hall, Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia; The Saarijärvi Museum, Central Finland; 5&J Gallery, Lubbock, TX; The Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR; and at South x Southeast Photogallery, Molena, GA, among others. He holds a BFA from The University of South Dakota and an MA and MFA from The University of Iowa.

EVENT LINK: https://www.reddoorgallerywahpeton.com/call-for-worksartists.html
FEE: All artists exhibiting in this show must be members of the Red Door Art Gallery.

This is an open call for all artists who: Currently reside in North Dakota, Minnesota, or South Dakota, or those who call Wahpeton ND or Breckenridge MN their hometown or have a local connection.

Dates of Exhibition: May 20, 2025 May 31, 2025

Deadline for Submissions: May 10, 2025

Deadline for Arrival of Art: May 17, 2025

We invite artists to submit work that is priced at $100 or less. Forms of work include but are not limited to painting, drawing, sculptural work, photography, printmaking, mixed media, wood carvings, jewelry and textiles.

• Artists must submit an Artist’s Biography along with works if this is an artist’s first time exhibiting.

• While original works are preferred, prints or reproductions are acceptable. All pieces must be the work of

  the submitting artist.

• All works must include the following information: Title, Year Completed, Brief Description, Media Used,

  Dimensions, and Price.

• The maximum each artist can bring is 2-3 pieces of artwork.

• All works must be for sale, and priced with the understanding that the Red Door Art Gallery does take a 30% commission on all works. The commission must be included in your price. Include a detailed and clear inventory of all works for our records.

• The Gallery does reserve the right to exclude any artwork that does not meet the standards set by the Gallery’s Collections and Exhibitions Committee.

• All works that go on a wall must have a hanger on the back. All work must be equipped with a saw tooth hanger or wire.

• All artists exhibiting in this show must be members of the Red Door Art Gallery. Feel free to contact RDAG if you are unsure of your membership status.

• RDAG requests all artwork be able to stay in gallery throughout the entirety of the exhibit, except for in the event of a sale.

• RDAG reserves the curatorial discretion for all placement, lighting, display, and all other aspects of the exhibition of works

• Preference will be given to works that have not been previously exhibited at Red Door Art Gallery.

• Artist consignment agreement must be signed and/or previously on file before art can be accepted or

  exhibited.

  To Submit:

  Please send images and descriptions of work to: director@reddoorgallerywahpeton.com
  Images submitted to Red Door Art Gallery may be considered to be used in promotion of the exhibit.

  Artists are responsible for the delivery and/or shipping costs to and from the Red Door. If work is shipped, a reusable container must be used. RDAG is not responsible for damage during the shipment for any reason. Return shipment will be sent C.O.D. to the artist. No post office boxes will be accepted for return shipments.

  For more information contact the Gallery at (701) 591-1010 or email at director@reddoorgallerywahpeton.com

Event Link: https://www.reddoorgallerywahpeton.com/wahpeton-fine-arts-festival.html

This Fine Arts Festival is held in conjunction with the annual Rural Art Juried Exhibition.  This year, the exhibition will be juried by Michael Dunn.  The Call for Works is also attached.

 Important Dates:

Festival Date: August 23, 2025, 10:00 am – 6:00 p.m.
Registration Deadline: June 1, 2025 (refundable before August 1)

Rural Art Juried Exhibition

Dates of Exhibition: July 29, 2025 – September, 2025
Deadline for Submissions: July 18, 2025
Deadline for Arrival of Art: July 26, 2025
Artists’ Reception: Thursday, August 21, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Member Entry Fee: $10 for one piece, $20 for two, $25 for three
Non-member Entry Fee: $15 for one piece, $30 for two, $40 for three

Event Link: https://www.kulcher.org

FEE: FREE open to the public to attend.

Please join us at the Artist’s Reception for Natural Dialogues: a collaborative project by photographer Jon Solinger, May 2, 4-6 pm. There will be a talk by Jon Solinger and some of the participants at 5:00 pm.
Natural Dialogues will be on display at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center from April
26 – May 24. In this exhibit, visual art and writing reveal the why behind the intentional relationships nine local residents enjoy with the natural world. This event is free and open to the public.

Project participants include:
Cheryl Bannes
Anna Lee
Lou Ann Muhm
Ron Roller
Kent Scheer
Naomi Ramona Schliesman
Candace Stock
Mike Tauber
Dax Wiersma

Jon Solinger is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.