Art shorts
College features Nilssen paintings
Ridgewater College instructor Marjorie Nilssen is the featured artist in the Central Lakes College Gallery through Feb. 20.
The CLC Gallery is open during regular school hours and admission is free.
Since 1988, Nilssen has been an art instructor at the Willmar school. She has been a working artist since graduating from the College of St. Benedict.
Now living in New London, Nilssen said the recent paintings on display at CLC are "apt metaphors for how I feel about the world, as well as how I feel about the art of painting. They are not intended to be portraits of individuals."
Marjorie Nilssen's paintings will be on display through Feb. 20 at the Central Lakes College Gallery.
Her work is driven more by the way artists from China, Japan and other parts of Asia interpreted reality.
"There it was held that reality was based, in part, on how things felt," she said.
On the other hand, our modern world has chosen a preponderance of realistic images to "bombard us every day in such varied sources as newspapers, magazines, the Internet, TV, music videos, movies and cell phones that transmit pictures," she said.
Nilssen said her art is an effort to "take a break from that Western norm and try to think and visualize in a more feeling manner."
She earned her master's degree in art in 1984 from St. Cloud State University. She has exhibited at the Art Center of Minnesota, Minnesota State Fair, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Bloomington Art Center, St. John's University, Mankato's Carnegie Art Museum, College of St. Benedict and Ridgewater.
Kersten's work
on display in Chaska
CHASKA - Brainerd lakes area artist Karen Kersten is one of three pastel landscape artists whose work will be on display through March 23 at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska.
An artists' reception will be from 2-4 p.m. Sunday.