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Past Gallery Exhibits
April 28 to May 25, 2012
2012 Diploma Works Exhibition
Presented annually, the Diploma Works exhibit features the
work of International School of Art and Design graduating BFA students. The
exhibit pieces represent each graduating student's final body of work and take
the form of intensive research projects, series of individual artworks, or
design prototypes.
March 29 to April 18, 2012 -- Finlandia University International School of Art & Design
Juried Student Exhibition
The annual juried exhibition includes work by International
School of Art & Design students studying the fine art and design
disciplines of drawing, painting and illustration, ceramic and glass, fiber and
fashion design, sculpture, product and interior design, and graphic design and
digital media.
February 16 to March
20 -- Aimo Hyvärinen :SNOW & ICE
January 19 to
February 11 -- Visual Voices
VSA Michigan, The State Organization on Arts and
Disability
Engage, Create,
Empower...these words capture the essence of Visual Voices, a traveling exhibit
curated by VSA Michigan, The State Organization on Arts and Disability. The exhibit features the work of 48 Michigan
artists, including Christina Coon and Paul Waisanen, both of Hancock. Coon and Waisanen
are long-time participants in a VSA-sponsored art class at Hancock's Oak House,
a group home for individuals with mild to moderate developmental disabilities.
Dec 1, 2011 to Jan 14, 2012-- Contemporary Finnish American Artist Series 20th Year Retrospective
The year 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the Contemporary Finnish-American Artist Series at the Finlandia University Gallery in Hancock, Michigan. This retrospective exhibit includes all 19 artists from the series.
The long-running series, the only art exhibition of its kind in the U.S., showcases the work of prominent Finnish-American artists and designers, and has meaningfully advanced the appreciation of fine art and design within the Finnish American community.
Inspiration found in their Finnish ancestry plays a strong role in the work of these artists. Some draw from stories of Finland heard in their youth, while others incorporate life lessons from their immigrant grandparents. Some summon the strong connection to nature so prominent in Finland, and others are influenced by the strength of contemporary Finnish art and culture.
Oct 27 to Nov 22, 2011 -- Women and Water Rights II:Rivers of Regeneration
Liz Dodson and James Brenner, Amada Mayumi, Cheryl Wilgren, Rosa Musket, Christine Flavin, Yueh-mei Cheng, Melissa Hronkin, Robert Grame, Phyllis Fredendall, and Denise Vandeville
"We are facing a global water crisis." These words provided the motivation for a juried exhibit and symposium organized by the Women's Caucus for Art, Minnesota Chapter held at the Katherine Nash Gallery on the University of Minnesota Campus, 2010. Finlandia University's Women and Water Rights II: Rivers of Regeneration will feature artwork from four artists who participated in the Minnesota exhibit along with local and regional artists. This art exhibition and related programs will underscore the message that water access is a universal human right.
Sept 22- Oct 22, 2011 -- Tracy Krumm and Carol Lambert
 Explorations: The Flexible Linear Element
Tracy Krumm's work embraces traditionally "domestic" and gender-specific techniques, like crochet and blacksmithing, transforming her materials into conceptual explorations of feminism, popular culture, personal history and identity. For this exhibit, Krumm will be creating a sculpture utilizing knitted shapes made by Hubbell resident, 76 year old Carol Lambert. Krumm will be incorporating a number of these unwrapped shapes, along with over a mile of handmade ropes made by twining, finger knitting and finger crochet, into different interlaced and knotted textile structures.
January 20 to February 19, 2011 - Ilkka Väätti: Mundus
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Illka Vaatti, "Sura"Finnish artist Ilkka Väätti has
been described as a pictorial kleptomaniac, and the artist himself
would be the first to admit his guilt. Choosing details from the
pictorial language of past cultures, Väätti's modernist compositions
incorporate fragments from medieval paintings, from Asian mandalas, or
from a mosaic floor in Istanbul. He is an ethnographer, an explorer of
the memory of mankind, and a seeker of archetypes. |
December 2 to January
14, 2011 - 20thAnnual Contemporary Finnish American Artist
Series: Dina Kantor: Finnish and Jewish
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How
does Judaism survive in a country where there are only two synagogues?
In a nation of 5.3 million people, how do 1,500 Jews maintain their
cultural identity? Artist Dina Kantor explores these questions in a
series of photographs documenting the lives, work and religious
traditions of the small Jewish community in Finland. Kantor's
photographs investigate the construction of identity and community in
our increasingly complex and multi-cultural world.
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October 21 to
November 20, 2010 -- Natsu: Path
of Particles
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Sparkling, complex, and organic are words that only begin to describe the bead sculptures of artist Natsu. Using small plastic beads, strung together and woven in a labor-intensive process, Natsu creates sculptures that explore the origins, structure and existence of the universe, with a view to both the scientific and the mythological. Born and educated in Japan, Natsu now lives in New York City. |
September 20 to October 16, 2010 -- Wendy Brawer Green Maps of the World: Charting a Sustainable Future
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One small map started a revolution in the way cities are mapped. First printed in 1992, the Green Apple Map was designed to help people experience New York City's wealth of ecological resources, community spirit and culturally significant places. Under the direction of ecological designer Wendy Brawer, this one map sparked the global Green Map movement. Today, nearly 700 locally-led Green Map projects in 55 countries have utilized its universally shared visual language of icons and adaptable framework. Maps from all over the world, including our own Keweenaw Green Map being developed by the Sustainable Keweenaw Resource Center.
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Aug 12 to September 11, 2010 -- Carole Harris: Improvisations
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Filled with saturated
color and complex patterns, Carole Harris's quilts evoke the rhythms, energy
and movement found in African-American music, particularly Blues and Jazz. "I
try to think of my work as the visualization of the music that inspires me,"
notes Harris. "Quilts are like
paintings, full of color, texture and design." Harris's visual vocabulary comes from a mixture of
traditional quilt patterns, forged with some of her own imagery, impressions
and experimentations.
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June 10 to August 7, 2010 -- Aino Martikainen: On the Wide Waters (Väljillä Vesillä)
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"On the Wide Waters" (Väljillä Vesillä), an exhibition of photographs by
Finnish artist Aino Martikainen, is featured at the Finlandia
University Gallery, located in the Finnish American Heritage Center,
Hancock, June 10 to August 7, 2010. With the seventh poem of the Kalevala
as inspiration, Aino Martikainen has been photographing Lake Oulujärvi
in the Oulu Province of central Finland since 2004. In her exhibition of
photographs, Martikainen captures the poetic vistas and wide horizons
of Lake Oulujärvi, and the minute details of beach foundlings left by
its declining waters. |
April 1 to April 20, 2010 -- Finlandia University International School of Art & Design Juried Student Exhibition
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The annual juried exhibition includes work by International School of
Art & Design students studying the fine art and design disciplines
of drawing, painting and illustration, ceramic and glass, fiber and
fashion design, sculpture, product and interior design, and graphic
design and digital media. |
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February 18 to March 24, 2010 -- Finlandia University International School of Art & Design Alumni Exhibit 2010
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Finlandia University's International School of Art & Design
will hold its first alumni exhibit. Over the 11 years since the
inception of the BFA degree program at Finlandia University the FUISAD
had graduated 87 students in five concentrations including Ceramic
Design, Fiber/Fashion Design, Interdisciplinary Design, Graphic Design
and Studio Arts. This exhibit will spotlight the continuing work of
these alumni artists active in the arts profession.
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January 11 to February 11, 2010 -- Melinda Steffy: Remnants and Residual Memories
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Philadelphia artist Melinda Steffy's current painting/textile/objects
draw from her interests in memory, mythology, alchemy, geology, family history, and music. Based on the belief that materials retain meaning from their previous uses, items like antique lace, the spice turmeric, tarnished copper, dead ladybugs, and found barrettes make their way into rhythmic visual compositions that consider questions of memory, the loss of memory, and the construction of systems that sustain memory. |
December 3, 2009, to January 3, 2010 -- Series: Bruce Niemi Heavy Metal/Graceful Forms
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As a twelve year old, Bruce Niemi was introduced to welding by his father, a self-taught abstract sculptor and ornamental iron artist. Bruce was fascinated and his passion for sculpting began, leading him to study sculpture at Northern Illinois University. Ranging from small pedestal pieces to larger wall and free-standing sculptures, Niemi's art is characterized by an uplifting positive nature. "My faith in God, the power and beauty of nature and the energy and balance of dance are the driving forces behind my art," notes Niemi. "It would be safe to say if you studied my art you would know my heart." Niemi has 28 large scale public sculptures located across the United States and his work is represented in 20 corporate collections. He has exhibited in numerous solo, group and juried exhibitions. |
October 26 to November 27, 2009 -- Gerard Brown: Seeing and Reading
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Gerard Brown makes drawings that sit at the intersection of seeing and
reading. His drawings invite viewers to examine the idea that pictures
can be read. The notion of the image as a form of text was central to much of the art making and theory of the late 20th
century. By employing various writing systems (Braille and others) as
building blocks of pictures, Brown invites the viewer to be a reader and
the reader to be a viewer in hopes that something might be gained in
the space between these parts of our selves. "A photograph of a person
or a city is one form of description, and a poem about that person or
place is another," he observes, "but what happens when these two
perfectly adequate forms of description are turned on one another?" |
September 17 to October 20, 2009 -- Terri Saulin: Lines of Flight
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Flipping, deleting, expanding, speeding up, slowing down, layering and
distilling visual material into art pieces, Terri Saulin creates artwork
organic in nature and layered with meaning. Her interest in biology,
botany, classical music, geology, and gastronomy are evident in every
nook and crevice of her densely textured ceramic pieces. Although her
process begins in sculpture, it develops into drawing (a backward play
on the traditional preliminary sketch to final sculpture). Drawings and
plaster prints, supplemented by their ceramic references will be
exhibited in Lines of Flight. |
July 23 to September 11, 2009 -- Derek Guthrie
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British
artist, art critic and co-founder of the influential art magazine New
Art Examiner, Derek Guthrie will premiere his artwork in the United
States at Finlandia University. Known for decades in Chicago for his
work in art criticism, Guthrie is credited with having introduced a new
set of writers that would become prominent in their field. Concentrating
on artists, exhibitions, and critical issues in Chicago and the
Midwest, the New Art Examiner (published 1973-2002) provided an
alternative to such magazines as Art News, Art in America, and Artforum.
Influenced by nature and his love of oriental art, Guthrie will exhibit
a retrospective of his own work and will visit Finlandia to work with
students and present a public lecture. |
May 28 to July 17, 2009 -- John Hubbard: Recent Works
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Drawing inspiration from the well-known Canadian painters, The Group of
Seven, and the California Impressionists John Hubbard’s landscape
paintings express the rugged beauty and luminous light of the Northern
landscape. Closely cropped water patterns, treetops viewed from below
and the blue green light of the deep forest fill Hubbard’s canvases in
this series of work created during a recent sabbatical. Working alla
prima, from the Italian “at once”, Hubbard created each painting in one
sitting. The productive and creative momentum created by this intensive
research continues to influence his painting. A professor in the School
of Art and Design at Northern University for nearly 40 years, Hubbard
teaches drawing, painting and printmaking. |
June 3 to September 11, 2008 -- Jari Arffman: Counterparts
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Counterparts is an exhibit of black and white photography by Finnish
photographer Jari Arffman. Following its premiere at the Kajaani Art
Museum, Finland, the exhibit visits the Finlandia University Gallery and
the Nordic Heritage Museum, Seattle. Counterparts is a compilation of
three periods of Arffman's work. The photos combine multiple real cities
into the imaginary cities of St. Pragburg. Utopia, and St. Utopia.
Arffman writes that the photos give prominence to a way of being that is
not dependent solely on our position on the globe. |
April 22 to May 22, 2008 -- FUISAD 2008 Diploma Works Exhibition
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Presented annually, the Diploma Works exhibit features the work of
International School of Art and Design graduating BFA students. The
exhibit pieces represent each graduating student's final body of work
and take the form of intensive research projects, series of individual
artworks, or design prototypes. This year's exhibition featured 23 BFA
graduating seniors and was held in two locations, the Finlandia
University Gallery and the Portage Campus.
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March 28 to April 15, 2008 -- FUISAD Juried Student Exhibition
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The annual juried exhibition includes work by International School of
Art & Design students studying the fine art and design disciplines
of drawing, painting and illustration, ceramic and glass, fiber and
fashion design, sculpture, product and interior design, and graphic
design and digital media. This exhibit had over 175 entries and we
exhibited 77 pieces from 38 students. |
February 7 to March 19, 2008 -- Jim Denomie: Recent Work
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Minnesota artist Jim Denomie returns to Finlandia University by popular
demand after working with students in the Art and Design program in
2004. Born on the Lac Courte Orielles reservation in Northern Wisconsin,
Denomie's work deals with critical issues pertaining to the status of
contemporary Native American people, including cultural heritage and
evolving Native identities. "As an Ojibwe artist," Denomie writes, "I
use canvas to tell stories in a conceptually abstract way, combining
symbolism, metaphor, and popular imagery to speak about the realities of
today's world." |
December 20 to January 31, 2008 -- Celebration of the Upper Peninsula as Home: A Traveling Art Exhibition 2007-2008
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Organized by the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition, eleven
Upper Peninsula artists pay tribute to the beauty of the land and
concern for its protection. This exhibit will travel to venues
throughout the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. Artists exhibiting
include Ingrid Cline Blixt, Joyce Koskenmaki, Ron Lukey, John Lundeen,
Jan Manniko, Rex Marsh, Eric Munch, Vicki Allison Phillips, Christine
Saari, Peg Sandin, and Patrick St. Germain
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November 15 to December 13, 2007 -- 17th Annual Contemporary Finnish American Artist Series: John Lundeen
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Finnish-American artist John Lundeen works from his studio on the
shores of Lake Superior. Images of the lake act as a backdrop for
Lundeen's metaphorical paintings where boats, fruit, and mathematical
formulas all float above the surface of the water in a playful
expression of the wonders of nature and the human mind.
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October 11 to November 8, 2007 -- 2006 International Sumi-E Painting Contest and Exhibition
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As Director of The Federation of American-Asian Culture and Art,
International School of Art And Design Professor Yueh-mei Cheng traveled
to Japan and Taiwan last spring to participate in the Jury committee for the 2006 International Asian Sumi-E Painting Contest and Exhibition. This
exhibit has been exhibited at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art in
Japan, the Zen Mountain Art Institute in Taichung, Taiwan, and the Osaka
Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan. Part of the award-winning artwork will
travel to Finlandia's campus for its premiere in the United States. |
September 13 to October 4, 2007 -- Finlandia University International School of Art and Design Faculty Exhibit
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An exhibition featuring the new works of Finlandia University Art and
Design faculty Niki Belkowski, Jon Brookhouse, Yueh-mei Cheng, Carrie
Flaspohler, Phyllis Fredendall, Rick Loduha and Denise Vandeville |
July 26 to September 7, 2007 -- Cherie Sampson: In/Of Nature
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Environmental, performance and video artist Cherie Sampson often works
in the natural environment making site-specific works with wood and
other local materials in wild, public and rural locations. Her work
within the landscape comes from a desire to connect with the raw forces
of nature and its cycles of generation, decay and renewal. Representing
all aspects of an environment from sensory and elemental to historical,
Sampson's art strives to communicate a primal link between human life,
culture and nature. |
June 7 to July 21, 2007 -- Kotiväki: Daniel and Tiffany Besonen
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The sculptural installation Kotiväki (the Finnish word for family) is
the dialogue of a modern Finnish-American mother and father as they
build family, identity, and home through the lenses of tradition and
modern reality. Drawn to the visceral and content-rich qualities of
sewing pattern paper, beeswax, basswood logs, copper wire, vintage
wooden ironing boards and other domestic found materials, Tiffany
Besonen constructs multiple pear-shaped forms into mixed-media
narratives about identity, biology and motherhood. With modern tools and
his great-great grandfather Elias Pakkala's century-old tools, Daniel
Besonen's log structures incorporate stone with traditional Finnish log
techniques, honoring his Finnish heritage while examining contemporary
architectural forms. Both Daniel and Tiffany Besonen use traditional
materials in new ways, similar to how their ancestors "made do" with
what was available to them. |
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