EVENT LINK: https://www.minnesota.edu/news/heart-prairie-art-exhibit-now-open-beck-gallery

FEE: Free

Beck Gallery Show: The Heart of the Prairie, Four Muses, Four Stories

November 6, 2025 - January 9, 2026

M State’s Charles Beck Gallery presents “The Heart of the Prairie: Four Muses, Four Stories,” a new art exhibit celebrating the beauty, spirit and stories of Minnesota’s prairie landscape. The exhibit opens Thursday, November 6, and continues through January 9. It is free and open to the public during regular Fergus Falls campus hours. 

A reception with the artists will be held Thursday, November 13, from 2-4 p.m. in Legacy Hall, with the artists speaking at 2:30 p.m.

For more information about Fine Arts at M State, visit: https://minnesota.edu/fine-arts.

Photo: 'Mosaic Sunflower,' by Kerry Kolke Bonk.

EVENT LINK: https://www.therourke.org/carl-oltvedt-a-quiet-life.html

FEE: Free

Carl Oltvedt: A Quiet Life: Echoes of the Natural World

On view in the Main Gallery from 21 November 2025 - 11 January 2026

Member Preview— 6:30 to 8 p.m. Friday 21 November 2025
Public Opening— 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday 22 November 2025 / Oltvedt Gallery Talk at 2 p.m.    

Carl Oltvedt works full-time as an artist in a variety of painting and drawing media. He retired in May of 2015 from Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he was a Professor in the School of Visual Arts. He has exhibited his work in three prior solo exhibitions at The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, as well as in several of the annual Midwestern Invitational Exhibitions of Fine Art hosted there. He has been represented by Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis since 1978.
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His paintings and drawings are included in numerous public, corporate, and private collections, including The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, the Plains Art Museum, the North Dakota Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. He has completed commissions for corporations and private collectors including the Cargill Corporation, Securian Corporation, and the Laske family.  He was a recipient of Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grants in 2014 and 1991, and a Lake Region Arts Council/McKnight Artist Fellowship in 2002.         

EVENT LINK: https://www.therourke.org/jonathan-rutter-fragile-things.html

FEE: Free

Jonathan Rutter: Fragile Things

On view in the East Gallery from 5 December 2025 - 26 January 2026

Member Preview
          6:30 to 8 p.m. Friday 5 December 2025
Public Opening
          1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday 7 December 2025
               Artist Talk at 2 p.m. 

Jonathan Rutter is a painter, tinkerer, collector, arts administrator, designer, and curator living and maintaining a home studio in Moorhead, MN. He received his BA degree in Studio Art with an emphasis in Painting from Minnesota State University Moorhead and his MFA degree in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Artist Statement
            If I had the words to say it, I wouldn’t need to paint it . . . but I’ll try. In my practice, I spend a lot of time with my subjects and canvases—giving over my full, undivided attention. Allowing myself to become completely absorbed in the things I’m looking at is reflective, meditative, and pleasantly analytical, and helps me to appreciate just how wonderful and strange observable reality—and perception itself—truly is. Attending to the subtle color variations and scars on the skin of a pear, the impossibly fine tendrils of a plant, the light casting across a human figure or the tines of a fork, the exquisite sutures zigging across a monkey’s skull . . . all of these details and more speak to the unlikely journey of these subjects and how precious they are in their impermanence. Existence is weird, lovely, and fragile: look closer and take it in!

          --Jonathan Rutter, 2025

EVENT LINK: https://www.therourke.org/heart-show-entry-form.html.

FEE: Free to apply

The Heart Show: Call Me!

The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum is on the lookout for talented artists to submit artworks for their annual Valentine's exhibition, with special consideration for works that focus on the whimsical, kitschy, and retro vibes of mid-century Valentines!

• Submission Deadline: January 15, 2026

• Submit up to 3 artworks

• Artwork Size: Not to exceed 24 inches in any dimension

• All artwork must be for sale

• Accepted artworks must arrive on or by January 23, 2026

• Exhibition Dates: January 29 - February 22, 2026

Don't miss the chance to be part of this celebration of art, hearts ... and camp! And share this invite with all your dollies and dreamboats!

For more details and to submit your masterpieces, visit https://www.therourke.org/heart-show-entry-form.html.