Wendell Arneson 2009

An Artist Statement Extended
Wendell H. Arneson

Thoughts on Creativity
"The paint knows the picture better than the painter. ..everyone who looks at the canvas goes back over the same road as the artist”.

George Braque

"The artist should fear to become a slave of detail. He should strive to express his thought and not the surface of it. ..the artist has only to remain true to his dream and...must see naught but the vision beyond." To describe the quest for that vision, Ryder chose an unconventional simile: "Have you ever seen an inch worm crawl up a leaf or
twig, and there clinging to the very end, revolve in the air, feeling for something to reach? That's like me. I am,trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have a footing."

Albert Pinkham Ryder I

The artist Philip Guston (1913-1980), who bravely returned to imagery late in his career as a painter of abstractions, perhaps best revealed the entanglement between artist and image as manifested in paint: "You are faced with what seems like an impossibility -fixing an image which you can tolerate. What can be Where? Erasures and destructions, criticism and judgments of one's acts, even as they force change in oneself, are still preparations merely reflecting the mind's will and movement. There is a burden here, and it is the weight of the familiar .Yet this is the material of a working (process) which from time to time needs to see itself, even though it is reluctant to
appear ...Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end, it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or a form that has not been lived through."

Philip Guston

"It is not the artist who creates the symbol, quite the contrary , it is the symbol that imposes itself on the artist."

Aurturo Schwarz (author)

An Artist Statement on the Birds
Wendell H. Arneson

Images of birds find their way into humankind's desire for flight on the painted cave walls of Chauvet in Southern France over 30,000 years ago. The painted birds (there only a few-are wavering silhouettes in red and ochre. Their wings fully open in flight, the birds are strikingly similar to look and feel to a hand print. . .fingers splayed outward like wings. Hand prints that serve as a symbol for flight, the spirit, are as frank and straight forward as they are enigmatic.

Bird images have shown up throughout the centuries globally from ancient Egypt to Mesopotamia, from China to Latin America, from western painters Jean-Simeon Chardin to Georges Braque, Kiki Smith, and Jean Michel Basquiat, and numerous other contemporary artists

Humans must have always believed that birds could reveal more to them than the mere earthbound creatures. Birds appear suddenly from out of the moon or the sun or the clouds. They move beyond our reach and to places unknown, and they are the most difficult animal to ensnare. Birds, with the keenest eyesight of any animal in the
world, must have seen something out there. Surely, birds withhold secrets worth knowing. The ancient Egyptians understood birds’’ clandestine power. This must be why they chose birds to represent the more spiritual aspects of humankind.. .which were believed to ascend toward the sky in the afterlife. Birds, like the human spirit, were
symbols of the afterlife and distilled weight and weightlessness, grounding and and ascension, the known and the unknown. Birds were the perfect metaphor for the secret passage of the soul.

Birds are exotic mysteries captured, flight arrested, messages held up to our gaze. They provide a symbol and image to consider mystery and magic. I still marvel at the magic of flight, I marvel at the process. . .the doing, the being, the ascending and descending of flight. . .especially watching any bird and certainly plane ascend to the heavens headed for its prescribed destination.. . . it is magical and mysterious. I am interested and challenged by the making, the process, and in making art that raises questions. . . works that have the leave the room for, require, a sense of mystery and ambiguity.

“The artist should fear to become a slave of detail. He should strive to express his thought and not the surface of it. . . the artist has only to remain true to his dream and. . . must see naught but the vision beyond.” To describe the quest for that vision, Ryder chose an unconventional simile: “Have you ever seen an inch worm crawl up a leaf or twig, and there clinging to the very end, revolve in the air, feeling for something to reach? That’s like me. I am trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have a footing.”

Albert Pinkham Ryder

Art, for me, does not provide answers but rather provokes questions and seeks possibilities. There is a degree of remembering, forgetting, and re-remembering that is paramount to the process of creating this work. I interweave a reflection of the past with observation of the present - family, gender roles, loss, hope, place, search for spirituality, and global consciousness.

This work addresses aspects of interior space; its physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual connotations. I am interested in the dialogue between the anonymity of the crowd and the alienation of the isolated individual. The process of constructing the work acknowledges memory as a significant ingredient in painting. It allows me to seek clarity of ideas while honoring mystery and ambiguity.

Wendell H. Arneson

Wendell Arneson

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Born in Barneveld, Wisconsin

EDUCATION

1995 Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM - Study with Gregory Amenoff
1994 Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM - Study with Nathan Oliveria
1978 MFA Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
1970 Art Education Certification, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
1968 BA, Luther College, Decorah, IA

Currently Professor of Art
St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN

GRANTS AND AWARDS

2007 Research Grant, St. Olaf College
1999 Research Travel Grant, Italy and British Isles, St. Olaf College
1994 Research and Development Grant, Santa Fe, NM, St. Olaf College
1993 Art in Embassies Program, Oslo, Norway
1992 Research Grant, Italy and Ireland, St. Olaf College
1990 Art in Embassies Program, Rwanda, Africa
1985 Travel research Grant, France and British Isles, St. Olaf College
1984 Major Painting Award, Watercolor USA, Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, MO
1978 Drawing Award, Van Wert Museum of Art, Van Wert, OH
1978 Major Drawing Award, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

EXHIBITIONS (selected)

2009 Grace Chosy Gallery, “Journeys”, Madison, WI
2009 Groveland Gallery,“Cascading”, Minneapolis, MN
2007 Grace Chosy Gallery, “ Men In Black “, Madison ,WI
2007 Groveland Gallery,“Uncovering”, Minneapolis, MN
2007 Woodwalk Gallery, “Discovering”, Egg Harbor, WI
2007 Flaten Art Museum, St Olaf College, Northfield, Mn
2005 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
2004 Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter MN
2004 Peace Prize Forum, St. Olaf College
2004 Flaten Art Museum, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
2004 Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2004 Northfield Arts Guild, Northfield, MN
2004 National Oil Painting Exhibition, Wichita Art Center, Wichita, KN
2003 International Peace Price Forum, Concordia College, Moorhead, MN (group)
2003 Genzel Gallery, Peninsula Art School, Fish Creek, WI
2003 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
2003 Concordia College, Moorhead, MN
2002 National Small Oil Painting Exhibition (group), Wichita Art Center, Wichita, KN
2002 9/11 Remembered (group): Rochester Art Museum, Rochester, MN
2000 Steensland Art Museum, St. Olaf College
2000 Rochester Art Museum (group), Rochester, MN
2000 Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2000 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1999 Lutheran Brotherhood, Minneapolis, MN
1999 Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, WI
1999 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1999 Luther College, Decorah, IA
1997 Northfield Arts Guild Gallery, Northfield, MN
1996 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1996 Witter Gallery, Storm Lake, IA
1994 Lands End Corporate Headquarters, Dodgeville, WI
1994 Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, WI
1993 Arts on Grand, Spencer, IA
1993 Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, WI
1993 Bridge Square Gallery, Northfield, WI
1992 Luther-Northwestern Seminary, St. Paul, MN
1992 Waseca Art Center, Waseca, MN
1992 Minnesota Landscape Invitational, Minneapolis, MN
1991 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1991 Steensland Art Museum, St. Olaf College
1990 Kohn Gallery, St. Paul, MN
1991 Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, WI
1991 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1989 Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, WI
1987 Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1987 Steensland Art Museum, Northfield, MN
1986 St. Norbert College, DePere, WI
1986 Kohn Gallery, St. Paul, MN
1986 Seuferer-Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1985 Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, WI
1985 Kohn Gallery, St. Paul, MN.
1984 Kohn Gallery, St. Paul, MN
1984 Rockford College, Rockford, IL
1984 Luther College, Decorah, IA
1983 Owatonna Art Center, Owatonna, MN
1983 Seuferer-Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1982 Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH
1979 Seuferer-Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
1979 Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Fish Creek, WI
1979 Northfield Art Guild Gallery, Northfield, MN
1980 Allen Rubiner Gallery, Royal Oak, MI

CORPORATE AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS (selected)

Ford Motor Corporation 3M Corporation
First Bank Corporation General Motors Corporation
Prudential Life Insurance Co. Wisconsin TB Inc.
University of Wisconsin Clinical Science Center
Employers Insurance of Wausau Leonard, Street, and Deinard
Excello Corporation Nicolet Instrument Corporation
Northfield Public Library Miller Art Center
Luther College St. Olaf College
Princeton University United Bank Corporation
Steensland Art Museum Murphy, Stoker, and Brewster
Heritage Insurance Concordia College
Hillstrom Museum of Art
3M Corporation
General Motors Corporation
Wisconsin TB Inc.
Leonard, Street, and Deinard
Nicolet Instrument Corporation
Miller Art Center
St Olaf College
United Bank Corporation
Murphy, Stoker, and Brewster
Concordia College

REPRESENTED BY:

Grace Chosy Gallery, Madison, WI
Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Woodwalk Gallery, Egg Harbor, WI