Past Exhibitions

Artwork by Carl Grupp

November 1, 2022 - May 15, 2023

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

Carl Grupp found a muse in the stories of his everyday life. He once said, “Much of my work has to do with telling stories, whether it be through my artwork or my teaching. I enjoy attempting to imply a story or to make people wonder and think.” Through traditional genres of self-portraiture, landscape and still life, Grupp found his own surrealist and personal style of image making over the course of his professional art career. In his paintings, prints and sculptures, you see elements from the artist’s personal life. Grupp said that you see “things of life and death” – a skull, flowers, animals, Mount Fuji, a crumpled cigarette packet, insects, etc.

A truly unique and prolific artist, this exhibition presents a small selection of Grupp’s larger body of work. As a painter, printmaker and educator in Sioux Falls, Grupp inspired many future generations of artists, and his life’s work has a lasting impact on the arts in this region to this day.

Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts

Now – March 5, 2023
Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

Featuring over 70 original works by 50 of the country’s most celebrated artists, Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts is a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit. It includes artwork by Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Thomas Moran and more. The exhibit showcases paintings, watercolor, sculpture, sketches, drawings, photography and much more within a variety of movements including impressionism, realism, surrealism, abstract and pop art.

This is the Visual Arts Center’s first major traveling exhibit in five years.

• The exhibit begins after entering through an archway illustrating one of Andy Warhol’s famous depictions of Marilyn Monroe.

• The first section of the exhibit features postmodern and contemporary artists from the 1970s through present time such as David Salle and Ross Bleckner.

• As you move through the gallery, you’ll go backwards through time into midcentury pop art by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and also abstract pieces by artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

• The final section of the exhibit includes famous pastoral landscapes created by Thomas Moran, representations of American impressionism by Childe Hassam and more.

The artists represented in this collection often knew each other and developed professional, creative and personal relationships. The exhibit includes pieces by artists who were friends, spouses, competitors, a father and son, lovers and twin brothers who all influenced artists who came after them. The exhibition also includes portraits and photographs of some of the artists to help tell their stories and illuminate their lives.

Works are on loan from the permanent collection of Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York. This is a rare chance for both art lovers and the general public to see original, famous works right here in South Dakota. Book your group tour or field trip today!

Sponsored by: 

Everything Was Beautiful

Artwork by Emilia Van Ert
Now – February 28, 2023
Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

Artist Statement:
I began painting in 2017 after I graduated from Augustana University. I started as a music major, then switched to art in my junior year with an emphasis on photography. I had a love for capturing portraits with my camera and started to explore ways to manipulate photos to add interest and more creativity. By using Photoshop, I discovered I could create the effect of brush strokes on my photos. My photos ended up looking more like watercolor paintings than photographs.

After becoming adept at this skill, I then decided to try painting in oil in 2017. I went through something extremely traumatic, and at that point, I was looking for something that I could immerse myself in and would take more time and focus. I was struggling with my bipolar disorder, and I’m also on the autism spectrum. For someone like me, the world is kind of a scary place. I needed to find something that would calm me down when I’m feeling overwhelmed, and painting has been that for me. It’s my favorite thing to do, and it has been my creative safe haven. The challenge of accomplishing a hyper-realistic image in oil paint on canvas can be therapeutic and allows me to focus on my skills as a painter over anything else.

Everything Was Beautiful is inspired by my love of flowers. The variety, shapes and colors are exciting to me, and I paint dewdrops to add even more detail. I have come to admire the work of the old masters from the Renaissance time period. In the future, I plan to continue to work in the still life genre because of the endless possibilities it provides.

South Dakota Arts Council support is provided with funds from the State of South Dakota, through the Department of Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Travel

Artwork by Byron Banasiak

Now – February 25, 2023

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

Byron Banasiak is a photographer and filmmaker from Vermillion, S.D. He grew up very influenced by his father, who was a black and white film photographer and storyteller. He was always drawn to recording the memories being made around him and took the power of a DSLR camera to new levels when he began travelling and telling stories.

Through Byron’s travel photographs we see a journey of self-discovery develop through experience. These photos explore the beauty of differing lands and demonstrate the nature of discovery. Locations included in the exhibit are Marrakech, Essaouira, Fez, Chefchaouen and Tangier, Morocco, as well as the Sahara Desert.

“As a photographer, I am sustained by the beauty and chaos of everyday life: fishermen on the docks, merchants selling spices and wares, the endless changing sands in the Sahara,” says Banasiak. He currently works for the South Dakota Department of Tourism.

Everything Is Ordinary

Artwork by Mark Stemwedel
Now – January 22, 2023
Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery 

Mark Stemwedel is a Senior Lecturer in the Studio Art Program at South Dakota State University. He has taught courses in painting, drawing, color theory, art appreciation and design foundations since 2008. Stemwedel holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Dakota in painting and a bachelor’s degree from South Dakota State University in visual art.

Born and raised in South Dakota, Stemwedel’s paintings are inspired and informed by the everyday world around him. The paintings depict the familiar views of the everyday, capturing little aesthetic moments in the mundane. His work has been exhibited extensively within the region, and he continues to expand his reach to a broader audience. His paintings also have been included in exhibits at IPSO Gallery and Exposure Gallery in Sioux Falls, the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings and numerous national juried exhibitions. Stemwedel is a past recipient of a South Dakota Arts Council Artist Development Grant.

wa sa wak pa'la

Works from the University of South Dakota Faculty
Visual Arts Center | University Gallery 

The University of South Dakota is nationally accredited and the only College of Fine Arts in the state offering master’s degrees with full accreditation through NASAD, NASM and NAST. For more than 125 years, the USD College of Fine Arts has encouraged students to pursue their chosen professional fields in art, music or theater through their study with nationally recognized faculty who are working professionals. The College of Fine Arts produces over 100 events every year, and as a result, there is a vibrant atmosphere of creativity and a drive for artistic excellence.

The binding element of the works in this exhibition relate directly to the relationship between the geography of the city of Vermillion and the campus and art department of the University of South Dakota. The complex medium and design of the work are a demonstration of human diversity in visual communication and a reflection of the influence of land, time and place.

Art and human geography have long been intertwined. As early as 14,000 years ago, people scratched marks into rocks that appear to be at once art and cartography. When landscape painting emerged in Flanders and Northern Italy during the Renaissance, they did so hand in hand with advances in architecture, map-making, navigation and forms of land ownership that marked both European imperialism and mercantile capitalism. Both landscape paintings and maps were hung on the walls of the new capitalist classes to signal knowledge, power and the literal ownership of land.

Art and geography have, in other words, together been implicated in transformations in the ways we represent and conceptualize our world. Art is part of the practice of dwelling in and on the earth. How, then, do artists today engage with the 21st century geography of a world in motion, one in which national borders are (arguably) becoming less important? How, in other words, do artists respond to a world in which the links between groups of people and places are less clearly defined and bounded?

South Dakota Arts Council support is provided with funds from the State of South Dakota, through the Department of Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Get Back to Work Doyg

Artwork by Doug Burns

April 15 – November 27, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

About the Artist
Doug Burns was born in New Zealand and holds a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in painting/drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has worked at museums in Chicago, Ill., and Portland, Ore., and has exhibited internationally, including recent solo exhibitions in Luverne, Minn.; New York, N.Y.; and Munich, Germany. Burns currently resides in Portland, Ore.

Artist Statement
After my son’s birth, I was lucky to get two or three hours a month in the studio. I had no time or resources to make art. My only time alone was spent driving to and from work. My solution was simple, if not downright desperate. If I was going to make art, I had to do it while on the job. So, I stealthily moved my art studio into my office at the museum. Works in progress were hidden under legal pads, in manila folders and even behind a poster on the wall. Little sculptures lined the back of my desk drawers.

Naturally, my art practice changed a bit. I could only use materials found in the workplace. Discarded mount-making materials and cleaning supplies were recycled into small assemblages. Colored post-it notes, blue tape and daily ephemera were used to produce collages. The catch was that the work had to be small enough to sneak out of the museum. Every night, security guards checked my bag. If they had noticed a sculpture or collage in there, the jig would have been up.

I’ve continued working in this manner, only my “studio” has expanded beyond the workplace. It’s become particularly fun at home because I’ve realized that if I want to make art here, I needed to include the kids. Both children draw and paint on my canvases whenever they feel like it. I also collage their drawings into my work along with the other ephemera that passes through my fingertips on a daily basis.

How to Say Goodbye

Artwork by Amber Hansen

May 6 – October 30, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

About the Artist
Amber Hansen is a muralist and visual artist who creates socially engaged and community-based artwork throughout the middle of the U.S. Hansen’s studio work is a dialogue between her formal education and her rural upbringing. She promotes creative engagement for all ages while raising questions about the ethics of animal welfare and our relationship with food. Hansen is the co-director and co-editor of the feature documentary “Called to Walls.” She is an Assistant Professor at the University of South Dakota, where she teaches painting, and the President of the Board of the Community Built Association.

Artist Statement
This collection of paintings is an ongoing journey that continues to unfold with the passing of time. Fueled by a backlog of sketches, photos and imagery I’ve been saving for several years, I decided it was time to see what stories they tell when brought together, and though this is where the collection stands now, the stories continue to evolve and change.

In these paintings you will find a reflection of what I’ve gained and lost in the past two years. In the summer of 2020, I buried a lifelong companion—a horse named Autumn that my family and I have raised for 20 years. When I started my journey drawing and painting, horses were often an image I created repeatedly. The practice helped prepare me for Autumn’s departure and has helped me grieve her passing. Her memory will continue to live on in the work you see here and the many works to come.

The painting standing as a cornerstone of this collection is Ghost Horse. It was the first painting of this series created from an image of a desolate Vermillion playground wrapped in caution tape during the summer of 2020—the height of the pandemic. This painting fuels and guides the artwork that follows it.

As I grow and learn, the process and the way I create is forever changing. A constant battle of finding new ways of thinking, creating and seeing is a challenge many artists face. I choose to allow the world around me to influence my changing artistic adventures. Embedded in the paintings are scenes of local and regional landscapes that help me process the political and social climate of the surrounding region. In these paintings you will find a reflection of what I have learned over the past years creating artwork as an individual and as a team of artists creating community-based murals.

While creating this series, I am reminded that the searching that exists in life, that propels creative thinking and action, is a transformative process. There is knowledge and understanding that can be revealed through the process of creating that can be activated in no other form of learning/remembering.

Donde Nacen Las Palabras:
Where Words Are Born

Artwork by Hilda Esperanza Langle
July 1 – October 2, 2022
Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

ABOUT HILDA ESPERANZA LANGLE
Hilda Esperanza Langle studied Spanish in Colombia at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (1984). In 2003, Esperanza studied fine arts at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D.; that year, her work “The Hungry Child” was featured on the poster for the annual McGovern Conference. Esperanza returned to Colombia, her country of origin, to study at the Instituto Caro y Cuervo, where she obtained her master’s degree in Spanish Linguistics in 2009. Esperanza presented her first charcoal exhibit at the Dakota Discovery Museum in Mitchell in fall 2010. “Sustenance” was her visual description of the wool trade of Colombian peasants. Two years later, Esperanza presented “Nature’s Pattern” at the Museum of Visual Materials in Sioux Falls, a pyrography study that followed the secret marks of trees and exposed their hidden stories. Her work “El Arbol De La Vida” (2018) was on permanent exhibit at the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House and was the product of workshops with Lincoln High School students, members of Translators of Culture and the guests at Bishop Dudley. In fall 2021, her abstract wood carving of deformed birds titled “Aviary” was exhibited at the Carver Gallery in Sioux Falls. Esperanza has taught Spanish at primary, secondary and university levels. Her love for art led her to teach it and to participate in the development of the fine arts program for the first fully certified school with the International Baccalaureate Program in Bogotá, Colombia. Today, Esperanza is a teacher at Sonia Sotomayor Elementary, the first Spanish immersion school in South Dakota. During her free time, she also develops workshops to fuse creativity, feelings and language through art. Esperanza loves being a grandmother, a mother, a reader, a dreamer and a painter of words and things.

ARTIST STATEMENT
The spirit of “Donde Nacen Las Palabras” is not only to achieve the relationship of words with things but also to establish the relationship between word, thing, meaning and all the possible experiences that you, the spectator, have of the thing. Therefore, Donde Nacen Las Palabras attempts to bring the semiotic feeling that you have of the thing and trap it in a net behind the words so that you can choose from the plethora of meanings the appropriate one for the occasion. Donde Nacen Las Palabras is a visual recount of my presentation “Grammar, Scope and Sequence as Inclusion to the Spanish Immersion and Dual Language Programs” this year in New York at the NABE International Conference. Donde Nacen Las Palabras is an introduction to grammar without grammatical categories and a presentation of vocabulary that seeks to connect the extreme lover of words to the everyday world around us. Donde Nacen Las Palabras is an interactive exhibit in Spanish with English translation that literally shows you where words are born and takes you through the world of words. Welcome to Donde Nacen Las Palabras.

Offering

Artwork by Lindsay Carone

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

Lindsay Carone is an artist residing in New York City working primarily in sculpture, installation and textiles. Lindsay spent a year living in the Kutch region of Gujarat, India, studying traditional craft processes thanks to a Fulbright Grant. This exhibition reflects her time spent immersed in the culture of India. Each piece in this show contemplates the complex relationship of religion and consumerism. The vibrant colors found in Hindu shrines reflect the same color complexion of westernized packaging. This conflict of consumables and the sacred collide in a thoughtful reflection on what it is that we worship.

Lindsay earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her work has been shown in the Katonah Museum of Art, the Phillips Museum of Art, Saint Joseph’s University and in the RISD Museum of Art, where she created a site-specific installation as a winner of their annual Sitings competition. Lindsay has held residencies with The Center at Eagle Hill in Hardwick, MA; the Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah; the Platte Clove Residency in the Catskill Mountains in New York; and Millersville University’s Emerging Artist in Residence program in Central Pennsylvania. Additionally, she completed an apprenticeship at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia.

Zenith Confusion

Artwork by Lisa Bergh & Andrew Nordin

April 8 - September 23, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

Lisa Bergh creates work that examines the cerebral and aesthetic weight of our internal, emotional worlds. Sitting precariously at the intersection of painting, drawing and sculpture, Bergh draws on a visual language rooted in figuration, abstraction, color, place and architecture. Her objects and installations serve simultaneously as fragmented studies and completed works all at once, residing somewhere between the ephemeral and the tangible.

Bergh holds a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in spatial arts from San José State University in California and a BFA in printmaking from the University of Arizona. She has received numerous grants and awards including a 2020 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and a 2018 SMAC Individual Artist Grant.

Bergh has exhibited across the region, including recent solo exhibitions at the Kaddatz Galleries in Fergus Falls, the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids, Rochester Art Center, Silverwood Park and the Mardag Gallery at the Franconia Sculpture Park. Her art can be found in public and private collections, and she currently serves as an art instructor for Ridgewater College in Willmar, Minn.

Andrew Nordin studied art at St. Cloud State University and has an MFA in painting from San José State University. Andrew teaches art and curates the galleries at Ridgewater College. His work focuses on mixed media painting techniques, using acrylic and oil paint. The work weaves together questions and ideas about abstraction, inventive painting processes and locating poetic visual phenomena.

Nordin has received regional awards including a recent 2019 grant from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council and a 2017 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant to complete a body of work exploring rural architecture, landscape and abstraction.

His work has been exhibited in solo exhibits at the Gallery St. Germain in St. Cloud, the MacRostie Art Center, the Kaddatz Galleries and the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisc. He is represented by Veronique Wantz Gallery in Minneapolis, Minn.

Bergh and Nordin also collaborate on public art projects and site-specific works. Their work was featured in the critically acclaimed exhibit “High Visibility” at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, N.D. Their collaborative projects have manifested through two Legacy Amendment Grants from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council. Other awards included a McKnight fellowship in public art, a Forecast Mid-Career grant, and their project “The Travelling Museum” received a 2015 “Public Art of the Year” award by the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network. They reside north of New London, Minn.

A Gateway to a Place Between

Works from students from SDSU's art program

March 11 – August 21, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Young Artists Gallery 

Visit the Young Artists Gallery to experience meaningful artwork from the students at South Dakota State University's art program.

Artist Name(s): 
Bailey Ahler
Kjerstin Aspaas
Joshua Carr
Euneso Chang
Jennifer Cook
Brandi Dirks
Cora Harris
Hayley Olson
Duncan Raney
Breanna Rechtenbaugh
Alyssa Regnier
Kendal Schreier
Matthew Scott
Rachael Selberg
Kenzie Shubert
Cheyenne Spooner

In Dreams

Works from the Visual Arts Center Permanent Collection

December 10, 2021 – August 7, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery 

This exhibition highlights works from the Visual Arts Center collection, and its images, movements and sounds might remind you of your dreams. Our dreams disturb, delight and perplex us, and their enduring mysteries have long captivated artists and writers.

Throughout the ages, dreams have acted as a mirror of their time’s religion, rationality or retreat into the absurd, and you’ll find all that and more in the permanent collection exhibition In Dreams.

Cat, Tiger, Cat

Artwork by Judith R. Peterson

March 18 – June 19, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

Millions of us in the United States have cats as family companions. Cat videos are wildly popular on YouTube, and the hashtag #cat on TikTok has garnered billions of views. We are immersed in a world of cat images, but have we really seen them? This exhibit asks to look at cats and consider our relationship with them. What do we see when we look at cats? What are cats thinking when they look back at us? Who is the tiger cat?

Judith R. Peterson’s visual art has been featured by South Dakota Public Broadcasting, the South Dakota State Medical Association and numerous publications including the Argus Leader of Sioux Falls. Her work has been exhibited extensively regionally. She does ongoing photography for the Healing Words Foundation in cooperation with the South Dakota State Medical Association. Much of her recent work concerns public health photography, botanical studies and cats.

Artist Statement
The original inspiration for the Cat, Tiger, Cat artwork was the concept of cats as a power grid absorbing and radiating energy.
The series started as 4x6 postcards but then kept going off in new directions.
There were small cats and big cats.
There were sleeping cats and pouncing cats.
There were solitary cats and walls of cats. There are now hundreds of cats in different media and sizes and the work continues to evolve.
—J. Peterson 

April 15 – May 31, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

For the past 60 years, the Washington Pavilion of Arts & Science and formerly the Civic Fine Arts Center have come together for an evening to celebrate and support the arts. This rich history of cultural philanthropy and creative celebration continues this year in the Inaugural Washington Pavilion Gala. The artists included in this year’s Gala exhibition were hand-selected by our curator and museums team based on their demonstration of continued excellence in their individual practice. Each artist selected presents a distinct value to our arts community, either in the way they make art, what they make or the story their work tells. The pieces represent a true cross-section of the arts in Sioux Falls and surrounding area, with artists coming from a wide range of experiences. They are working as professors, K–12 educators, arts directors, advocates and professional artists.

Artist Names:

• Stacey Bautista, BA: artist living and working in Sioux Falls

• Diana Behl, MFA: artist and educator based in Brookings, S.D.

• Paul Boerboom, BA: after a 40-year career in architecture, he returned to one of his first artistic interests: painting

• Amanda Boerger, BFA: multimedia artist living and working in Sioux Falls, S.D. 

• Ceca Cooper, MFA: Associate Professor of Art at the University of Sioux Falls

• Amy Fill, MFA: visual artist living in rural Volin, S.D.

• Liz Heeren, MFA: currently resides in Sioux Falls, S.D., where she teaches painting and design for the University of South Dakota and is the Director of Ipso Gallery at Fresh Produce in downtown Sioux Falls

• Laura Jewell: currently lives in Sioux Falls, S.D., where she enjoys time in her studio each day

• Karen Kinder, BFA: retired educator and artist living in Brookings, S.D.

• Cory Knedler, MFA, and Dr. Young Ae Kim: Chair of the Department of Art at the University of South Dakota and Chair of Graphic Design at SDSU

• Brad Kringen: artist from Sioux Falls, S.D.

• Darcy Millette, BFA: lives and works in Sioux Falls, S.D.

• Chris Nowatzki, BFA: has been teaching high school art in Luverne, Minn., for over 40 years

• Mary Payton, BFA: South Dakota artist living in Sioux Falls

• Jessie Rasche, BFA: artist living and working in Brookings, S.D.

• Cristen Roghair: artist working in Okaton, S.D.

• Joe Schaeffer, MFA: graphic designer, educator and artist

• Paul Schiller: fine art nature photographer who specializes in creating interior landscapes

• Barbara Sparks, BA: self-taught watercolor artist

• Dr. Lindsay Twa: printmaker, curator and art historian. She is the Director of the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery at Augustana University, where she is also Professor of Art in the Department of Art and Anthropology and Chair of the Humanities Division

100 Years of the 
South Dakota Symphony Orchestra

November 12, 2021 – April 30, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

Join us for an exhibit highlighting the 100 year journey of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. Enjoy your walk through 100 years of beautiful music. The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra’s Centennial season is yours to celebrate!

For more information, please contact the Visual Arts Center at 605-731-2493 or info@washingtonpavilion.org.

March 1 – April 8, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Back Half of the Jerstad Gallery 

Experience bright washes of color and detailed natural scenes and learn more about how artists create watercolor magic.

Presented in collaboration with the Great Plains Watercolor Society, GPWS Member Invitational celebrates members of the watercolor society with works by: Deloras Korgel, Nancy Nelson, Kristin Peterson, Ruby L. Douglas, Rachel Hatle, Brian Beilke, Paul Boerboom, Marian Sprecher, Nancy Warnock, Marjorie Ness, Candy Wagner, Mary Buckmiller, Judy DeBoer, Reeni Mckay, Jan Johnson, Melissa Van Egdom, Janet Judson, Sheryl Baloun, Beth Brekken Masterson, Deb Yoder, Darlene Streedbeck, Jeanne Emmons, Julie Dent, Mike Hagan, Kathleen Threadgold, Carol Ratcliff, Judith Edenstrom, Lynn Nordsiden and Kimberly Larson.

Founded in 2017, the Great Plains Watercolor Society educates and elevates the skills of members and promotes public appreciation of the art of watercolor in our local and regional communities.

Exhibition Judge | Tara Sweeney

Artwork by Barbara Sparks

November 5, 2021 – April 10, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

Barbara Sparks' watercolors explore nature's intricate beauty, filling the Jerstad Gallery with bright watercolor portrayals of wildflowers. Her inspiration comes from photos of wildflowers found during her travels and images submitted by her friends and art students. Each recreation accentuates the finest details of these naturally occurring florals. Each flower is geolocated, giving viewers the opportunity to view the exact location of her inspiration via satellite – exploring where the flowers once bloomed and could resurface again at any time. With each piece, Sparks includes the original photo and the historic and medicinal importance to Native tribes. 

Artist Statement
In 2017, I started the Great Plains Watercolor Society (GPWS) with a group of students at the Center for Active Generations.  It’s mission was to encourage people to realize that they, too, could become artists by picking up a brush and observing the world around them.  Or not.  Just picking up a brush would do, and dipping into color.  And putting that color on a piece of paper.

In the following years, the GPWS has become a sophisticated organization with a crack leadership team offering social and educational opportunities to over 100  members in four states as well as Canada.

And then, one day, I started thinking that “maybe there was more.”  Maybe there was a way to offer this wonderful awareness of natural color to everyone…people who were not in art groups or classes.

It was a bright day in Harding County, as we drove down highway 20, trying to visit the counties listed in South Dakota Magazine’s article "Distancing in All 66 Counties" article in July/August issue. 

And, there it was.  It was a common sight in South Dakota, but I felt like I was seeing it for the first time.  An explosion of design: symmetry, repetition, variation, radial composition, and color theory--just by the side of the road.  In the middle of nowhere.  The wild sunflower.
 
I started looking at other wildflowers, and found myself engaged with unbelievable lines, curves, and shapes.  All priceless art—out in the world, for everyone to enjoy, at no cost.  These flowers popped up at their own bidding, not caring if anyone was around, or if the viewer had purchased a ticket to an exhibition. Some closed in the rain or cold, some opened in afternoon sunshine.  Some have different colors on the inside or the outside.  All looked like they had studied in some sophisticated color theory class.

Sponsored by: 

Dody and Boyd Hopkins

Floating Worlds

An Ethereal Landscape of Weightless Trees

Artwork by Amy Fill

October 1, 2021 - March 20, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

Trees are forever tied to the ground, with roots digging deep into the earth while branches stretch and reach for the sky. In Floating Worlds, Amy Fill takes what nature has made heavy and permanently tied to the terrain and created replicas of trunks and branches that suspend above the ground. The result is an ethereal fantasy world in the Washington Pavilion’s Everist Gallery, connecting visitors to nature while also challenging their relationship with it.

Each tree has personal symbolism for the artist, and many are slated to be removed. By using leaf bags and other compostable materials for the recreation of her trunks and branches, Fill creates something that preserves nature but will once again become part of it. The temporary exhibit is a onetime installation that will never by recreated in the same way again.

Artist Bio

Amy Fill is a visual artist living in rural Volin, South Dakota. Her work includes painting, sculpture, installation and collaborative accessible art experiences utilizing sculptural props and movement to explore our interconnectedness to the natural world. Amy is the Founder and Director of the Rural Cloud Museum and Director of the University of South Dakota Art Galleries. She’s also a member of the Community Build Association and Cloud Appreciation Society.

September 10, 2021 - February 13, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Young Artists Gallery

Within the greater context of Augustana University’s liberal arts mission, the Art Department develops students’ awareness of the diversity of human cultures and ways of visual thinking and expression, both past and present. This provides a strong foundation for engaging today’s complex and ever-changing global world.

Augustana’s Art faculty provide a deeply supportive environment for students to develop their studio practice, to deepen their capacity to ask questions, to broaden their expressive potential, to probe unknowns and provides a cognitive framework for understanding their own creativity in relationship to the history of art and culture, and contemporary conversations in art practice. The studio process foregrounds the interplay of intuition and response as students interact with physical materials and the elements and principles of art and design. Studio classes are hands-on and process-oriented. Students make decisions and problem-solve through a material to discover or learn something about themselves and the world they live in. Class critiques largely parallel this same process of intuition and response in a group dynamic of dialogue and questions.

As a requirement to earning an art major at Augustana University, art students present a portfolio of their work to the full art faculty and their peers in a public critique during the spring of their sophomore and junior years. The works in this exhibition have been selected by the art faculty from the spring 2021 reviews, and exemplify a range of projects created in Augustana art courses. We are proud to present the work of the following artists: Allison Altwine, Camryn Bird, Angie Cagle, Brynn Collinsworth, Grace Dixon, Treigh Falcon, Haley Hoffer, Alexa Lammers, Mearah Miedema, Hanna Morin, Gracie Rothering, Yushi Schieffer, Blake Schumacher, Elaine Taggatz and Lauryn Van Regenmorter.

September 12, 2021 - January 17, 2022

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

The cutest reflection on our society you'll ever see. In this bright and, frankly, adorable exhibit, South Dakota State University Professor Young Ae Kim draws attention to social and political events with cute and relatable animals. You’ll be thoroughly entertained by these adorable characters, but take a closer look, and you will find poignant reflections on the last few years in our society and references lifted directly from media headlines.

Artist Statement:
Young Ae Kim draws attention to everyday events with images and words that we pass through time. Her interest in social and political events expanded in the Overwhelming Experience Series (2016) and the Winning Series (2020-2021). Kim’s work includes cute and adorable characters and fine details of the conspicuous to capture the unique truths within the content of each painting. Cuteness has a magical influence on people that is acceptable and desirable because its attractiveness is associated with youth and juvenile appearance, which activates motivation to care for such individuals. The subjects carry connotative messages that inspire people to look at the given contexts carefully and discover the deeper meanings while the illustrations are entertaining and enjoyable. 

Kim’s illustrated paintings draw upon her Asian childhood heroes from Studio Ghibli stories and characters like My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. By creating characters that seem familiar, relatable and look like cute fuzzy stuffed animals. Regardless of age, people love to interact with cute characters. Her characters interact with people to develop empathy and self-reflection. Children may develop visual language and create their own characters while adults explore the connotative conspicuous messages considering the titles of paintings as they were pulled directly from contemporary media headlines and begin a dialog with the work and reflect on social and political events.

Artist Bio: 
“Art is to discover a question that has never been asked.” – Young Ae Kim

Young Ae Kim is a Graphic Designer, Associate Professor and a Graphic Design Program Coordinator of the South Dakota State University. Kim was born and raised in Seoul, Korea, with a population of 9.7 million people. Kim studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia and received an MFA in Graphic Design. Currently, Kim is finishing up her dissertation in Human Factor Psychology at the University of South Dakota with a research interest in the influence of visual signals on intuitive and emotional user experiences. Kim has been practicing for over 20 years in the design industry as a professional designer internationally and has a wide range of partners including Samsung, LG, Baskin Robbins, Nike, Belvita, City Bank, Sanford Health, Hyundai and many more. Since Kim’s first solo exhibition in 2008, her work has been featured at Wide Open 9 (New York, New York), Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Coalition (Brooklyn, New York), Next Wave (New York, New York), Paper Gallery (Seoul, South Korea), Future History and Red Gallery (Savannah, Georgia), ACA Gallery (Atlanta, Georgia) and more.

July 30 - November 7, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

The Great Plains of the Midwest are known for their prairie fields and pioneer history, along with a landscape uninterrupted for miles. Although referred to as flyover country, this region is full of tourist destinations for the road-trippers making their way out West. Wish You Were Here examines the ways the Great Plains region is romanticized using legends, folklore and histories. This history is often commodified through roadside attractions where tourists participate in rituals, like photo-ops or buying souvenirs, as experience and inclusion in these histories. The nostalgia of these rituals often clouds tourist perspectives, creating complicity in continuing flawed narratives.

The images in this series reveal the reality of tourist interactions in roadside attractions rather than the typical picturesque postcards. The images highlight aspects of truth within the idyll, including concealed histories, tourist engagement, surrounding infrastructure and pastoral nature. 

Sponsored by:

June 26 - September 19, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

The South Dakota Governor’s 9th Biennial Art Exhibition is a touring exhibition that features artwork by 66 artists of diverse backgrounds, working in all mediums and styles, from all parts of our state. As such, it reflects the vitality of the visual arts in South Dakota. It is the art of our time and our place. The Biennial is a juried exhibition that was first held in 2003 and has maintained a tradition of excellence over the years. The 66 works of art in the 9th Biennial were selected by a panel of visual arts professionals. The process was rigorous, it involved extensive deliberation, experienced professionals who made the final choices judged the work to be outstanding. 

This exhibition is also a celebration of perseverance in the face of adversity. Creating artwork is never an easy endeavor. A pandemic in a time of social unrest has increased the demands of everyday living. Some artists are looking for new “day jobs.” Many children are learning from home and stay-at-home mandates mean more cooking, more cleaning and more worry about keeping family safe and well. In addition, the relationships that feed artists’ minds and souls are now nurtured remotely, without hugs. The galleries and museums that expose artists to new ideas and ways of seeing things may be closed or have reduced hours. In spite of all these challenges South Dakota artists have continued to make art, enter it in exhibitions and pack it for shipping. 

Artist Name(s): 
Tenyoh, Steve Babbitt, Byron Banasiak, John Banasiak, Michael Baum, Diana Behl, Angela Behrends, Amanda Boerger, Keith BraveHeart, Roger Broer, Dillon Bryant, Skott Chandler, Alexis Doerr, Nemo Dorn, Susan Drey, Bill Feterl, Thomas Fluharty, Jeff Freeman, Ginny Freitag, Carol Geu, Gina Gibson, Luke Gorder, Becky Grismer, Amber Hansen, Sarah A. Hanson-Pareek, Seth Harwood, Liz Heeren, Susan Heggestad, JoAnn Hoffman, Jodi Jensen Vittitoe, Rick Johns, Thomas Jones, Jeremy Kendall, Young Ae Kim, Karen Kinder, Epiphany Knedler, Haley Larson, Michele Meester, Christopher Meyer, Darcy Millette, Deborah Mitchell, Alan Montgomery, Safet Musinovic, Sandra Newman, Quintin Owens, Phyllis W. Packard, John Peters, Paul Peterson, Tim Peterson, D. George Prisbe-Przybysz, Michael Ramey, Jessie Rasche, Jerry Rawlings, Anna Reich, Tim Rickett, Erik Ritter,Barbara Rowe, Joe Schaeffer, J. Desy Schoenewies, Vickie Schumacher, Gary Steinley, Altman Studeny, Daniel Tackett, Dustin Twiss, Lynn Verschoor and Anna Youngers.

2020 JURORS:
Denise Du Broy | Rapid City Arts Council
Amy Fill | University of South Dakota
Cody Henrichs | Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science
Jodi Lundgren | South Dakota Art Museum

View Exhibition Catalogue

May 14 - September 12, 2021
Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

The Dogs of War is a tale of what happens when the seams of society come undone and madness takes hold, with an absolutely uncanny similarity to our own world. The exhibit brings satire and a familiarity of popular kids toys to a fantastical military parody.

Artist Statement:
“The Dogs of War are a compilation of conflicting ideologies that reflect events from the real world through playful and humorous investigations of our contemporary society. More than a fictional universe which has been developing in my’ head since 2019, The Dogs of War are a stern warning of the dangers inherent in the lust for power and treats. It is a tale of what happens when the seams of society come undone and madness takes hold, with an absolutely uncanny similarity to our own world. The series brings satire and a familiarity of popular kids toys to a fantastical military parody. Though the making process began as a fun play on words with toys, kit bashing and miniatures, the sculptures quickly turned into a controversial conversation about our world. By combining toy culture to present day observations of the world including politics, economics, anthropology and the epistemology of war, the sculptures act as an caricaturist outlet. This is common in toys and can transport the owner through various forms of play, observation and imagination. The Dogs of War reign as the military might in a fantasy world of my own creation. By using tactics of endorsement through propaganda posters, toys, miniatures and history, the underlying messages within each sculpture is re-presented as an art object.”

-Tim Rickett

Artist Bio:
Tim Rickett is a collector and creator of the unusual. Rickett describes his work as ‘bricolage’, a French term, recently popularized by artists such as Tom Sachs and mockingly employed to affect a pretentious air upon a style of art that essentially uses found objects or sometimes even just junk. Rickett brings a different level of abstraction to the tradition by working with discarded toys, cut-up and expertly re-sculpted and repurposed. The inherent cultural references that the toys lend each sculpture is actually where the symbolic subtext of Rickett’s work is most apparent. If his subconscious is talking to us through his art, his inner child is without doubt the ring leader. Spending most of his life in Western Nebraska, he is influenced by railway life, toys and miniatures. Rickett creates quirky, macabre sculptures and collages shaped by fantasy and industrial aesthetics. He graduated from Hastings College in 2016 with a BA in Studio Art with a focus in sculpture and completed his MFA at East Carolina University in 2019. He is currently working as an adjunct instructor and resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

February 26 - July 25, 2021 

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

On the Edge is a three-person exhibition acting as a call and response sounding board. The collaboration between these artists began with isolation and an installation that contemplates notions of privacy, isolation and shelter. Throughout the confusing and chaotic time of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have undoubtedly been moments of fear and hopelessness in all of us. In this exhibition, they looked to unearth the deep pain felt by those already vulnerable to poverty, dislocation and hunger.

In the current exhibition, the artists are exploring their own ideas and directions, and in this allowing a natural, sometimes visual and sometimes conceptual connect to form. Nick Poppens' work provides personal depictions connected to home, longing and formally offer grids and guides to give way to Ceca Cooper’s structural tar. Joe Schaeffer’s loose gestures refer to the street art components, and entropy that appear in Poppens' photos, while simultaneously making color connection to the pills adhered to Cooper’s surface. In the end, the collection of works offer a gritty and poetic reflection of our time, placing us ever so precariously On the Edge. 

March 30 - July 17, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Young Artists Gallery 

In this exhibition we invite the museum visitors to use the flashlight of a phone to cast shadows of the wire-constructed wildlife, bringing to life the static sculpture in a vivid animation of light and shadow.

Starting with a skeletal armature and using a diagram as a guide, these artists choose a four-legged animal, in a standing pose, that has multiple photographic images on the internet. Each sculpture is a diagram of the animal from different angles: side, top, front and back, bend, wrap and attach the wire so that it contains the volume of your animal. While constructing the animals, artist frequently shined a flashlight through and around the structure to make sure, the cast shadows continued to describe the characteristics of the animal.

The wire spheres on the ceiling are in reference to conversations about how the COVID-19 global pandemic brought a lot of darkness into our lives, separating us and keeping our faces covered. We wanted to create an experience for people where they could bring light to this unfortunate situation.  Shadow Casting was our 2020 interactive exhibit at DSU, where visitors brought the light and played with shadows cast through three-dimensional wire structures.

Dakota State University Artist Names: 

Braxton Albers, Alex Adermann, Evan Becker, Garet Behnk, Alec (AJ) Bollman, Andrew Cotton, Lainy Culberson, Austin Donat, Brooklyn Goosen, Chase Hall, Ketia Hanson, Coal Halverson, Jacob His Law, Nate Ince, Josie Johnson, Mateo Kirstine, Conner Knepp, Kaden Krusemark, Kathleen Lange, Autumn Meyer, Alex Neill, Em Odney, Tyler Orcutt, Willow Richards, Megan Sankey, Ryan Shaeffer, Phusuda Sheehan, Isabel Small, Thet Soe, Ashton Songer, Caster Sylliaasen, Derrek Thompson, Andrew Vasek, Derian Voigt, Ben Wilson

Sandra Champion, Instructor of Digital Sound Design, Ryan Little, Xander Morrison, Spencer Raap, Mason Wieman

March 12 - June 19, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

Artist Names:
David Umemoto (Open Design Artist), Brian Lee (Instructor), Hermela Aboye, Alec Berg, Matthew Edwards, Madison Hoffman, Molly Jensen, Kara Kassa, Kyle Kueper, Paul Monson, Nick Romano, Cody Sadler, Mitch Woldt, Becca Ymker

In March of 2020, artist David Umemoto started posting his series of Paper Works on Instagram and made each of their corresponding patterns available to everyone online. This presented an opportunity to translate these original 4”x4” paper patterns into 4’x4’ CNC plasma cut sheet steel through digital fabrication. Working in pairs, architecture students at South Dakota State University studied the original patterns and digitally re-created them to fit the scale and materiality of the steel. These patterns were then cut on a CNC plasma cutter from continuous steel sheets in an intentionally low waste process. No pieces were removed from the continuous sheets. In phase two of the project, students were challenged to stretch and elaborate on their digital pattern in order to use an entire continuous 4’x8’ sheet of steel and incorporate a seating element into the final piece. Descriptive assembly diagrams and animations were also developed for each piece made by the class. 

March 12 - June 19, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

Step into the beautiful world of Craig Carver in the moving exhibition Temporal Existence with a Disciplined Perspective. Craig Carver is one of the most successful and prolific painters from South Dakota - his work and influence is nationwide. He has artwork in many notable collections including the New Museum in New York City. The Washington Pavilion is fortunate to house several Craig Carver pieces of art. Curator Cody Henrichs is excited to present the exhibition, “I think Craig’s work is stunning and deserves to be seen by the public as often as possible.”

April 2 - June 13, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery

60th Annual Arts Night: Catalyst showcases artists who positively impact the local art scene and the Visual Arts Center. This juried exhibition features diverse media and artists from near and far, and culminates in a gala and auction on June 17, 2021. To purchase tickets for the 60th Annual Arts Night, click here or call 605-731-2377.

Featured Artists: 

Jana Anderson, Stacey Bautista, Paul H. Boerboom, Jenny Lynn Bye, Mary Ellen Connelly, Mercedes Dalles-Steffen, Thomas Dempster, Rodger Ellingson, Mike Fleming, Molly Fulton, Amy Kasten, Karen Kinder, Brad Kringen, Amy Lehman, Klaire A. Lockheart, Joanna Manning, Mark W McGinnis, Chris Nowatzki, Aaron C Packard, Phyllis Whitcomb Packard, Mary Payton, Jason Pfitzer, Jessie Rasche, Cristen J Roghair, Shannon Sargent, Joe Schaeffer, Paul Schiller, Paul Sova, Jim Sturdevant and Judy Thompson

2021 Jurors:

• Kellen Boice | Executive Director, Sioux Falls Arts Council

• Amy Fill | Gallery Director, University of South Dakota

• Angela Zonunpari | Editor in Chief, No Business Magazine and Writer & Public Relations, Ipso Gallery & Fresh Produce 

March 5 - June 13, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery 

Artist statement:

By combining water based and non-traditional serigraphy, I create abstract expressionist monoprints. I use lighting and the aesthetics of digital media to create innovative sculptural pieces. The pieces hybridize the tactile nature of my tools: the mist-like removal of screen filler with a pressure washer, the playful vibrance of caran d’ache and the layered transparency of screen ink. 

My inspiration is best summed up in a quote from Tom Waits, “We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.” Utilizing the concept of printmaking’s ability to create repetition of information, I subvert that to focus on issues of truth, the redaction of truth and how the viewer must work through the noise of media to arrive at meaning.

To learn more about Jonathan and his work, visit https://www.purdyart.net/bio

January 22 - May 30, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

Curator statement:
Being an artist is, in many ways, like living on an island. You find yourself isolated from the norms, the capitalist structure and idealized success supported by material aspiration. It is a unique existence in so many ways often characterized as being an outsider. The Packard/Lockheart family offers an extraordinary opportunity to look at the professional work of several family members working as professional artists. The works are related in the sense of familial relationship, yet still exemplify the true complexity of artistic pursuit by remaining entirely unique. Looking deeply into the practices of four artists seeing how they relate and how they differ creates a sounding board for collaboration and comparisons rarely presented by family.

March 30 - June 19, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Young Artists Gallery 

In this exhibition we invite the museum visitors to use the flashlight of a phone to cast shadows of the wire-constructed wildlife, bringing to life the static sculpture in a vivid animation of light and shadow.

Starting with a skeletal armature and using a diagram as a guide, these artists choose a four-legged animal, in a standing pose, that has multiple photographic images on the internet. Each sculpture is a diagram of the animal from different angles: side, top, front and back, bend, wrap and attach the wire so that it contains the volume of your animal. While constructing the animals, artist frequently shined a flashlight through and around the structure to make sure, the cast shadows continued to describe the characteristics of the animal.

The wire spheres on the ceiling are in reference to conversations about how the COVID-19 global pandemic brought a lot of darkness into our lives, separating us and keeping our faces covered. We wanted to create an experience for people where they could bring light to this unfortunate situation.  Shadow Casting was our 2020 interactive exhibit at DSU, where visitors brought the light and played with shadows cast through three-dimensional wire structures.

Dakota State University Artist Names: 

Braxton Albers, Alex Adermann, Evan Becker, Garet Behnk, Alec (AJ) Bollman, Andrew Cotton, Lainy Culberson, Austin Donat, Brooklyn Goosen, Chase Hall, Ketia Hanson, Coal Halverson, Jacob His Law, Nate Ince, Josie Johnson, Mateo Kirstine, Conner Knepp, Kaden Krusemark, Kathleen Lange, Autumn Meyer, Alex Neill, Em Odney, Tyler Orcutt, Willow Richards, Megan Sankey, Ryan Shaeffer, Phusuda Sheehan, Isabel Small, Thet Soe, Ashton Songer, Caster Sylliaasen, Derrek Thompson, Andrew Vasek, Derian Voigt, Ben Wilson

Sandra Champion, Instructor of Digital Sound Design, Ryan Little, Xander Morrison, Spencer Raap, Mason Wieman

January 11 - May 9, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

Visit the Shultz Gallery and enjoy artist Lindsay Twa’s beautiful drawings and prints of her garden. In her words, “A garden is about protecting time and space in which both seedlings and new ideas can thrive”. As we enter a new year, experience the birth of a garden and new ideas through this beautiful exhibit.

Artist Statement:

All of the prints and drawings in this exhibition were drawn directly from and inspired by my pursuits as an urban gardener. To attend to a garden is a means to guide and alter one’s immediate environment on a small—sometimes very small—personal scale. And yet within that engagement, the potential for transformation is expansive. For nearly fifteen years, I’ve been in the slow process of transforming my inner-city yard into a habitat that supports pollinators and butterflies, while also, on occasion, producing vegetables and fruit for my family. My gardening, however, is also about carving out an intellectual and spiritual space. The work of the mind and the spirit goes on within the rhythm of mundane tasks that come with a garden’s care. 

Cicero, writing in the first century BCE, expressed this when he noted, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” Alice Walker expanded this notion when she wrote In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, a meditation on her inheritance and racialized history as an artist and a daughter. 

January 8 - April 5, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

Step back in time and witness the growth of posters in our society. Posters have often been plagued with professional art criticisms being called low brow or commercial work. Over time the poster has proven to be as valuable as the more accepted print works considered to high art.

The exhibition posters seen on display in the Entrance Gallery have been collected by the Washington Pavilion over the last 70 years. They range in content from Robert Rauschenberg in New York, to Abstract expressionist exhibition in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In some cases, art exhibition posters are the only part of the exhibition that an average patron could ever own, so in that way they become the living embodiment of an experience, a nostalgic reminder of an inspirational moment.

October 16, 2020 - March 5, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

Agents of Change features original artwork commissioned by the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation as well as recent works from local emerging artists. It is our hope the exhibit will illustrate and celebrate the important ways art and philanthropy can intersect to inspire and unite us, forge connections, open doors and help to drive meaningful change. 

Artists included: Marian Henjum, Martha Baker, Chad Mohr, Mary Groth, Paul Schiller, Mary Selvig, Carl Grupp, Sheila Agee, Gary Hartenhoff, Liz Heeren, Nathan Holman, Nancyjane Huehl, Don Hooper, Ceca Cooper, Brad Kringen, Jim Sturdevant, Rodger Ellingson, Susan Schmeichel Harder, Hector Curriel, Chad Nelson, Eli Show, Angela Zonunpari, Amy Jarding, Cory Knedler, Epiphany Knedler, Young Ae, Tim Rickett, Cameron Stalheim, Joe Schaeffer, Tory Stolen, Michelle St Vrain, Zach Deboer, Em Ngyuen, Anna Reich, Anna Youngers, Liz Heeren, Osvaldo Ricardez, Angelica Mercado Ford, Luke Bryant, Travis Hinton and Dave Lethcoe

We believe art has the power to connect us, to unite us and to inspire us in the pursuit of bold ideas and positive, meaningful change. It’s why we’re proud to invest in community-based arts organizations and to support local artists.

October 15, 2020 - February 26, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery 

Isolation is a collaborative installation by Ceca Cooper, Nick Poppens and Joe Schaeffer that contemplates notions of privacy, isolation and shelter. Throughout the confusing and chaotic time of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have undoubtedly been moments of fear and hopelessness in all of us. The worst pain is often felt by those already vulnerable to poverty, dislocation and hunger.

According to David Beasley, Executive Director of the United Nation’s World Food Program, in an article published in the Washington Post on September 25, 2020, a wave of hunger and famine threatens to sweep across the globe before the pandemic ends. He says “Some 135 million people around the world faced acute food insecurity before the pandemic, and that number is expected to double this year.” Inspiration for this installation stems from a photograph taken by Poppens while on a photoshoot in a wooded area of Sioux Falls.

The photograph represents the many layers surrounding humanity and the lack thereof during times of turmoil and isolation, including privilege and social justice. This mattress was discovered in that same area and is presented with audio recordings from the location in which the photograph was taken. Privacy and isolation could be defined similarly, until you add perspective. During the time of the 2020 pandemic, while we were all in isolation and able to maintain privacy, others were struggling just to maintain the essentials of life: food, shelter and security. Privacy may then be viewed as a privilege. This installation is the first part of an exhibition by Cooper, Poppens and Schaeffer on the same theme that will include paintings and photographs in the Bates Trimble Gallery beginning in February 2021. 

December 4, 2020 - February 26, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Young Artists Gallery 

The pandemic has been one of the most challenging times in recent history. For artists who thrive on community, sharing ideas and visions, the cut of social connection and lack of ability to meet and collaborate has created new and interesting challenges. Those challenges are being felt in acute ways by art and design students. Cut off from many of the normal academic interactions and functions, these students are asked to create under a New Normal. This exhibition shows great diversity in approach and understanding of visual communication. This show aims to exemplify the great work from students of the University of Sioux Falls, through design, photography, painting, sculpture and the dynamic instruction required to meet these times.

Artist Name: University of Sioux Falls Undergraduates 
Annika Aho, Apolonia Davalos, Isabel Fredericksen, Everett Moran, Mercede Odegaard, Adam Paulson, Ethan Roggow, Sadie Hartley, Cassondra Holland,  Giovanna Bario, Kira Ireta-Ramirez, Elinor Kleinsasser, Greta Smith, Annie Otzen, Troy Soat, Alex Bertram, Mariah Bleeker, Henry Eggebraaten, Chelsey Heeg, Thuro Reisdorfer, Noah Schmitt, Austin Schuelke, Gabrielle Sudenga, Joseph Timp, Cara VanderBeek, Aaron Voigt, Chloe Aysta, Rianna Banik, Jayden Dierenfeld, Jaycie Dillenberg, Autumn Gray, Lexi Gryniewski, Summer Janzen, Camden Markstrom, Sam Martin, Sarah Micek, Steven Miner, Madyson Redday, Hannah Reynolds

October 16, 2020 - February 19, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

Come explore There May Be More Beautiful Times, a new body of work by Anna Reich. This project is a collection of photographs produced over a decade that both parallels and challenges expectations of life and expectations of photography. Using traditional genres and vernacular images (representing what is known, familiar, comfortable and understood) in contrast with experimental image-making processes (representing the abstracted, unfamiliar and at times undesirable) this work perpetuates photography’s analogic, and at times fantastical, relationship with reality while also including reminders of the medium’s formal limitations. Being both celebratory and critical of photography itself, this project - and its title - grew from an interest in the inherent nostalgia that is bound to many traditional forms and uses of the photographic image. Inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote, “There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours,” encapsulated the thematic goals of this collection.

September 25, 2020 - January 15, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

Boston area sculptor, Zach Gabbard's practice is varied and has come to include performance, video, collaboration and electronics along with object making. He "offers prayers" for heathens in the form of LED and neon signs that are at once comforting and sad. He takes to the streets in the guise of a suited character, the Gentleman, and explores his local geography looking for signs of connectedness and home.

The work in this exhibition aims to merge the conceptually heavy medium of illuminated poetry disguised as advertising with the wordless openness of formal sculptural abstraction to make work that resists an entirely intellectual or visceral form of interpretation. I want to make work that lovingly defies rapid apprehension on any level and yet is somehow also welcoming.

Eve Biddle, Wassaic Project Co-Executive Director:
“Like some sort of strange ad-scape in a contemporary Blade Runner, Zach’s pieces are both funny and sad. These pieces are sweet, comforting night-light and a sour, ironic prayer.”

October 2, 2020 - January 8, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

Artist Statement:

I like to say that structural engineering is in my Clausen family DNA. It is a common thread in all my careers, including photographer, artist, woodworker, carpenter, furniture maker and chiropractor.

I was born in Redwood Falls, MN and moved in 1957 to Sioux Falls, SD with my mom and sister. By the time I graduated from Washington Senior High School, I had already developed interests in sketching, drafting, architecture and design.

Following a couple of academic years in schools of Architecture, I began pursuing a degree in art at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA, focusing on photography. But I became enamored with the woodworking classroom -- woodworkers’ benches, a central table saw, planer, joiner, band saw and intriguing original furniture designs undergoing construction. I soon joined in. I realized that I loved to work with my hands AND my “design mind”. A few furniture pieces later, I graduated with a BA degree in studio arts.

I returned to Sioux Falls in the mid-1970s to work at EROS as a photographic technician, ‘briefly’ in a cabinet shop and worked a stint at Morell’s but was drawn back to woodworking. I returned to Washington state and received Central’s first master’s degree in Wood Design. For the next ten years, I made a career designing, engineering, and constructing furniture and professional artists’ equipment. I have sold many of my pieces and shown my work in juried shows throughout the years. This exhibit contains some of my work that I brought with me when I returned to Sioux Falls in 2018.

December 10, 2020 - January 6, 2021

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

Memories and tradition are often at the center of holiday celebrations. We cherish these traditions and often seek to recreate some of the most wonderful memories of our childhood experiences. The works in the Entrance Gallery are composed of memories of a time passed, using 1930's-50's magazine images from December issues only, several collages can be seen depicting the holiday traditions of a bygone era. Staff members were also asked to participate and generate works that depicted a holiday memory, those works can be seen in the Entrance Gallery and the Raven Children’s Studio amongst Santa’s Workshop.   

November 27 - December 31, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Raven Children's Studio

Step inside Santa's Workshop located in the Raven Children's Studio in the Visual Arts Center. Write a letter or draw a picture for Santa in our fun, cozy holiday space. Enjoy meeting Santa in person in our First Floor Lobby on December 5 and 19!

August 17 - November 30, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Young Artists Gallery

Flandreau Indian School students have curated and transformed archival materials from Augustana University's Center for Western Studies into “re-presentations” of Native Americans’ history in South Dakota. These artistic responses and curatorial choices are juxtaposed with two Augustana students' critical and creative academic analysis of the Elizabeth B. Bradley scrapbook, an early colonizer's narrative. Funded by the Council for Independent Colleges' grant program Humanities for the Public Good, an initiative designed to support innovative methods for making university archives more accessible to their communities, this project promotes critical questioning of normative perceptions that treat colonial histories as the distant past. These histories are contemporary and carry present-day impacts for people in our own community. The Flandreau Indian School students' curation and artistic reinterpretation of existing archival materials create new inclusion of Native voices that have been silenced or unrecognized institutionally and historically.

October 5 - November 23, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

In celebration of art that explores the nature of Halloween, several members of the Washington Pavilion Staff offered creative representations of iconic Tim Burton characters. Burton has a keen ability to develop a character that stretches the limits of the imagination and our staff provided an amazing verity of depictions showing off both their creativity as well as the genius that is Tim Burton. 

June 26 - October 11, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

Artist Statement: 

This series celebrates the abundance of life on the prairie. It focuses on the connection our people and animals have with each other and with the land. Emotional connection is the focus of my artwork because I believe personal relationships and connections to the life around us make life fulfilling. I hope viewers of this exhibit feel a nostalgic connection to the prairie and the animals we share it with, as they are surrounded by the calming influence of resting and grazing animals and the movement of native birds. All of these paintings have strong brush and pallet knife marks, expressing a love of the materials and process as well as of the subject matter.

June 1 - October 5, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Shultz, Everist and Contemporary Galleries

Notes from the Curator:

The Visual Arts Center Permanent Collection has a long and rich history, beginning in 1961 with Civic Fine Arts Association and living today with the Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center. This collection has grown from a few paintings and sculptures to just shy of 1,700 pieces in 2020. The collection of the museum is its mark to the preservation of culture and community. A well-cared-for permanent collection can ensure the enrichment and preservation of a cultural identity for the future generations to learn from and be inspired by. 

Judith to Another End, the title of this Permanent Collection exhibition, is both a voyage through time and a practical application of utility. The exhibition aims to give viewers a full breath of the history of arts collection and acquisitions. This exhibition also serves as a valuable intuitional audit of collections allowing the museum to have accurate records and provenance on all objects in the vault. 

It was my great pleasure to live through the work and thoughtfully and carefully organize the works in this exhibition. As you enter the third floor, you are greeted by the Shultz and Young Artists Galleries, each of these housing separate conceptual works. The Shultz Gallery is driven by the work of Jeff Freeman. Jeff’s work is playful and vibrant, his expressive abstractions and precise renderings evoke Freudian concepts and deep subconscious probes. Across the hall you will find a wildlife and landscape room. These works are bound by the use of nature and represent the very essence of prairie life.

When you enter the Everist Gallery, I wanted you to feel the experience of walking through time. To your right, you will see the salon style wall. In the center, you will see the Judith painting: object number 1000.01.01, the first chronological piece in the collection. The room is then laid out by conceptual groupings, moving from the very classical works into abstract expressionism and then to figurative works. In the center of the room, you will find the largest amount of works we own by a single artist. In the Contemporary Gallery, I have looked at works that hallmark American expression and evoke the certain indelible rights.

Cody Henrichs, MFA
Curator of the Visual Arts Center

July 21 - September 18, 2020 

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery

Arts Night 2020: odyssey showcases artists who positively impact the local art scene and the Visual Arts Center. This juried exhibition features diverse media and artists from near and far, and culminates in a virtual gala and auction on September 19, 2020. To purchase tickets for the 59th Annual Arts Night, click here or call 605-731-2377.

February 7 - July 12, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

Trained as a printmaker in Havana, Cuba and at the Rhode Island School of Design, Rodriguez-Warner has developed a manner of painting that is informed by woodblock printing and characterized by trompe l’oeil, collage and art historical references. He enhances the trompe l’oeil by carving into and staining the plywood panels on which he works. Painted shadows and subtly carved ones confuse the eye. This sensation—that of the possibility of depth—is amplified by the layering of forms, figures and patterns that twist around, melt into and overlap one another. Some of these fragments, those cribbed from works by ukiyo-e master Yoshitoshi, Henri Matisse and George Grosz, among others, appear familiar, while others elude identification, even as simple shapes.

Diego Rodriguez-Warner was born in Managua, Nicaragua in 1986 and moved to Denver, Colorado in 1990. He holds fine arts degrees from Hampshire College and the Rhode Island School of Design and he has studied under the Cuban Minister of Fine Arts, Lesbia Dumois, in Havana. At RISD, he was a recipient of the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship. His work has been shown around the US, in Cuba and in Germany.

February 24 - June 21, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery 

Ancient Alchemy is an exhibition born out of the idea to see what is happening in contemporary ceramic practice in South Dakota and surrounding area. Through the creation of a single plinth and strict perimeters of a two-foot by two-foot floor print. Each piece is offering a different approach and understanding to the ancient practice of ceramics.

Some works may be traditional in nature and others may stretch the limitations of what people can and have understood as ceramic work all are bound by ancient alchemical material tradition.

February 28 - April 12, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Young Artists Gallery 

Canis Latrans is an exhibition designed to showcase the works of five Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. The work represents a wide variety of subject matter and material exploration. The exhibition includes artist Jonathan Purdy, Hunter Smith, Joe Schaeffer, Yazmin Moktan and Julie Ellingson.

December 12, 2019 - June 8, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery 

David Hamlow holds a BA in Studio Art from Gustavus Adolphus College and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Minnesota. He has received two Minnesota State Arts Board Grants and shows work regionally, nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Cashing Out at the Kala Institute, Berkley CA, Hedge Magic at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis and You Complete Me with Liz Miller at the HFA Gallery, University of Minnesota, Morris.

"My work addresses quotidian activity, its energies and by-products. Work, habitation, transportation and leisure consume--but also create--massive energy and matter, willfully ignored or rendered transparent by its mundanity. My work reaffirms this energy and matter as objects and activity, challenging the viewer to address the potential--positive, negative or ambiguous--of the way we live today." - David Hamlow

March 13 - May 3, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Egger Gallery 

Jerry Fogg invites all South Dakotans into their shared history. An artist who is not afraid to tell the complicated stories of this land, he brings the past into the present through his art. In connecting his own feelings and those who engage with his art, he helps us imagine a preferred future together. This mixed media approach includes historical pieces, Native American craft, traditional art techniques and a touch of humor. He asks: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?

Artist Bio
Yankton Sioux Oyate artist Jerry Fogg is an actively working native artist in the Sioux Falls South South Dakota Area. He is an advocate for Blood Run, Hiawatha Indian Insane Asylum and Pé Sla and a multi-mentor at Hawthorne Elementary in Sioux Falls. Fogg is a graduate of Flandreau Indian School and an enrolled member of Ihankton Nakota Oyate. 

Awards and Exhibitions:
Artist of the Year: Flandreau Indian School
Best of Show (mixed-media): United Tribes Art Expo
Best of Show: Yankton County Open Art Competition
Award Winner (Textile): Northern Plains Tribal Arts
Patron Award: Luverne, Minnesota Open Arts
People’s Choice Award: Artists of the Plains
Best of Show: Artists of the Plains
Nominee for Mayor’s Award for the Arts: Sioux Falls, South Dakota

September 20, 2019 - February 16, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Bates Trimble Gallery

This exhibition looks at South Dakota photography through the lens of several South Dakota-based artists. The vast space of the state exposed as a land mass, a home, an endless sky, bringing a sense of the sublime. A void by which only the last vestige great open space can display. Each artist exemplifying different components of this plentiful and endless landscape.

Artists featured: Greg Latza, Angela Zonunpari, Anna Reich, Cheryl Halsey and Cristen Roghair.

From the permanent collection: Ten photographers from the SDSU class of 1990: Joyce Roeder, Beth Tallon, Simon Spicer, John Wiggs, Tony Ramirez, Kevin Johnson, Ron Johns, Mark Hennies, John Bansiak and James Everheart.

Paul Schiller from his 1998 Acts of Nature series 

February 16, 2019 - March 15, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Egger Gallery 

Our newest acquisition joins familiar favorites in this exhibition of artwork by Northern Plains Tribal artists from the Permanent Collection of the Visual Arts Center. See works by some of South Dakota’s preeminent artists, including Oscar Howe and Arthur Amiotte, alongside our newest addition to the Collection, Tatanka Sakowin by Wade Patton, awarded second place in Pencil, Charcoal, Ink, Crayon, Pastel, Chalk and Scratch Board at the juried art show of the 2018 Northern Plains Indian Art Market.

Wade Patton, an Oglala Lakota tribal member, was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He received his BFA from Black Hills State University and later pursued artistic opportunities on the East Coast. In 2015, he returned to the Black Hills, where he is an active member of the thriving Native arts scene in Rapid City. Patton’s work is included in public and private collections throughout the United States. 

October 11, 2019 - February 23, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery

Experience Travis Hinton’s works in Necessary Roughness (A Historical Blueprint of Wonder) that vary in function and purpose from the daily usage of a cup to an ornamental vase. Each telling a story with its individual composition, intended to communicate a sense of wonder, discovery and balance through form and surface treatment. 

About the Artist

Travis Hinton was raised in Sioux Falls, SD. He attended the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Art Education in 1999. After his graduation from USD, Travis was accepted into the master's degree program in ceramics at the University of Kansas. He received his MFA in Ceramics in 2003. After graduation he began teaching at the Lawrence, KS Art Center and was a visiting artist at Emporia University. In 2004 he moved back to Sioux Falls and continued his teaching profession with the Sioux Falls School District. In addition to his teaching career he has been working as a studio potter, exhibiting his work at studio tours, galleries and museums across the United States. In 2017 Travis relocated his studio in Sioux Falls and he continues to balance his time as a teacher and artist.

October 26, 2019 - January 19, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

The South Dakota Governor’s Biennial is designed “to recognize and encourage South Dakota artists, to promote the artistic identity of South Dakota, to celebrate the cultural and artistic heritage and future of South Dakota and to encourage a larger sense of community and connection across separate artistic communities within the state.”

The 8th Biennial began at the South Dakota Art Museum (January 25, 2019 - April 20, 2019) and then traveled to the Dahl Arts Center, Rapid City (May 3, 2019 - August 17, 2019), the John A. Day Gallery, Vermilion (August 30, 2019 - October 11, 2019) and the Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls (October 26, 2019 - January 19, 2020).

Featured Artists:

Lynda Clark Adelstein | Steve Babbitt | John Banasiak | Michael Baum | Diana Behl | Angela Behrends | Eden Bhatta | Keith BraveHeart | Roger Broer | Gratia Brown | Chad & Kiesha Dykstra | Dede Farrar | Jeff Freeman | Luke Gorder | Jim Green | Amber Hansen | Liz Heeren | Susan Heggestad | JoAnn Hoffman | Thomas Jones | Don Kates | Young Ae Kim | Cory Knedler | Andrew Kosten | Dale Lamphere | Carolyne D. Landon | Amy Lehman | Harriet Lievan | Klaire Lockheart | Christopher Meyer | Anthony Millette | Darcy Millette | Deborah Mitchell | Katie Munson | Safet Musinovic | Sandra Newman | Nancy Olive | Timothy Orme | Quintin Owens | Aaron Packard | Phyllis Packard | Wade Patton | Mike Paul | Paul Peterson | Tim Peterson | Jessie Rasche | Jerry Rawlings | Peter Reichardt | Camille Riner | Cristen Roghair | J. Desy Schoenewies | Jean Selvy Wyss | Robert Semrad | Eli Show | Barbara Sparks | Daniel Tackett | Lynn Thorpe | Tom Thorson | Lindsay Twa | Ray Tysdal | Jodi Vittitoe | Dwayne Wilcox | Anna Youngers

August 31, 2019 – January 5, 2020

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery

Painting with Paper offers a view into nostalgia and Americana. Through evoking images of the past, this exhibition offers a glimpse into the future. Nate’s work is both technically proficient and inviting, allowing viewers the opportunity to project their own personal histories to the object presented while creating a base narrative dialogue from a generation.

“The past is never a static thing. Interpretation of past events is as wide as the vast range of human experience. Now more than ever, it’s essential that we look to the past to trace the present back towards its cultural roots—not so we can dwell there—but rather to reconsider what it means to live in the present and create the future.” – Nate Stromberg excerpt from Back to Go Forward exhibition.

About the Artist:
Nate Stromberg was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He received his bachelor’s degree at Bethel University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He then went on to get his MFA at The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. Nate has had solo exhibitions, including Circulus Retro I/III: Nathan Stromberg—Back To Go Forward, Thompson Gallery, The Cambridge School of Weston, Weston, MA; Another Man’s Treasure, Robbin Gallery, Robbinsdale, MN; Significant Stuff: New Object Collages, ARTISTRY/Bloomington Theater and Arts Center, Bloomington, MN; Chrome Remnants, The Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI; American Iconic: New Paintings by Nathan Stromberg, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hopkins, MN and countless group exhibitions dating back to 2000. In this exhibition, Painting with Paper, Nate has truly demonstrated his excellent craft and amazing production capacity.

July 27 - December 30, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery

Through an extraordinary visual arts exhibition, come experience the story of Sioux Falls’ newest monumental sculpture. Spanning the Big Sioux River between 6th and 8th Streets in downtown Sioux Falls, the Arc of Dreams represents the leaps of faith we all take to achieve our dreams. See how sculptor Dale Lamphere, South Dakota’s Artist Laureate, brought the dream of this sculpture to life.

Dale Lamphere’s work includes more than 60 public monumental sculptures installed throughout the United States. In South Dakota, he is well-known for Dignity, a 50-foot, 12-ton stainless steel sculpture honoring the Indigenous nations of South Dakota, located near Chamberlain. In 2015, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard named Lamphere the South Dakota Artist Laureate, a position that had been vacant since the 1983 death of Oscar Howe, who was given the honor in 1954. Lamphere was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1987, and resides in Sturgis, SD.

August 3 - December 8, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery

Jana Anderson’s abstract assemblages reference technology, connection and strength. Her photographic sources come from microscopic and medical images of her own body, as well as references to cosmic or macroscopic events. Cellular structures are juxtaposed with star charts, and the architecture of the body meets the architecture of the universe.

Jana Anderson was born in Los Angeles, CA, but spent most of her formative years in Sioux Falls, SD. She received her bachelor’s degree in studio art from Hamline University (St. Paul, MN) in 2011, and her MFA in painting from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2019. She has shown her work in Sioux Falls, across the Midwest, as well as nationally. She has completed internships at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Bohemia Galleries in York, England, as well as received numerous awards for achievements in the arts.

August 23 - November 22, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

Learn more about the history and art of puppetry in the Entrance Gallery of our Visual Arts Center. 

Puppetry is a form of artistic expression that involves a person, called a puppeteer, who acts out or performs a story through puppets. Puppetry developed independently in many parts of the world, with distinctive types still alive today in Japan, China, Germany, Indonesia and the United States, among others. Today, certain puppets and puppet shows have become well-known in the age of television, including Howdy Doody, Lamb Chop, Jim Henson’s Muppets and Sesame Street.

The history and present day function of puppetry is ever expanding and inspiring. This masterful artistry allows us to express our stories with a suspension of disbelief found in theater while colliding with an appreciation of object making and craftsmanship.

All puppets and props courtesy of Brenda Paulsen and Paulsen Puppeteers.

August 2 - October 15, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Permanent Collection Gallery

Throughout the course of art history, self-portraiture and the portrait of another have remained a tried-and-true practice among leading artists. Transcending technique and style, self-portrayals are prevalent in every major movement, from the inspired Italian Renaissance to the Postmodern and Contemporary period. This exhibition asks us to look back into those faces presented by art history and hopefully find ourselves present in the work. Our humanity binds us to the practice of reproducing the thing we are most familiar with: ourselves. To illustrate the prevalence of these depictions, we have compiled a collection of works from our permanent collection illustrating just that.

March 2 – September 15, 2019
 
Visual Arts Center | South Dakota Gallery

Presented in collaboration with the Great Plains Watercolor Society, Watercolor on the Plains celebrates some of South Dakota’s most skilled watercolorists. Works by Jon Crane, Bill Feterl, Bonnie Halsey-Dutton, Janet Judson, Daniel Parsons, James Pollock, Stephen H. Randall, Mary Selvig, Barbara Sparks, BJ Stych and Judy Thompson join works by well-loved Sioux Falls artist Marian Henjum for an exploration of the art of watercolor, and a tribute to Henjum’s memory. Experience bright washes of color and detailed natural scenes, and learn more about how artists create watercolor magic.

Founded in 2017, the Great Plains Watercolor Society educates and elevates the skills of members, and promotes public appreciation of the art of watercolor in our local and regional communities.

May 18 - August 25, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

Iowa-based artist T.J. Dedeaux-Norris grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and moved away to pursue her career, leaving her detached from her family. Her feelings of isolation only intensified after Hurricane Katrina hit the region. The artworks in to be seen and not heard are Dedeaux-Norris’s way of connecting her past with her present as she approaches portraiture through the lens of distance and longing.

About the Artist

T.J. Dedeaux-Norris (f.k.a. Tameka Jenean Norris) was born in Guam and received her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles and her MFA from Yale University School of Art. Dedeaux-Norris has recently participated in numerous exhibitions and festivals including at Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; Prospect.3 Biennial, New Orleans, LA; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands and Mission Creek Festival, Iowa City, IA, among many others. Dedeaux-Norris has participated in many residencies including at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and the Grant Wood Art Colony Fellowship. She is the 2017 recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Iowa.

June 22 - October 6, 2019 | Entrance Gallery

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery

In Everything I See, local retired architect and painter Paul Boerboom explores light, shadow and built objects in nature. Boats bob back and forth in shimmering waves, patio chairs sit in sand and snow, and the sun is always shining. As an architect, Boerboom understands and enjoys human-made objects and how they interact with the land.

Paul Boerboom received his BA in Architecture and Environmental Design from the University of Minnesota. After a forty-year career in architecture, Boerboom returned to one of his first artistic interests: painting. Boerboom was awarded Best of Show at the 2018 Dakota MasterWorks Art Show, and his work has been displayed at the Sioux Falls Design Center and Eastbank Art Gallery, where Boerboom is a member artist. Boerboom’s work was also selected for the 2018 and 2019 juried Arts Night exhibitions at the Visual Arts Center. Paul Boerboom resides in South Dakota at Wall Lake.

Sponsored by:

April 13 - July 28, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery

Solve puzzles and decode hidden messages. In this interactive installation, graphic design artists Ladan Bahmani and Alice J. Lee explore the experience of being bilingual. Between them, Bahmani and Lee speak English, Korean and Persian. As bilingual persons, they decode their surroundings daily. Learn to recognize similar-sounding letters across English, Korean and Persian, and use your new knowledge to play and decipher interactive games and digital projections.

Ladan Bahmani is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Illinois State University, Normal, IL. She received her MFA in Graphic Design from Michigan State University, and her BS in Graphic Design from South Dakota State University. Alice J. Lee is as an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Texas State University, San Marcos, TX. Lee received her Master of Design in Graphic Design from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her BA from Yale University. Bahmani and Lee began collaborating on projects centered around language and translation in 2018.

Sponsored by:

January 20 - July 25, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Corner Gallery

Step into a glowing field of color composed of thousands of embroidered flowers. Amanda McCavour is a Toronto-based artist who works with stitch to create large-scale embroidered installations. She is interested in thread’s assumed vulnerability, its ability to unravel and its strength when it is sewn together. Pink Field, Blue Fog transforms the Corner Gallery into a neon environment of flowers and floating clouds in a faux surreal landscape.

McCavour received her MFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA in 2014, and has since exhibited her work throughout the United States and Canada. Recently, she has completed residencies at Harbourfront Centre’s Textile Studio in Toronto, at Maison des Metiers d’art de Quebec in Quebec City and the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson City, Yukon. She has received many awards and scholarships from arts organizations, including The Canada Council for the Arts, The Handweavers and Spinners Guild of America, and The Embroiderers Guild of America. 

February 9 - July 14, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

The USD Art Faculty Exhibition showcases the recent work of thirteen studio art & design faculty members from the University of South Dakota Department of Art. Recognized nationally and internationally, the University of South Dakota studio art and design faculty members’ creative research is exhibited in venues all over the world. Collectively, they have received recognition and support from the ADDY Awards, the International Design Awards, the South Dakota Arts Council, the Bush Foundation and more. Representing a broad range of media and contemporary art and design approaches, this exhibition highlights the faculty’s dedication to actively pursuing creative research.

June 8 - July 14, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery

Collecting the Pavilion: 20 Years of Art Acquisitions celebrates 20 years of collecting with 20 artworks, one for each year since the Washington Pavilion opened on June 1, 1999. Formerly Washington High School, the Washington Pavilion became the innovative multi-disciplinary organization it is today after several years of transformation and renovation. From internationally known artist Roy Lichtenstein to accomplished and beloved local artist Carl Grupp, this exhibition celebrates the past two decades of innovation and fun at the Washington Pavilion, and looks forward to many more years of bringing art to our community. 

Sponsored by:

Jim & Kara Mathis and Michele & Roger Weber

February 23 - June 16, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery 

Local poet and artist Angelica Mercado inhabits the borderlands in between two cultures, two countries and two identities. Mercado was born in Jalisco, Mexico, grew up in Fremont, NE, and now resides here in Sioux Falls, SD. In Cuerpo Extranjero: Foreign Body, Mercado explores a way out of the in-between through poetry and mixed media artworks both playful and powerful.

Mercado earned her BA in Fine Arts from Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, IA. Both Mercado’s artwork and poetry have been used as educational tools to draw awareness to topics such as immigration, feminism, diversity and cultural awareness.

Sponsored by:

Jennifer and Henry Carlson III

Meet the Artist!

Free First Friday Gallery Talk: March 1 at 6 p.m. 

April 20 - June 2, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery 

Emily’s Hope: Paint the Skies is a celebration of artist Emily Groth’s work, featuring artworks by Emily, and her sister, Abby. Emily died of fentanyl poisoning during the opioid epidemic on May 16, 2018 at twenty-one years old. Alongside Emily and Abby’s artwork, conversation-starting features educate visitors on the severity of the opioid crisis, and the number of lives lost to opioid overdoses. 

With her vibrant, original artistic ideas, Emily won first place in the state for her artwork from the South Dakota High School Activities Association, and received a Scholastic Art scholarship to the University of South Dakota. Since Emily’s death, her mother, local news anchor and investigative reporter Angela Kennecke, has turned heartbreak into action through Emily’s Hope, a non-profit created to educate people on substance use disorder, stop stigma and remove financial barriers to treatment.

January 12 - May 12, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

Explore South Dakota’s state parks with local artist Laura Jewell. Jewell received a grant from the South Dakota Arts Council to research and visit each of our state parks, resulting in more than fifty abstract landscape paintings inspired by the natural wonders of South Dakota. In Jewell’s signature style, layers of paint create subtle shifts in color as Jewell captures quiet moments of beauty—the glitter of frosty air over a lake, the faint dots of flying geese and the changing seasons.

Raised in the small town of Holton, KS, Laura Jewell received her BFA from the University of South Dakota. Her work is included in private collections throughout the United States, and also in Australia and Canada. Jewell’s work has been recognized by the South Dakota Arts Council with an Artist Career Development Grant (2016) and a 2018 Project Grant. Jewell lives in Sioux Falls, SD. 

December 8, 2018 - April 7, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery

Enjoy a rare showing of South Dakota artist Dorothy Morgan’s paintings in her home state. To anyone who’s driven through rural southeastern South Dakota, Morgan’s paintings feel instantly familiar. In thick, satisfying paint, she captures the expanse of the sky, the shine on creeks and ditch puddles, and the texture of sparse trees and snow-covered fields. 

Dorothy Morgan, a South Dakota native, studied art at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD. Since 1987, Morgan has been represented by the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco, CA, where her paintings were sought after by art collectors from around the country. Morgan’s work has been featured in many publications, including South Dakota Magazine, Midwest Living and American Art Collector. Dorothy Morgan resides near Brookings, SD.  

February 2 - April 7, 2019 

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery

Arts Night 2019: Celebrate, showcases artists who positively impact the local art scene and the Visual Arts Center. This juried exhibition features diverse media and artists from near and far, and culminates in a gala and auction on April 13, 2019. To purchase tickets for the 2019 Arts Night Experience, click here or call 605.731.2377.

September 15, 2018 - February 24, 2019

Visual Arts Center | South Dakota Gallery

“I pledge loyalty and support to the flag and state of South Dakota, land of sunshine, land of infinite variety.”
-Official Pledge to the State Flag

From the wide open plains to the Badlands, this exhibition celebrates the infinite variety of landscapes and wildlife in South Dakota. In the newly opened South Dakota Gallery, artworks by Russ Duerksen, Jim Green, Mary Groth, Karen Kinder, Areca Roe, Joshua Spies and Tory Stolen find inspiration in both the majestic and the everyday. Hay bales and telephone lines join wild birds and buffalo in an exploration of South Dakota’s beauty, quirks, and the spirit that inspires people to call this state home.

October 27, 2018 - February 17, 2019 

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery

Discover and explore different printmaking techniques in The Black Arts Tarot, an exhibition of hand-pulled prints by artists with ties to South Dakota and beyond. The Black Arts is an old term describing the discipline of printmaking, because of the technical ability to create very rich, deep blacks. Originally used for gambling and storytelling, tarot cards are 15th century precursors to contemporary playing cards. Some of the oldest playing cards were created by unknown engraving masters such as Master ES, who worked in Germany around 1450-1467. By the 18th century, variations of these decks were used largely for divination.

Building on the tradition of artist-made playing and tarot cards, each of the twenty-two artists in this exhibition created a contemporary interpretation of one of the cards from the Major Arcana, or one of the twenty-two picture cards in a tarot deck, using their printmaking method of choice.

Organized by Joshua Butler (Grand Junction, CO), Matthew Hanson-Weller (Durango, CO) and J. Charles Cox (Fergus Falls, MN), who received his MFA from the University of South Dakota, the prints in The Black Arts Tarot are the result of a printmaking exchange. A printmaking exchange is coordinated between artists who agree to create, edition and exchange an image related to a specific theme. 

October 20, 2018 - January 20, 2019 

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery

Explore a wonderland of optical illusions in this exhibition of fifty of Dick Termes’ spherical paintings, known as Termespheres®, in a celebration of Termes’ fifty years of artistic innovation. Since 1968, Termes has painted more than 400 major spherical surfaces. These suspended, rotating globes capture an inside-out view of an entire three-dimensional landscape. Termes, who acknowledges the influence of M.C. Escher and Buckminster Fuller in his work, researches the connections between math, science and art. He developed what he calls six-point perspective in order to capture the up, down and all-around visual world from one revolving point in space.

Termes' work has been recognized and exhibited internationally. His painting The Big Bang was featured on the cover of the French edition of "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. Termes received his MA from the University of Wyoming and his MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. He lives in Spearfish, SD.

October 6, 2018 - February 3, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Egger Gallery 

In this exhibition of recent monotypes by Oglala Lakota artist Roger Broer, enigmatic images connected by the repeated forms of animals and mysterious eyes invite us to search for our own connections to the work as we explore color, form and the histories that live in our memories and DNA. 

Roger Broer grew up in rural Randolph, NE. He received his BA in art from Eastern Montana College, now Montana State University Billings, and completed additional graduate-level coursework in fine art at Central Washington University. A full-time artist since 1979, Broer has exhibited his work in more than thirty-five solo exhibitions and more than one hundred group shows throughout the United States. He has received awards from the Native People of the Plains Show, Rapid City, SD; the Northern Plains Indian Art Market, Sioux Falls, SD; the Red Cloud Indian Art Show, Pine Ridge, SD; and the Santa Fe Indian Market, Santa Fe, NM.

Broer serves on the art acquisition boards of the Akta Lakota Museum in Chamberlain, SD, and Crazy Horse Memorial’s Indian Museum of North America in the Black Hills of South Dakota. His work is included in many collections at institutions including the Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center, Sioux Falls, SD; the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center, Chamberlain, SD; and the Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, NE. Broer resides in Hill City, SD. 

Free First Friday Gallery Talk: October 5, 2018 at 6 p.m.

November 21, 2018 - January 20, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery

Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. was an American production company, known for its seasonal television specials, particularly its work in stop motion animation. 

Rankin/Bass stop-motion features are recognizable by their visual style of doll-like characters with spheroid body parts, and ubiquitous powdery snow using an animation technique called "Animagic." 

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" first aired Sunday, December 6, 1964 and became one of the most popular and longest-running Christmas specials in television history.

Toys have been provided by Child’s Play Toys and can be purchased at www.ChildsPlayToysSF.com or at 233 S. Phillips Ave. Sioux Falls, SD.

August 18, 2018 - January 13, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Corner Gallery

In this video artwork by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker, an imperceptible message is spoken into an empty plastic water bottle and set adrift on the currents of runoff that form during a tropical downpour in Panama City. Swept away by the waters of chance and circumstance, the bottled message wanders and careens its way through a fleeting urban aquascape towards an unknown ear. Informed by the circular and episodic structure of Homer’s Odyssey, The Voice Adrift is a tale of alienation and communion, hope and despair and the frailty and resilience of human existence in the face of political, social and environmental crisis. 

While they also maintain individual practices, Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker have collaborated since 2006. Their videos playfully explore the intrinsic properties of found objects to generate incisive and poetic social criticism.

Conlon and Harker have exhibited their collaborations widely in solo shows at venues including Kadist, San Francisco (2018); The Spanish Cultural Center, Panama (2017); Diablo Rosso Gallery, Panama (2015); and El Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Guatemala (2014); as well as group shows at venues including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY (2014); Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2012); and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2009).

In 2010, Conlon and Harker received a production grant from the Harpo Foundation. Their collaborations are included in public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Tate Modern, London; the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris/San Francisco; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; and the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection at the Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru.

October 13, 2018 - January 6, 2019

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery

BAM! It’s a Picture Book: The Art Behind Graphic Novels presents eighty-one original works by some of the leading artists working in the arena of contemporary graphic novels. See works from such iconic books as "Baby Mouse," "Big Nate," "Lunch Lady," "Brody’s Ghost" and "Smile."

Graphic novels have gained immense popularity in recent years and have been the subject of scholarly studies, topics of museum exhibitions, and even the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. According to the American Library Association, they are among the fastest growing categories in publishing and bookselling.

Showcasing artwork by Mark Crilley, Matthew Holm, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Lincoln Peirce and Raina Telgemeier, BAM! It’s a Picture Book: The Art Behind Graphic Novels celebrates the art and literature of graphic novels.

The exhibition is organized by the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature in Abilene, Texas.

September 20 - November 18, 2018 

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery

Movers & Shakers: The Influencers of Comic Book Culture presents exciting original comic book art by some of the best artists in the business. See in-process sketches of your favorite characters from the Justice League and beyond, including Captain America, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Learn more about how comic books get made, and the artists behind iconic characters and scenes, including Barry Windsor-Smith, John Byrne, Doug Mahnke and many other significant comic book artists. Come celebrate super heroes, the pursuit of truth and justice, and the storylines and imagery that inspire us all. 

August 4 - December 2, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery

Become immersed in art that moves. Lisa Walcott’s work grapples with and makes light of the perils of daily life using installation, drawing, photography and kinetic sculpture. In this exhibition, the ubiquitous, relaxing action of a curtain blowing is uncannily controlled by a motor and strings. The curtain becomes a puppet, the implied breeze animatronic. The eerie, but beautiful effect of the mechanized wind surrounding the viewer creates a slow, meditative viewing experience.

Lisa Walcott received her MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2010, and has since exhibited her work nationally at venues including Land of Tomorrow in Louisville, KY, ACRE Projects in Chicago, IL and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, MI. Lisa Walcott resides in Holland, MI.

Meet the Artist!

Free First Friday Celebration: August 3, 2018

June 16 - September 16, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery 

Pose for a portrait in front of a dazzling butterfly backdrop composed of thousands of meticulously collaged photographs of butterfly and moth eyespots, and put on an eyespot temporary tattoo to complete your disguise. Termed 'deimatic' camouflage, this strategy of startling bullseyes of color and form is thought to protect winged insects by frightening or confusing predators. These colored marks also confuse the digital gaze — just as butterflies' spots confuse predators — and disrupt facial-recognition software, creating a new type of camouflage for the modern, digital world of privacy loss and online tracking. Through participation, seductive beauty and an awakening of the senses, Jenny Kendler asks us to allow ourselves to be bewildered by nature.

Jenny Kendler is an interdisciplinary artist, environmental activist and naturalist who lives in Chicago. Kendler holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art.

June 30 - October 21, 2018 

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery

For this exhibition, local luthier Josh Rieck created a guitar with materials sourced from throughout South Dakota. Lutherie is the art of making stringed musical instruments. See and hear Rieck’s guitar alongside photographs of the raw materials in their natural surroundings by photographer Alix Kyrie, as Rieck and Kyrie weave a visual story of the source of the sounds of this guitar. 

Josh Rieck received his master’s degree in music performance from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD, and his bachelor’s degree in music performance from Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD. He also completed his associate’s degree in stringed musical instrument repair at Minnesota State College Southeast in Red Wing, MN. Since beginning in lutherie, Rieck has built more than 50 instruments and repaired thousands. Based in Sioux Falls, Rieck repairs and builds instruments at his business J. Rieck Lutherie, plays with The Union Grove Pickers, is co-founder of Different Folk Records and is a member of the Guild of American Luthiers and the Ukulele Guild of Hawaii.

Alix Kyrie, based in Sioux Falls, is a freelance photographer whose work has been featured in local galleries and exhibitions, including Rug & Relic, Artists Against Hunger exhibitions and Black Sheep Coffee. Kyrie studied Landscape Architecture at South Dakota State University and studied photography alongside fellow Sioux Falls artists. Kyrie’s photography has been used for promotional material for the record labels Facedown, Different Folk and TeePee Records. Her work can also be found in 605 Magazine, Argus Leader’s The Link and Metal Underground Magazine and digitally on South Dakota Public Radio, Blues GR, Des Moines Musician Coalition, Statusfear Media and others. Kyrie’s work is included in private collections in Sioux Falls, California, Delaware and Colorado.

May 19 - October 7, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery 

Celebrating our local K-12 art teachers, this exhibition reminds us that art educators are artists, too. From public and private schools ranging from the Sioux Falls Metro Area to Luverne, and working in media ranging from paint to ceramics, the talent behind our local K-12 art programs is stunning. 

Free First Friday celebration: September 7, 2018

April 21 - August 12, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Corner Gallery 

Detailed trompe l’oeil paintings and stop motion video of handmade doilies from Lindsay Arnold’s Tediumseries explore myths of perfection and domesticity. In her paintings, Arnold reproduces every snag, tear, stain and thread of the doilies she sources from garage sales, neighbors and her own family. Tedium honors the difficult experiences which leave us worn, and acknowledges thankless repetitive labor. Table Dance, a stop-motion video, is a celebration of the handwork produced by women during the mid- to late-20th century. Over 160 doilies take to the dance floor, throwing off their matronly reputations to prove age is no barrier to having a good time.

Lindsay Arnold is an American-Canadian born in Rugby, ND and raised in North Portal, Saskatchewan. A self-taught artist, Arnold’s work has been exhibited at venues in Ottawa, Chicago, and Novi Sad, Serbia. She still lives in North Portal, population 123, with her husband and daughter. 

April 7 - July 29, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery 

See animals in a new light, and try your hand at the ultimate memory card game. 

In So Long, Farewell, artworks both playful and sobering invite us to consider our relationship with animals and our environment. The exhibition takes its name from Daisy Patton’s So Long, Farewell: Extinction in the Anthropocene Era, a playable memory card game consisting of animals from North and South America labeled as extinct in the wild or critically endangered. With over 600 cards total, So Long, Farewell is unwieldy and virtually unplayable without deep concentration and focus—something desperately needed now to stave off calamity. Complementing the game, works by Lori Larusso, Areca Roe and Sandra Williams explore the conflicting meanings we give animals: as food, companions, shapes for candies and decorations, and captive entertainment. Transforming trash to art, Calder Kamin’s whimsical portraits of animals made with plastic bags examine how items made for our convenience impact our environment.

May 12 - July 29, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery

Installation artist Liz Miller transforms the Visual Arts Center’s largest gallery into a landscape of draping textiles. Miller creates elaborate, abstract fictions that incorporate fragments of reality. The elegant, lacy silhouettes of imagery from sources such as firearms, killer bees, and deadly plants are spliced with imagined forms to create sculptural interludes that are absurd, menacing, and poetic. Liz Miller received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from the University of Minnesota. Miller’s large-scale, mixed-media installations and works on paper have been featured in solo and group exhibitions regionally, nationally and internationally. Miller’s awards include a 2013 McKnight Professional Development Grant from Forecast Public Art and a 2011 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant. Miller lives and works in Good Thunder, MN. She is a Professor of Installation and Drawing at Minnesota State University-Mankato.

April 5 - June 10, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Entrance Gallery

Bria, now 11, has donated over $13,550 to support endangered species and conservation. She is a founding member of the of the Endangered Species Coalition’s Endangered Species Youth Activists (ESYA) Network. A proud recipient of the Points of Lights award, a 2017 Young Eco-Hero Award winner, a member of the Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots Program and the winner of IFAW’s Animal Hero Award in 2016. She has won many art awards such as Doodle for Google, SD Jr. Duck Stamp, State Fish, Celebrating Art and the Get to Know Art Contest. She has painted over 200 species and supports the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Wolf Conservation Center in New York, Dr. Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots Programs and the Wildlife Warriors in Australia with the proceeds of her paintings.
She has published two coloring story books, one that helps fund the care of endangered species at The Great Plains Zoo. She is also passionate about shelter pets and has funded over $1,600 from the sale of her art to the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society. Bria has collaborated ideas and art with schools in Australia, New York and South Dakota. She has an active media site on Facebook, named “Faces of the Endangered” and a website pigtailsart.com where she sells her art to followers in 48 countries. Bria is excited to share her art and passion with the world. “All kids can change the world. We just need to work together and believe we can do great things.”

March 24 - June 24, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Shultz Gallery

Two and a half years ago, moving from the East Coast to South Dakota inspired Dana Southerland to begin a new series of self-portraits. As an African American woman in a predominantly white society, her self-awareness has been heightened, and her blackness has become increasingly salient. In the intimate space of the Shultz Gallery, Southerland’s photographs begin a conversation with the viewer about self-expression, our existence within a community, and cultivating connections. Dana Southerland is a lifestyle and fine art photographer based in Vermillion, SD. She studied photography, receiving her BFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design and her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

February 17 - August 12, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Egger Gallery

Familiar favorites join new acquisitions in this exhibition of artwork by Northern Plains Tribal artists from the Permanent Collection of the Visual Arts Center. See works by some of South Dakota’s preeminent artists, including Oscar Howe and Arthur Amiotte, alongside our newest addition to the Collection, Otter Bag by Emil Her Many Horses, awarded first place in Traditional Style Beadwork at the juried art show of the 2017 Northern Plains Indian Art Market. Emil Her Many Horses was born and raised on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Today, he is a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, D.C., and an accomplished artist in contemporary beadwork.

February 3 - May 13, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Jerstad Gallery

Tropical settings, paintings of Che Guevara on crumbling walls and scenes of vibrant everyday life appear in Kimble A. Bromley’s colorful paintings and prints of Havana and the Cuban landscape. This series, created after Bromley attended the 1994 Havana Biennial, gives us a glimpse of life in Cuba in the 1990s, before the country was opened to American visitors. Bromley, a Professor of Art at North Dakota State University, resides near Pelican Rapids, MN.

January 27 - April 22, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Everist Gallery

Arts Night 2018: A Ripple Effect showcases artists who positively impact the local art scene and the Visual Arts Center. This juried exhibition features diverse media and artists from near and far, and culminates in a live auction and gala on April 28, 2018. 

January 20 - July 8, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Permanent Collection Gallery

In this exhibition of abstract artwork from the Permanent Collection of the Visual Arts Center, abstract artworks invite us to invent meaning from splashes of color and drips and dots of paint. See artwork by well-known South Dakotan artists, including Jeff Freeman and Signe Stuart, and participate in Art Vibes, an interactive look at abstract art. Different people see different things in the same artworks, and we want to know what you see. Tell us how the artworks in the exhibition make you feel, and see how your reaction compares to the impressions of previous visitors.

January 13 - April 15, 2018

Visual Arts Center | Corner Gallery

Through a re-imagining of the initial sequence of the film “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), the fantasy world of cinema and the reality of Judy Garland’s complex life collide. Instead of taking Dorothy to Oz, the twister transports a young, hopeful Garland into the future where she encounters her disillusioned adult self. Formed in Sydney in 2002 and based in New York since 2012, Soda_Jerk is a 2-person art collective that approaches sampling as a form of rogue historiography. They have held solo exhibitions at international institutions including Videotage, Hong Kong; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC; Anthology Film Archives, New York and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.

December 9, 2017 - March 31, 2018 

Visual Arts Center | Contemporary Gallery 

Lakota storytelling from South Dakota’s pre-eminent ledger artist. The works of noted Oglala Lakota ledger artist Donald F. Montileaux are a journey through the complex art forms and storytelling of the Lakota people. Warriors, horses, buffalo and tipis in reds, blues, greens, yellows and oranges are blended, rubbed and polished on antique ledger pages. Donald Montileaux was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 2014; he lives and works in Rapid City, SD.
 

Dec. 2, 2017 - Mar. 18, 2018 | Shultz Gallery: Featuring Local Artists

Free First Friday Celebration: December 1, 2017

Espresso. Sugar. Friendship. For more than two decades, Connie Herring has been visiting with friends and loved ones over plates of tiramisu, and recording the experience in her journals. For this exhibition, Herring transforms her memories into a room-sized installation. Handmade books and pools of ribbon reminiscent of whipped cream will line the Shultz Gallery walls, inviting us to remember our own dinners with friends. Herring earned her MFA from the University of South Dakota; she works in her studio near Sioux Falls, SD.

Sept. 30, 2017 - Jan. 15, 2018 | Everist Gallery

Free First Friday Celebration: October 6, 2017

South Dakota’s finest art. This juried exhibition is the premier showcase for artists currently living and working in South Dakota. Celebrating the artistic innovations of South Dakotan artists, this travelling biennial exhibition and its catalog serve as historical records, documenting the work of the state’s most important and innovative contemporary artists.

Aug. 12 - Dec. 3, 2017 | Contemporary Gallery

Free First Friday Celebration: September 1, 2017

Midwestern Living. Using painting, printmaking and digital imaging, Emily Stokes presents goodnatured satirical images of country life from the viewpoint of someone new to the joys and challenges of rural life. She holds a BA from Wellesley College and received her MFA in printmaking from Arizona State University. Emily Stokes lives and works in Orange City, IA, where she teaches as an Assistant Professor of Art at Northwestern College.

Aug. 5 - Nov. 26, 2017 | Shultz Gallery: Featuring Local Artists

Free First Friday Celebration: August 4, 2017

The Vermeer of Sioux Falls. Nationally recognized and collected, local artist Anna Youngers explores the time-honored artistic themes of the human figure and the still life in a series of richly detailed oil paintings, revealing beauty in both the common and the extraordinary. With her classical atelier training, Youngers’ paintings allude to the work of the Renaissance and Baroque masters. Anna Youngers lives and works in Sioux Falls, SD.

July 29, 2017 - Jan. 8, 2018 | Corner Gallery

World-class video art. Internationally acclaimed artists Ann Hamilton and William Kentridge explore the mindfulness that accompanies monotony in video artworks on loan from the prestigious Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas. In these timebased artworks, a miniature camera explores the intricacy of the repetitive motion of sewing and animated charcoal drawings capture the intersection of writing and drawing.

July 15, 2017 - TBD | Egger Gallery

Inspiring action. Today’s Northern Plains Tribal artists use art to explore and comment on our nation’s history and current events. In this exhibition, works from the Permanent Collection of the Visual Arts Center by nationally prominent Northern Plains Tribal artists such as David Paul Bradley and Oscar Howe join artwork by select contemporary Native artists for a visual conversation on the capacity of art to inspire action.

July 8, 2017 - Jan. 7, 2018 | Permanent Collection Gallery

From the artist to the museum. A provenance is the story of the ownership of an artwork. Join us as we share the surprising stories behind some of the artworks in our Permanent Collection, as well as the stories of works by Harvey Dunn on loan from collectors with roots in Sioux Falls. See how art makes its way from artists to collectors and museums!

July 1 - Oct. 15, 2017 | Jerstad Gallery

Free First Friday Celebration: July 7 , 2017

Farmer. Teacher. Artist. Paul Peterson’s dreamlike landscapes reimagine traditional landscape painting through the lens of Peterson’s experience as an artist and farmer in South Dakota. Peterson’s work has been featured at the South Dakota Art Museum, as well as in the South Dakota Governor’s Biennial. Peterson has taught art at Freeman Academy and Black Hills State University; he currently lives and works in western South Dakota

Experience Origami

May 5 - June 11, 2017 | Everist Gallery - East

Free First Friday Celebration: June 2, 2017

Become an origami artist! Join local Japanese-American artist Reina Okawa, the artist behind the famous origami cranes installation in the lobby of the Washington Pavilion, to learn more about origami and add your artistic voice to a collaborative origami mural in our Everist Gallery.

Above the Fold

June 24 - Sept. 16, 2017 | Everist Gallery

The international traveling exhibition of the world’s best origami. Above the Fold is the first traveling exhibition to bring origami installations from around the world to North American audiences. In this exhibition, nine international artists push the boundaries of paper as a medium to create bold, provocative works. Paper is transformed into breathtaking sculpture, large-scale installations and conceptual works that express contemporary social, political and aesthetic ideas.

Above the Fold is curated by Meher McArthur and tour organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C.

Apr. 22 - July 30, 2017 | Shultz Gallery: Featuring Local Artists

Free First Friday Celebration: June 2, 2017

Drawing connections. J. Charles Cox’s large-scale drawings invite us to explore how we navigate the social connections created by our relationships and travels—both in our physical lives and in our digital personas. Layered lines evoke the traffic of daily commutes and the never-ending stream of digital communication that is part of twenty-first century life. Cox earned his MFA from the University of South Dakota and is currently an Instructor of Visual Arts at Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Apr. 15 - Aug. 6, 2017 | Contemporary Gallery

Free First Friday Celebration: May 5, 2017

Paint splashes brilliantly across large canvases. In these delicate and dense paintings, Teresa Dunn explores the profound change in her world view and the way she makes paintings since becoming a mother. More aware of the ephemeral nature of life and experience, her paintings tap into shifts in light, time and perceptions. Dunn received her MFA from Indiana University Bloomington, and is currently an Associate Professor of Painting at Michigan State University.

Feb. 25 - June 25, 2017 | Jerstad Gallery

Free First Friday Celebration: March 3, 2017

Painting outside the rectangle. Brian Frink’s brightly colored shaped canvases reflect the magical qualities he observes in the land of rural Minnesota. Poured and splattered paint alludes to natural forces such as rain, wind and gravity. Repeated speckles and lines evoke the texture of mist, soil and plants. Frink completed his MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is currently Chairperson of the Department of Art at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Feb. 11 - June 11, 2017 | Everist Gallery—West

Free First Friday Celebration: March 3, 2017

Super 2nd Saturday Printmaking Demonstration: Feb. 11, 2017

Inside every artist is a collector. Encounter the work of Carl Grupp, one of South Dakota’s preeminent artists, in the context of the artwork he collects from other artists. In this exhibition, Grupp’s playful printmaking joins the paintings, prints and sculptures with which he surrounds himself in his home for a new look at a wellknown artist. Grupp completed his MFA at Indiana University Bloomington, and is professor emeritus of art at Augustana University, where he taught art from 1969-2004.

Feb. 4 - July 21, 2017 | Corner Gallery

Free First Friday Celebration: Feb. 3, 2017

Walk inside a work of art. Marie Bannerot McInerney materializes the shifting nature of memory through a site-specific installation built around light. As you walk through a forest of hanging lightbulbs, your movement causes the light to change and reflect off of a Mylar-covered ceiling. McInerney earned her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Fiber Department at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Feb. 4 - Apr. 23, 2017 | Everist Gallery - East

Free First Friday Celebration: Feb. 3, 2017

Sioux Falls’ Premier Art Auction and Fundraiser. The 2017 Arts Night exhibition, REPRESENT, pays homage to the participating artists who positively impact the local art scene and the Visual Arts Center, culminating in a live art auction and gala on April 29, 2017. This juried exhibition features diverse media and styles. See landscapes, portraits and abstract artworks, as well as paintings, sculptures and photography from local artists and artists supporting the Visual Arts Center from across the miles.

Jan. 14 - July 2, 2017 | Permanent Collection Gallery

Super 2nd Saturday | Hipster Fashion Show: March 11, 2017

Visit this exhibition before it’s cool. Today’s hipsters are known for beards, flannel and following their own paths. The spirit of twenty-first century hipsterism, however, is not new. We combed our collection for art that breaks the mold and resonates with the contemporary hipster mindset. From early twentieth century paintings by L. Lova Jones to mid-century prints by Adolf Dehn, see the original hipsters in action.

Dec. 31, 2016 - July 9, 2017 | Egger Gallery

Reception: Friday, April 7, 2017

Welcome the new artists in our collection! Our collection of artwork by contemporary Northern Plains Tribal artists is growing! In this exhibition, recent acquisitions of artworks by James Star Comes Out, Todd Bordeaux, Henry Payer, Keith BraveHeart and Donald Montileaux join select paintings, beadwork and garments by the artists. See new works from some of the region’s most dynamic emerging and established artists in the context of the Visual Arts Center’s Collection of Northern Plains Tribal Art.

Dec. 12, 2015 - April 10, 2016 | Contemporary Gallery

Reception: Friday, December 11, 2015

Consisting of approximately 300 individual ceramic pieces, this installment of Ned Day’s Loopapalooza is the largest incarnation of the project yet. Day’s loops have traveled around the U.S., most recently appearing in Providence, Rhode Island. Ned Day, a ceramicist and sculptor, received his MFA from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and teaches at the Great Plains Art Institute at Sinte Gleska University.

Dec. 12, 2015 - March 6, 2016 | Shultz Gallery

Reception: Friday, December 11, 2015

In vibrant watercolors, Barbara Sparks depicts the reflections she sees in the everyday sights of Sioux Falls—motorcycles, downtown storefronts, her garden—as well as in imagery from her sailboat, where she spends five months of each year in the Caribbean. Sparks moved to Sioux Falls from Colorado. Before studying watercolors, she worked in pottery and pursued a successful career in executive management.

Jan. 16 - July 10, 2016 | Permanent Collection Gallery

Using pieces from the Permanent Collection of the Visual Arts Center, this exhibition creates a visual representation of Badger Clark’s poem, “The Free Wind,” through artists including Bob Aldern, Sheila Agee and Mary Groth. Badger Clark was appointed the first Poet Laureate of South Dakota in 1937. Clark’s cowboy poetry is known for its rhythmic cadence and vivid depiction of life in the American West

Feb. 6 - June 12, 2016 | Jerstad Gallery

Reception: February 5, 2016, 5-7 p.m. | Concert: 7:30pm, Belbas Theater

In Echo Lines, Bruce Preheim explores new territory in a series of abstracted and nonrepresentational works juxtaposed with the figurative pieces for which he is most known. Preheim’s gestural mark-making yields paintings with a strong sense of rhythm. A seasoned musician as well as a painter, Preheim received his MA from West Virginia University and completed further graduate work at the University of South Dakota.

Feb. 13 - July 31 | Aug. 6 - Jan. 15, 2016 | Egger Gallery

View a selection of artwork created by contemporary Northern Plains Tribal artists. The Egger Gallery features two rotating exhibitions of Northern Plains Tribal Art in 2016, drawing inspiration from the Permanent Collection of the VAC and featuring artwork on loan from local collectors and other institutions. See favorites from the Permanent Collection including works by Oscar Howe and Arthur Amiotte in dialogue with contemporary and historical artworks.

Feb. 20 - May 22 | Everist & Corner Galleries

Reception: March 4, 2016

The VAC, in partnership with Argus Leader Media, presents this feature exhibition exploring the art of photojournalism. Featured photographers Joe Ahlquist, Elisha Page, Jay Pickthorn and Emily Spartz Weerheim convey the stories of our community through photography. Experience photos of everyday life in Sioux Falls, as well as photos of pivotal moments in the news alongside commentary from the photographers who captured these funny, tragic, beautiful, and emotional images.

Feb. 27 - May 1 | Everist Gallery

Reception: Friday March 4, 2016

The 2016 Arts Night exhibition, In the Making: Sustaining the Arts for 55 Years, pays homage to the participating artists and community that have continually supported the Visual Arts Center over the years. This juried exhibition features diverse media and artists from near and far, and culminates in a live auction and gala on May 7, 2016.

March 12 - June 5 | Shultz Gallery

Reception: Friday April 1, 2016

Nostalgia and childhood fun permeate Lamont Hunt’s fanciful character illustrations. Hunt depicts imagination in action; in his illustrations, children embody their pop culture heroes. View Hunt’s animation reel alongside his illustrations, and go behind the scenes of the process of turning sketches into illustrations and animation. A South Dakota native, Lamont Hunt now works as an illustrator and animator in the Los Angeles area.

April 16 - Aug. 7 | Contemporary Gallery

Reception: Friday, May 6, 2016

Our Natures consists of two large printmaking and fiber installations that explore the interaction between human knowledge and the natural world. Visitors are invited to meander through these installations, and become encompassed by botanical imagery and layered audio features, including QR codes. Lena Ellis-Boatman, a printmaker residing in Howell, Michigan, received her MFA from Michigan State University.

May 28 - Aug. 28 | Everist Gallery

Reception: Friday, June 3, 2016

This exhibition includes 19 large-format portraits of some of the most fascinating celebrity members of the influential baby boom generation captured by renowned American photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Experience a scent station and a touch-screen with behind-the-scenes videos of the photo shoots. This exhibition comes to the VAC on loan from the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

May 28 - Sept. 10 | Corner Gallery

Reception: Friday, June 3, 2016 | Gallery Talk: Saturday, Sept. 10, 2016

In Spatial Play, Steven Stradley’s paintings activate the periphery of the gallery—the edges, the ceiling, the floor. Through a site-specific installation, Stradley highlights architectural features that often go unnoticed, such as light switches and vents. Stradley received his MFA from Michigan State University and currently teaches at Tuacahn High School for the Performing Arts and Dixie State University in St. George, Utah.

June 11 - Sept. 4 | Shultz Gallery

Reception: Friday, July 1, 2016

See familiar buildings and scenes of Sioux Falls rendered with a draftsman’s eye for detail and a sensitivity to the play of light in this exhibition of Jim Sturdevant’s oil and watercolor paintings. Sturdevant’s landscapes and architectural portraits lovingly depict the landmarks and neighborhoods of Sioux Falls. A native of Sioux Falls, Jim Sturdevant still calls this city home.

June 18 - Oct. 16 | Jerstad Gallery

Reception: Friday, July 1, 2016

Anna Reich works at the intersection of documentary and fine art photography. In No One Asked Us, Reich presents her photographs of Post-Soviet Lithuania and Latvia as physical documents of cultural and collective memory. Anna Reich received her MFA from the Milton Avery School of Art at Bard College and teaches as an Assistant Professor of art photography and art education at Augustana University.

July 16 - Jan. 8 | Permanent Collection Gallery

Visit the Permanent Collection Gallery for an experience that engages the imagination and the senses. Artworks selected from the Permanent Collection of the VAC will appeal to the sense of touch through real and implied texture, as well as the senses of sight, taste, and smell through colorful abstract works that evoke the experiences of life. Customized sound elements complete the exhibition experience, and invite viewers to consider what sounds static artworks would make if they could speak. The artists featured in this exhibition include Mel Spinar and Carl Grupp.

Aug. 13 - Dec. 4 | Contemporary Gallery

Reception: Friday, October 7, 2016

Local collectors Jerome and Mary Freeman have been collecting the work of regional artists for over 30 years. The Freeman Collection contains sculptures and paintings, as well as a substantial collection of bolo ties created by silversmiths, artisans, Native artists, and local artists who recognized Jerome’s inclination to wear bolo ties. The Freemans live near Brandon, South Dakota.

Sept. 10 - Jan. 29 | Everist Gallery

Reception: Friday, October 7, 2016

Walk among sculptural sea creatures as Steve Bormes transforms the largest gallery of the VAC into an over 4,000-square-foot aquarium. Bormes constructs his assemblage sculptures from found objects like vintage boat motors, potato ricers and Turkish butter churns. Lighting elements bring Bormes’s sea creatures to brilliant life. Steve Bormes received his BS in Biology and Math from the University of South Dakota, and lives and works in Sioux Falls.

Sept. 10 - Dec. 11 | Shultz Gallery

Reception: Friday, October 7, 2016

Terry Mulkey’s subtle abstract paintings create dialogue between shapes and marks, suggesting vulnerability, motion and change. Mulkey received his BA degree from the University of Sioux Falls, and his MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He was an Assistant Professor of Art and the Art Department Chair at the University of Sioux Falls for four years. Terry Mulkey resides in Arizona and maintains close ties with the Sioux Falls art community.

Sept. 24 - Jan. 22 | Corner Gallery

Reception: Friday, October 7, 2016

In this video installation, Walter Portz reflects on the process of ushering a loved one into the afterlife. Layering imagery, audio and original poetry drawn from memories of losing his father to a long illness, Portz’s large-scale video projections evoke the otherworldliness of memory and loss. He received his BA in photography from the University of Minnesota and now lives and works in Sioux Falls. Walter Portz has been working in professional photography for twelve years

Oct. 22 - Feb. 19 | Jerstad Gallery

Reception: Friday, November 4, 2016

Drawing from literary sources and the history of the Great Plains and the American West, T.L. Solien creates colorful mixed media collages and paintings. A native of Fargo-Moorhead, Solien received his MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and currently teaches as a Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Earlier in his career, Solien worked in a studio on Phillips Avenue in downtown Sioux Falls.

Dec. 10 - April 9 | Contemporary Gallery

Reception: Friday, February 3, 2017

Inspired by Ceca Cooper’s travels and studies of nature, the paintings in Elsewhere and Here explore a range of artistic styles, from the design sensibilities of ancient Arabic works in Marrakech, to the works of the Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudí. Ceca Cooper received her MFA from the University of South Dakota, and currently teaches as an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Sioux Falls.

Dec. 4 - March 6 | Entrance Gallery

Reception: Friday, December 4, 2015

PostSecret: The Pop-Up Exhibition gives viewers a close look at PostSecret, the internationally recognized public art project in which people confess their secrets on postcards, anonymously. The postcards displayed in the Visual Arts Center represent the broad range of funny, unsettling, and devastating secrets shared by contributors to PostSecret. The content of this exhibition is best suited for mature audiences.