Opening Reception:
Friday, October 3rd 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 PM
Gallery Talk 5:30 PM
All of our gallery spaces and openings are free to attend and open to the public.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Wendell Arneson is a painter and mixed media artist. “My work draws from an inventory of images that make multiple, yet varied references allowing content to shuffle, reinvent and remake itself. Painting inhabits a place between the known and the unknown. Art, for me, does not provide answers, but provokes questions and seeks possibilities. As an image-maker, I am interested in the intersection of figuration and abstraction. In the process of making I discover resolution by seeking clarity of an idea while honoring mystery and ambiguity.”
Wendell Arneson is a Wisconsin native, earning a BA in studio art from Luther College, Decorah, Iowa and a MFA from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Post-graduate studies include classes with Nathan Oliveira and Gregory Amenoff at the Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts. Arneson has exhibited widely regionally and nationally and his work is featured in numerous private, public and corporate collections.
Arneson was appointed to the faculty of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1978 where he holds the position as a Professor Emeritus of Art.
A PLACE IN TIME
I am interested in work that inhabits in both objective and non-objective worlds. I am attracted to both gestures and non-descriptive marks as well as the power and ambiguity of symbols and images. Painting and mixed media drawing inhabits a place between the known and the unknown.
The work of this exhibit draws from an inventory of land images that make multiple yet varied references that allow for content to shuffle, reinvent, and remake itself. As an image maker, I seek the intersection between figuration and abstraction. Art, for me, does not provide answers but rather provokes questions and seeks possibilities.
This exhibition of abstract land paintings reference time, place, and memory. The images may honor specific locations while also seeking, through abstraction, multiple layers of entrance and ambiguity for the viewer. The images in the paintings are imaginatively less certain and provide a visual journey of transformation. What matters most is a painterly dialogue between image, structure, color, tactile surface, and space. The end result evokes a journey of discovery and imagining.
“Seek clarity while honoring mystery and ambiguity”
-Wendell H. Arneson
Gallery Exhibits have been supported by MAC Corporate Underwriter Colony Brands, Inc. and Season Media Underwriter Big Radio, with additional support from Chuck & Chris Wellington, Lee & Chris Knuteson, Mike Sanders, Michael Furgal, Mike & Shelley Muranyi, Deb Thompson, and Jane Paradowski.
