Brett Anderson is a master craftsman and is widely acclaimed for his highly elaborate, multi-color relief prints. Inspired by a long tradition of satirical and allegorical woodcuts dating to the German printmakers of the early Renaissance, his prints also reflect contemporary influences, including Chicago’s Pop Art movement as well as underground comic book artists of the 1960s and 1970s.

What I find myself most entranced with is the folly of human endeavor, our frailty and vice. We are all Sisyphus, forcing a boulder of our human strivings and moral justifications up a mountain, doomed to ultimate failure by the laws of nature and the will of the gods. I don’t view this fixation on our shortcomings as some sort of pessimistic, nihilistic indulgence; it is really an affirmation of humanity. I think our self-image and didactic inclination are defined as much by our indiscretions and overindulgences as they are by prudence and acts of good will, maybe more so. Without our follies we would be without a sense of morality, or more importantly, without a sense of humor or empathy…

I find parallels between my aesthetic vision and the paradigm of American vacation destinations, like Las Vegas, with elaborate and wonderful facades often concealing foul and pestilent underbellies. It is important to me that when people first encounter my work they often describe it as “colorful” or “pretty.” With the grotesque and bizarre subjects portrayed I am simultaneously trying to subvert that appeal.

Art has many ways of enriching our lives. One way is that it tells us something about the artist. Other ways may be that it informs or entertains us as spectators. I hope you look at this monoprint not only as form, color, and texture but also as something that might make you smile just a little. That will tell you how I felt in making it… very happy and with a smile.

This photograph of watercolorist Richard DuBois references his most well-known painting—the photograph is from a series of portraits that were on display at the Washington Pavilion in 2008.

I randomly chose sixty people for this project. Some were chosen because of their occupations, others for their unique interests. It was important to me to show the subjects in a light other than that which we are used to seeing them in, or, if the subject was unknown to the viewer, I wanted him or her to see a particular part of the subject’s personality through the photo.

Often my inspiration started with a particular physical setting for a photograph. I would then work “backward” to find a subject who would fit the scene I envisioned.

My goal is to make photographs that are interesting, quirky and visually exciting.



Fatih Benzer
Journey of a Dervish
acrylic on canvas, 2006


My last art class was in the 7th grade, when my teacher asked me to draw my shoe. That assignment led me to believe that I was not cut out to be an artist; I would be a doctor instead. I was wrong on both counts.

My art evolves from oddities and curiosities that I uncover in the Turkish countryside and from antique stores in America. From there, these old, and usually utilitarian, pieces find their way to my workbench and are repurposed as sculptures, of sorts. I like to add electricity and light the pieces from within. The result often looks like the love-child of George Jetson and Wilma Flintstone.

As an outsider artist, I try not to implement too many rules for myself.  For me, my work holds no answers or secrets. Made with a high degree of whimsy and love, my goal is to elicit the simplest of pleasures: a smile.

The piece on view incorporates an old wooden saddle, metal from a horse’s bit, electrical parts, and fluorescent bulbs.



Roger Broer
Becoming Invisible #3
monotype, 2009

Roger Broer is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation who lives in Hill City, South Dakota. He is known for creating monotypes, monoprints, lithographs, and mixed media artworks. Broer holds a Bachelor of Arts Extended Fine Arts degree from Eastern Montana College and has credits toward a Master of Fine Arts degree from Central Washington University. Broer exhibits his artwork widely, and his art is highly sought after by collectors across the country. His art elegantly reflects his traditional Native American heritage within the sophisticated context of contemporary American art.

I think, sometimes, when I am alone, usually when I am making art, about the elements in nature around me. I like to ponder relationships. How everything has its own significant place… how everything is somehow related to everything else. How…. most importantly, we don’t readily understand these relationships, yet if one element is missing, an emptiness exists.




I received a B.A. in Art Education from the University of Iowa. Choosing studio art after a short stint in education, I have been a professional potter since 2003. The foundation of my art is surface decoration. The art of ceramics gives me the freedom to express my love of color, texture, and pattern. Similar to a painter facing a blank canvas, the 3-dimensional surface of a pot becomes my vehicle for expression.

I currently work out of my home studio and sell my utilitarian pottery in retail stores and via my website, amycasspottery.com.




Randy Clark
Unhallowed hand
screenprint, 2008-2009

I presently teach design and printmaking at South Dakota State University as an Associate Professor. I earned an M.F.A. in 2002 from Utah State University, and a B.F.A. from the University of Utah in 1978. I have lived in South Dakota since 2000.

During my professional career in graphic design and advertising I’ve worked with such clients as the Utah Jazz (NBA), the Utah Symphony, Brigham Young University, Bookcraft, Warner Brothers, Turner Broadcasting Network, and Wal-Mart. I continue to consult and freelance graphic design services in addition to my fine art pursuits.

I have participated in several solo and group exhibitions. I have exhibited in 27 juried shows in the last four years, having placed in five, winning cash awards. My work is included in various permanent collections, including the University of Richmond, VA; University of Wisconsin-Madison; the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science; University of Sioux Falls; Museo Latino, Omaha, NE; and others.

This piece, Unhallowed hand, is part of the series of printmaking works I am completing for a Solo Exhibition at the South Dakota Museum of Art, scheduled for January of 2011. It reflects both a process and a metaphorical approach to space, shape, weight, form, texture, and color with respect to compositional design sensibilities of unity, rhythm, balance, variety, and hierarchy. In some measure this represents the first half of my professional career as a graphic designer and the latter half as a fine artist and educator.




Ceca Cooper is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Sioux Falls, where she teaches drawing, painting, and sculpture. Her paintings have been exhibited regionally and nationally. In 2000, she was selected as one of 24 out of 600+ artists in the United States to be featured in New American Paintings: MFA Journal, which was juried by the art historian and critic, Klaus Kertess.

Cooper often references landscapes and various symbols such as fences, houses, containers, etc., in her works to create a discourse about ideas of boundaries (both man-made and natural), limitations and containment—both physically and spiritually.

Texture, pattern, and gestural mark-making are of greater importance and interest to me than an academic, concise image.  I have always been deeply influenced by the work of Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, and, of late, Squeak Carnwath, a California artist and currently a Professor of Painting at U.C. Berkeley.




J. Charles Cox
Being of the Field
oil on masonite panel, 2008

Each work begins with questions about the human as it appears in my life, for what I seek is some insight into my own human condition. I am interested in our conformitic tendencies—an awareness of those elements of our social interactions and environments that provide a clue, or key, into the state of the individual—something we all believe we are.











I have been integrating more metal in my sculptures and will have taken two metalwork classes in Santa Fe by the time Arts Night takes place. I love metal because it can be structural or decorative, and I look forward to creating even more surprising and interesting artwork in the future!

This piece honors our planet, the mother of all life as we know it and our children’s future.




Natalie DeJong
The Winner's Circle
oil on canvas, 2009

Natalie DeJong was raised in rural South Dakota as the youngest of five girls. She now works and resides in downtown Sioux Falls.

This piece is about finding oneself on the triumphant side of life and the fear that comes with success and achievement – is this a dream? Do I deserve this? How long will it last?

So the girl in the painting does what we all do – tries to hide things that are trivial, feels awkwardly at ease, and crosses her fingers hoping for the best… until the next culminating circumstance, and then she, like us all, will forget.










Tom Dempster has been photographing for a lifetime.  He was a founder and photographer of the Sioux Falls Tribune.  His work has been shown in solo shows at the South Dakota Art Museum, the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery at Augustana College, and the W. H. Over Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota.  He is published in Sailing Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, South Dakota Magazine, the Best Stories of South Dakota Magazine, and the Best Photographs of South Dakota Magazine.  He has won the People’s Choice Award at a previous Washington Pavilion Arts Night.  He was a writer and host of South Dakota Heroes, an Edward R. Murrow award winning documentary.  He is the photographer of a forthcoming book entitled BEHOLD.

This photograph was taken in the rain in Taipei, Taiwan. Light, water, reflections, and movement combined into an image that disappeared the moment it was formed. It speaks of mystery, beauty, and transience.




Denise DuBroy
Hills with Teepees
oils on synthetic Yupo paper, 2008

I am a full-time studio painter, living and working in Rapid City. I was raised and educated in California and moved to the Black Hills almost sixteen years ago. My husband and I moved our family here to ranch buffalo. After owning and operating two buffalo ranches since living in South Dakota, we sold our ranch in the fall of 2007.

My oil paintings are abstractions of the natural world, combined with an ongoing search for a personal visual vocabulary of shapes, forms, lines, and color relationships. Color, light, and space are major influences on my work. I’ve also always been interested in aerial views of the landscape, both from a distance and up close. This perspective enhances the abstract quality of the landscape.

Since 1990, I have been painting exclusively on a plastic, synthetic paper. The process and techniques that I use have emerged from working on this synthetic surface. The intrinsic qualities of this plastic surface have taken me in a direction of painting that is intimately tied to the materials I work with.

My process has gradually evolved over the years to one of building up numerous layers of transparent color. I brush the paint on and then etch my line drawings in using large construction nails. I then wipe and rub away the thicker paint to acquire a glazed, transparent quality. Each painting ends up with many thin layers of oil paint and one final layer of delicately painted dark foreground shapes that add another level of depth to the image.





There is nothing I would rather paint than the human form. A depiction of an individual can convey so much all at once.

The woman in this painting is a timeless figure. Her small white breasts suggest modesty. With her head slightly tilted, she lovingly ponders—maybe about a lover, or about something hoped for… something promised.
 
Gentleness and sincerity are portrayed by the slight lift of her leg, which has not yet met its “destination”... is it negotiable?

In conclusion, the proportions of her frame convey attributes of that which is “good,” and thereby make way for our being to see the “beauty” therein.





Lynn Flores
La Sombra (The Shadow)
texture, acrylic, ink colorant on metallic base, 2008

Many things affect my paintings and how I start and finish them. This painting is one of a commissioned series that I did not sell; I held it back because I was attached to this picture—it draws me to it with the depth and layers of colors and stark shadows that I see. Wherever La Sombra hangs, I hope it gives as much enjoyment as it has given me.

Thank you for inviting me to participate again in this year’s Arts Night event; I hope the proceeds will further the Arts and education of our children in the community.











I get my ideas from life, things I see, things I imagine, and things I feel. I like to be open to new ideas and am challenged by creativity. I want my audience and customers to feel the creativity I put into my work. It is also important to me to be able to create what others want in a piece of glass. It is a privilege to make a piece of glass for that special location in their home and in their life.










Mary Groth
Still Life: a Study of Shadow and Light
pastel on paper, 2007

Mary Groth manages her independent art studio and business, Mary Groth Fine Art, in downtown Sioux Falls. Her work has been widely purchased for both corporate and private collections.

This piece is a reflection of my love for the process of drawing. I arranged the fruit on a ledge next to a window, then draped linen fabric behind the pears to let the late afternoon sun create a soft, textural pattern of shadow and light. When looking at this still life, I feel calm. The simplicity of three lush pears against the raw linen cloth is a quiet meditation on the extraordinary beauty that is to be found in the ordinary objects around us.





For many years, Carl Grupp has been one of South Dakota’s most significant artists.  He is well respected as one of the region’s top printmakers and is also known for his work with watercolor.  His artworks are included in the permanent collections of museums across the country, including the Chicago Art Institute, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Iowa Art Center in Sioux City, South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings, and Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Carl Grupp retired from Augustana College as Professor Emeritus of Art in the spring of 2004. During more than three decades of teaching at Augustana College, Carl Grupp nurtured and influenced an inestimable number of students.




Patrick Harris
Son of Science
oil on canvas, 1997

Patrick Harris grew up in Sioux Falls and attended SDSU. In 1977, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Fine Art and went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Harris' work has earned Best of Show, Best in Category at the International Scarsdale/MetroArt exhibit, New York, 1985; at the Nationwide New American Talent exhibit in Austin, 1985; at the Statewide Selections '89 exhibit in Santa Fe, 1989; and in the Statewide Contemporary Art 2003 in Los Alamos. He was the first painter in Santa Fe to be awarded an individual support grant from the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation, NYC in 2000-2001. Currently, as the Curriculum Coordinator for the Fine Arts, Harris teaches painting, drawing and art history at the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos.

In this painting, I came across an image of birds nesting on a house. I believe it was used as the cover for a “science book” in the Middle Ages. For me it is a reminder that nature is never a pest, and every mouse, raccoon, squirrel, woodpecker, barn swallow and bumblebee that sets up housekeeping in your backyard or home is a gift.






My work is about taking a utilitarian object and making it special. I want the form to be alive and the surface to be rich and enticing. All of the tools I use in the studio leave a statement on the pottery, especially the kiln. I currently use four different kilns, each with its own unique ability to leave an impression on my work. The atmosphere and temperatures push their way through the kiln, around and against my pots, leaving behind a record of the choices I make.







Bryan Holland
Stop
oil on canvas, 1999

Currently my work is divided between painting and freelance graphic design. From 2001 to 2006, I taught art at the University of Sioux Falls. I have a graduate degree in painting from the University of South Dakota and a B.A. from USF/Augustana College. Prior to that, I worked as a graphic artist for about 10 years, having received a two-year technical college degree in Minnesota.

Solo exhibits have included the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls, SD; Sioux City Art Center in Sioux City, IA; South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings, SD; Dahl Fine Arts Center in Rapid City, SD; University of South Dakota, Main Gallery in Vermillion, SD; and Nuance Gallery in Beresford, SD. Juried or group shows include Blanden Memorial Art Museum, Fort Dodge, IA; Emporia State University, Emporia, KS; and the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE. In addition, I have a work in an Exhibits USA traveling exhibit, By any means: Works from the National Drawing Invitationals, and have had my work published in the national magazine New American Paintings (Western States division, issue #18 - October 1998).





“The Three Virtues of the Good Life”

Apples: the doctor says “one per day.”

Wine: a glass a day may be “heart healthy.”

Bread: it is at the top of the “food pyramid.”

My goal as an artist is to paint those objects which surround us and are pleasing to the eye.  Still Life vs. Landscape: the difference is that nature provides the setting for a landscape painting, whereas the artist, in choosing a still life, must imagine and decide upon the setting.

This is my 10th year painting.  The journey has been challenging but an enjoyable one.




Janet Jensen
Iridian Grit
pastel on beeswax ground, 2005

With a BFA from Bradley University in Illinois, Jensen worked as an art gallery director, artist liasion, college instructor and consultant. She served as President of the Maryland Pastel Society and has been a juror for numerous exhibitions. Her work has been presented in one-artist exhibitions and group shows on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Jensen’s work is in private and corporate collections in the United States and Europe. She has numerous awards. Her work has been published in American Artist Magazine, and she has been televised on Art Strokes in Washington, DC.

Jensen continues to work in her studio in Yankton. Her work can be seen at Oneten Gallery in Yankton and Cliffhanger Gallery in Sioux Falls.

Vessel forms have always fascinated me, from the pre-pottery containers in which lime and ash were formed around baskets in
7000 b.c. to kiln-fired ceramics in the 21st century.  They have been created for a myriad of purposes.  Form and function are evident in the thousands of years of vessels, pottery and ceramic.

The mystical and spiritual element of vessels intrigues me.  Mystery surrounds the archeological sites where vessels and painted cave walls, rich in textures, colors and powerful imagery, peek at the world of ancient cultures.

I use the science of archeology to project my ideas of art as it pertains to me and how it relates to the medium in which I work, pastel on beeswax ground.  The connecting fiber between the vessel form and painting surface is the textural beeswax.  The final outcome harkens back to ancient clay surfaces and cave walls displaying the earliest of art.  Pushing pastel pigment to its limit and abstracting the vessel forms, I move the ancient world into the modern world.





David Jensen holds a BA from the University of South Dakota and an MA from Syracuse University. He has worked as a photojournalist, magazine editor and freelance writer, having been published in several magazines. He is represented by J&W Gallery in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Oneten Gallery in Yankton, South Dakota.

A frequent theme of my photography is “perseverance,” the ability to withstand adversity in all forms. I have long been drawn to old structures, some dating back to ancient Greece, and how they are able to maintain nobility, even while facing weather, pollution, vandalism and, in some cases, the ravages of war. In this image, a barn appears to be swallowed by vegetation, not unlike prey devoured whole by a python. But the barn remains upright, and despite neglect evident in a sagging door or missing hinge, it maintains dignity and a commanding presence. Eventually, everything must perish, but until then, the strength of a structure is revealed in its display of fortitude.




Karen Kinder
Clay's Bales
oil on canvas, 2008

Round hay bales draw my attention every time I drive by them. There is something about those basic forms on the prairie that cries out to be painted. These were just freshly baled by my friend Clay. I love suggesting the sunlight and shadow, giving them form with thick paint and energetic brush strokes. And I love using color!

I spend most of the year teaching art to elementary students in Brookings, and I spend the too-short summer painting really fast! My painting donated to Arts Night last year received the Artist’s Choice Award.





The "Peace Sign" just celebrated its 50th anniversary. The Peace sign was originally the symbol of the (U.K.) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). It was designed by Gerald Holtom in 1958. Holtom had made the design by combining the semaphore letters N and D, N for nuclear and D for disarmament. "Peace" is a state of balance and understanding in yourself and between others, where respect is gained by the acceptance of differences, tolerance persists, conflicts are resolved through dialogue, people's rights are respected and their voices are heard, and everyone is at their highest point of serenity without social tension.






Dale Lamphere
Gift
marble, aluminum, copper, 2009

Sculptor Dale Claude Lamphere has completed over fifty major public commissions from the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., to the Eisenhower Medical Center and the City of Burbank in California. Recent creations have been placed in Chicago, Kansas City, Colorado Springs, and Edmond, Okalahoma.

His work explores a broad range of materials and subjects from monumental landscapes, to human forms, to abstract. After 40 years, Lamphere still finds natural forms an enduring inspiration that evokes in him a distilled and elegant response. The common thread that runs through his work is the lyric gesture and full volume that he sees in his mountain and prairie environment. Lamphere has received the Anna Hyatt Huntington Award and many honors for creative achievement. His body of work includes both classic figurative and contemporary sculpture.

Lamphere has also created numerous portraits for individuals, including Burl Ives, George McGovern, Walter Annenberg, and Bob and Dolores Hope.



Mark W. McGinnis is an artist and writer based in the southern Black Hills of South Dakota. His interdisciplinary approach to art has included paintings, artist's books, sculpture, printmaking, installation, video, performance, essays, and interviews. The research orientation of his work has led to series and projects of exploration and inquiry on a range of subjects including science and philosophy, literature of India, religion, economics, foreign policy, nuclear weaponry, American Indian history, and explorers of the "New World." His projects have been featured in over 120 solo exhibitions nationwide. His publications include five books: Elders of the Faiths published by Ex Machina Press, Lakota and Dakota Animal Wisdom Stories published by Tipi Press, Buddhist Animal Wisdom Stories published by Weatherhill Inc., Wisdom of the Benedictine Elders published by Blue Bridge, and Gitanjali: Offerings of Song and Art published by Floating World Editions. 

My connection to Blue Cloud Abbey began in the mid 1990s. I had been introduced to the Benedictine world by Sister Marie Kranz in Yankton while doing my Elders of the Faiths project. Her wisdom, wit, and intelligence led me to want to know more about the Benedictine tradition. I found that only 80 miles from my home was a Benedictine monastery, and I began regular visits to Blue Cloud Abbey near Milbank, SD. I was welcomed with open arms in spite of the fact that I was not only not a Catholic, but not even a Christian. Over the years my relationship with the monastery deepened and my involvement with the Benedictine tradition did as well, with the production of my Elders of the Benedictines project and the publication of the book based on that project. In my frequent retreats to the monastery I often did plein aire watercolor sketching around the lakes and stream on the grounds of the abbey. In the fall of 2007 I did a two-week residency at the monastery and produced a number of studio paintings of the subjects I had so often sketched. The Blue Cloud Abbey painting donated to the Visual Arts Center is from that residency. I believe that Blue Cloud Abbey is one of the greatest and least known treasures of South Dakota.





Dave Meyer
Talkeetua Shack
photography, 2008

I've always been interested in aesthetic expression, but, having had the misfortune of being good at math, ended up a physicist and not an artist. All my life I've pursued both the science and art of the image, from charcoal drawings to imaging the Earth from space-borne cameras.  I would very much like to convince myself that I do these things for some higher purpose, but the real reason is: it makes me feel good.

I would also like to convince others that there was some prescience behind the image displayed here, or some wonderful allegory lurking behind an image of a simple abandoned shed. But the real answer is: I took the picture because it caught my attention at the very moment it drifted before my camera.

Most of my images are thus—impulsive—I refer to my method as "shooting from the brain-stem."



Alan Montgomery was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and received an MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Guns/Talks references my interest in language and contemporary painting. It also refers to the crisis of conflict and how history/histories repeat. Beginning with the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland 1970-2000 and the Balkan Conflicts of the early 1990s, it seems that in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are engaged in the politics of the gun and language. The resolve of human beings must be strong enough to deny the recycling of violence, greed and conquest.





D. George (Przybysz) Prisbe
The Border Series Revisited—Vale
oil on masonite panel, 2009

As a native of this state, I grew up under the vastness of the prairie sky and on the fertile cropland of the James River Valley. This landscape made an early and lasting impression. It seems impossible that anyone could escape the influence of such a place. The forces of nature that shape the land also gave form to me – imprinting my psyche and informing my sense of esthetics.

I have been painting the South Dakota landscape for almost thirty years, beginning with large abstract works and evolving to my current interest in small intimate scenes – inspired by tonalism. I am a proud subscriber to the American Landscape Tradition, which influenced an entire country and continues to instill generation after generation with a sense of place.

The imagery for my work is gleaned from photographs that I have taken during my frequent treks around the state – as I pursue my life ambition to drive every mapped road. Each hill, each bend in the road, promises another reward – whether subtle, grand, complex, or simple – worthy of lens or brush.

“Wherever you are born, your birthplace offers more beauty than you will ever be able to paint during your whole life.”  Rembrandt

I no longer live on the prairie – despite my longing to return – but under the protective blanket of the Black Hills. My studio and home is at Hanna, a long since abandoned mining town at the upper end of Spearfish Canyon. When not in my studio I indulge my other passions of hiking, mountain biking, birding, gardening and playing with my dogs.



I was a combat artist in Vietnam in 1968. On some level I still am. But now I find enjoyment in painting a more pleasant and familiar place as it appears in natural light. The view is always changing. It’s as if there are as many different ways to paint the Falls at Falls Park as there are visits to the park. I particularly like the way late afternoon sunlight skips across the top of the rock formations and water at the edge of the Falls to brighten the west face of the Queen Bee Mill Tower. Maybe tomorrow I’ll paint it again.







John Rychtarik
Steer Clear of the Ropes
acrylic on canvas, 2009

I am Curator of Exhibits at the South Dakota Art Museum and am inspired by the art around me every day from the very abstract to the very realistic. My painting demonstrates my enjoyment of linking abstract and realistic shapes together in a surreal environment.



My struggles with the human condition are the premise behind my installations. I create visually stimulating environments that engage the viewer in this search for understanding. These environments activate the space utilizing a mixed media/material method that implements many processes.






Paul Schiller
Prairie Giants
photographic giclée, 2008

We live on this planet where one sees for miles with few obstructions. So, as we travel this land our attention is drawn to elements arising from our flatness. That’s what happened last November when I noticed an interesting sunset developing just south of Tea. I had this great background being created, and I needed something interesting to complete the scene. I discovered on the horizon this wonderful shelterbelt of aging oaks and cottonwoods reaching for the sky. These prairie giants were the perfect complement to this evolving sunset.

This image was created by combining five different digital images of this scene. The final image was output onto an ultra smooth watercolor paper—giclée.




I am a Sioux Falls native, and I have been doing nature printing since 1990. This type of art is similar to making a monoprint of an object. My donated piece is a monoprint (nature print) of inked peonies, hand-colored with acrylic washes. I hope it gives the viewer the feel of an old-world, botanical illustration. I also enjoy drawing and painting. You can see more of my work on my website, www.natureprints.net.







Mary Selvig
Untitled
sawdust-fired clay, 2008

While attending Augustana College as an art major, I spent several semesters in drawing and printmaking. There I discovered how much I enjoyed the processes involved in making art. After discovering clay (which is also process orientated), I spent a ton of time in the clay studio. While stacking coils one upon another, I found myself building round, fluted walls of clay—always searching for a vessel of pleasing form, color and texture. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not!

In 2001, I enjoyed a three month McKnight Residency for the Ceramic Arts at Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN. At present, I am looking forward to a joint exhibit with Martin Wanserski at Augustana College this upcoming November.



David Sieh—a visionary artist and naturalist—his work is impossible to fit into any one category. His paintings are a combination of photographic transfer, drawing, found objects, paint and texture.
Sieh’s paintings become objects which document and interpret his life experiences.

I paint to communicate visually with others as well as myself. A blank canvas presents me with an opportunity to explore what I know, what I think I know, and what I want to know. Painting is an impulsive reaction to the previous action; the cycle goes on until the situation has been resolved. Every painting is a series of complex events begging for order. I can only paint something I would like to look at; otherwise the communication is a lie.





Tim Steele
1658
encaustic and mixed media on paper, 2008

I have been a professor of art teaching courses in graphic design at South Dakota State University for the past 24 years. Since I received my MFA from Washington State University in 1980, my fine art work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States. In 2008 my work was shown in museums and galleries from California to New Jersey. Currently, my art work is touring with the 2008-09 Dakota Governor’s Biennial, Endless Imagination.

My three-dimensional work has been called “bold new explorations into furniture design” and is slated for exhibition at the South Dakota Art Museum in 2011.

I am always creating a painting, drawing, or furniture work and am inspired by all I see around me and use this to create my art and design.

The painting for this exhibition is an encaustic work on paper. Encaustic is the process of painting with molten wax and pigments that are fused together with heat and applied to the painting surface. The first encaustic paintings are known to date from the 1st Century C.E., when artists painted portraits and scenes of mythology on panels. Encaustic was also used for the coloring of marble, terra cotta and work on ivory for coloring the incised lines. After being applied to the surface, encaustic does not need to dry, it needs to cool. Once its surface has cooled, encaustic paint presents permanent lustrous enamel-like finish.

This piece is from a series of works that explore the ground sky phenomenon often experienced on the South Dakota prairie. It is particularly evident when traveling over flat stretches of landscape where one may experience the illusion of the background rising up to meet the foreground. Encaustic allows me to add small found graphic elements to the composition, incising the surface and building up rich layers of color.


Most of Stuart’s work appears simple, and almost spare. However, the viewer soon discovers that the artist’s refined elegant lines and subtle modulations of color result in paintings that are a distillation of both the visible world and the unseen realms of the spirit. Every viewing yields another level of meaning, a heightened awareness, or an altered perception.

My paintings are visual meditations on the dynamics of nature, the interplay between the physical and psychic. These images have the power to transform consciousness.





Rita Tate
Definitely Spring
pastel, 2009

I did my first drawing when I was three years old, and I never stopped. My professional career as an artist began in 1968, and I worked solely in pencil for the first eighteen years. I now work in pastel, oil and watercolor. I’m a self-taught, free-hand artist, and my work is completed without the use of projection or other “drawing aids.”

I enjoy plein–aire painting in the summer time, and the experience with this truly hands-on and adrenaline-rushing pastime has been of enormous help in translating the information that is captured in the reference photographs that I normally use in the studio. I also enjoy working from a live model, even though this is by far the most challenging thing that, as an artist, I have ever done.

My subject matter is varied and includes landscapes, horses, wildlife, human portraiture and occasionally still-lifes.

I’m grateful for my many years in this career that I love and for the people who have supported what I do with kind words and deeds. Because of them, I can paint what I see, as well as my skills will allow. Because of them, I can live my life as an artist.

Passion is powerful...  Nothing was ever achieved without it, and nothing can take the place of it. No matter what you face in life, if your passion is great enough, you will find the strength to succeed. Without passion life has no meaning, so put your heart, mind and soul into even your smallest acts... this is the essence of passion, this is the secret to life.

I am inspired by the goodness, the innocence, the honest beauty and strength that is in the world around me and in the people, young and old. I record in my paintings the joy and reverence that I feel, and I use a realistic style to celebrate “our Creator’s” use of detail in His masterwork, our world.

It is my life’s work to reach people’s hearts through my art work: to remind them to seek, to recognize and to seize the strength of innocence. Compassion springs from this. And Love.



Images from the air offer a unique perspective that most folks don’t get a chance to see except for a brief view from an airliner. The ability to capture these views, and share them, has been a passion since I first took to the skies.

The title of this piece, Cowmazing, refers to the lone cow from north central South Dakota wandering, as if in a maze, through the muck and mud of a waterless lake bed. While en route to a photo assignment in North Dakota I flew over this scene and, after a few miles and a few thoughts, did a 180 and photographed this event.

While many of my photographs show patterns and forms, they seldom show the abstract as it exists in nature. Cowmazing throws out any intention of order and leaves the viewer trying to decipher what is actually taking place here.

There is significance to this image. It tells something. Look closely.

Do you see humor?  Hopelessness? Struggle? Carefree? Disorientation? Lacking direction? How can the hapless wandering of a cow relate to our lives? You choose.





Timothy Vogl
Pheasant in Winter
oil on canvas, 2009

Timothy Vogl was born in Minnesota in 1946 and at an early age moved with his family to northeastern South Dakota. In 1964 he graduated from Roslyn High School. In 1968 he began studies at Northern State University; he was graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Art Education. After teaching for five years in the public school system, he went to Minnesota State University and earned a Master of Arts Degree in Studio Painting. He returned to teaching in the public system in South Dakota until 1980. In 1983 he began working full-time for the South Dakota Army National Guard (SDARNG) as a Unit Administrator, and in 1984 he moved to Rapid City, South Dakota, to take a position of marketing for the National Guard. While continuing to work as the SDARNG Marketing Coordinator, in 1988 he began teaching as an Adjunct Instructor in the Humanities at Oglala Lakota College, He Sapa Center in Rapid City, both positions which he holds today. Vogl is married with three children (Paul, Mark and Lisa). He and his wife Linda live in Rapid City.

Pheasants in winter is a subject that I have revisited many times in my work. I find it paradoxical that the very beauty of winter, a cyclical pattern of rest and rejuvenation with softly falling snow and brilliant cerulean skies, is also a time of darkness, intense cold and struggle. Pheasants will often burrow into snow to retain warmth, but if it is too cold, and the storm lasts too long, they will freeze in their meager shelters. In the evenings they often come to the shelter of the farm buildings. I wrote about this in a poem entitled Pheasants in Winter.

Pheasants stand in stillness.
Free from the wind and blowing snow
protected by the old barn.
Snow crystals fill the air, shifting in
sparkling patterns in the dimming twilight.
The cold seems to wait,
Nothing moves except the light.
All are one.   



My current body of work combines performers, design elements from nostalgic movie posters, and the medium of television to create ostensibly superficial portraits in distressing comedic situations.

I primarily utilize television and film performers as the figurative motif in the artwork and find their constructed comic personas intriguing because they unintentionally introduce an element of tragedy. Consequently, these characters develop a wide range of emotion under the guise of comedy. In some instances, their characters become so engaging and believable that they surpass the perceived identity of the performer as an individual. This point of disagreement between the individual performer and the construct of his character is where I find a room to create. The performers in each piece act as surrogates for myself, creating a facade-like self-portrait that can imply a detached understanding. By manipulating this constructed persona to communicate, my own situation becomes comedic rather that self-indulgent, much the same as a situation presented in a film or on television, and consequently provides a layer of protection against vulnerability.

The simplistic, flat, hardedge designs of classic movie posters and distortions of early television – such as the flattened effect of color and shape, or the patterns of interference lines and static – find their influence into my formal design. These elements are pitted in direct interaction with the characters and assist in establishing the artificial environment that acts as the set or as a surreal landscape for the figures, confining them to exist in that one superficial moment.