The Northwest Minnesota Arts Council (NWMAC) is pleased to announce the opening of a Student Art Exhibit featuring K-12 artwork from throughout Northwest Minnesota. This exhibit is open through July 26 at the NWMAC Gallery at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls.
The exhibit features art by area students throughout northwest Minnesota, including the schools of Sacred Heart in East Grand Forks, Crookston, Warren-Alvarado-Oslo, Kittson Central in Hallock, Ada-Borup West, Fosston, Tri-County in Karlstad, and Roseau.
NWMAC Showcase Specialist Trey Everett said, “We have a variety of collections in this gallery from “Art Inspired by Art,” to Artist in Residence mask making, to written pieces that have been published, to artwork that area art teachers chose. It is fascinating and inspiring to walk through our gallery and just take in the quality, creativity, and talent packed into this exhibit. I am very proud of our regional students’ artwork and art teachers, teachers, artists in residence, parents, and others who help teach and inspire our students.”
There are 105 total pieces in the gallery divided up into four sections:
Section 1. Mask Making High School and Fifth Grade, Tri-County Schools, Karlstad/Mask Making Residency with Artist Lisa Arnold, 2023/Photos of mixed media masks. 23 pieces with 21 students.
Section 2: Write On Roseau Community School District, Roseau/Essays for the Roseau Times-Region Newspaper from Roseau Community School District Students, 2023/Newspaper essays NFS. There are 17 entries in this section. All were published in the paper between January and May of 2023.
Select students from Roseau Community School wrote essays of 800-1,000 words. The essays were published weekly in the Roseau Times-Region Newspaper. This project has run for four years. English teacher Kelsey Didrickson’s 12th grade college English class contributed to this project. Artist Julie Elick explained, “This project instills the arts into our community and public life, providing a weekly place for students to enhance their writing talents. Roseau County is growing stronger each year with its encouragement of literacy.”
Section 3: Art Inspired By Art.
3a High School. This section includes artwork that was inspired by famed as well as obscure art pieces. Students drew inspiration from Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night, MARINA’s song “Are You Satisfied?” and Michael Angelo’s The Creation of Adam. One student’s work, Polybius drew inspiration from an urban legend Polybius, and a song by Lemon Demon called Cabinet Man. Art in this section was created by NCTC student Wyatt Bring (cat image), Ada-Borup-West student Carlie Nerhus (ceramic art), and Sacred Heart’s Sophia Modeen (skeleton hands reaching out to each other), Aalliyah Griggs (digital art of purple and pink pieces of paper), Rhilynn Leroux Peters (red/orange swirl sky painting), and Mackenzie Gjerswold (video game painting). Total of six pieces.
3b: Kindergarten Students. Kittson Central School, Hallock Pigeons, 2023. Kwik Stix tempera paint pens on paper 12 x 18 inches.19 pieces. Pigeons Kindergarten students at Kittson Central in Hallock created pigeons as a directed drawing of the character from Mo Willems’ books that follow the adventures of pigeon and his friends. (For example, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus). They learned to use shapes to create the character and then added a colorful background.
Section 4: General Student art chosen by art teachers. This section includes Crookston, East Grand Forks, Fosston, Ada-Borup-West, and Warren Alvarado-Oslo artwork. It features pen and ink, pencil, acrylic on canvas, mixed media, pottery, glass casting jewelry, Styrofoam prints, woodblock prints, watercolor pencils, watercolor, chalk, linoleum block print, oil pastels, aluminum metal embossing, and digital artwork. There are a total of 40 pieces in this section.
An artist reception at the gallery will be held on Tuesday, June 27, from 6 to 8 PM in conjunction with the 101 Dalmatians play at Northland Community and Technical College. Refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome to join us for this free event. Children’s author Wanda Nelson will be signing her books during the reception.
The NWMAC Gallery is at Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls. The gallery hours are Monday-Friday from 8:30 to 5:00 PM and at other times when events are held at the college. During the summer, the college may be closed on Friday afternoons, so please confirm before making a memorable trip. Enter through Door B, which is right next to the gallery. Visitor parking is free.
For more information about this exhibit, visit Email director@NWArtsCouncil.org, or call 218-745-8886 to reach our office during regular business hours.
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