Art and memory in the Northwoods: The art of Madeleine Bialke
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The Nemeth Art Center in Park Rapids has opened a new exhibition: “The Long View” by London-based artist Madeleine Bialke. The show features 10 paintings that Bialke completed in May and June during an artist residency at the center’s cabin studio.
“They are some of the best paintings I’ve ever painted,” Bialke said. “It helps to have that strong family connection to the place, as well as a lot of time just by myself in nature.”
While Bialke is from New York, her parents grew up in Park Rapids and she would spend summers visiting her grandparents’ farm just south of town.
For the residency, she came armed with old photographs of her grandparents’ property and some unfinished paintings she did onsite in college. Bialke painted the white pine forests of Itasca State Park and the landscape around the cabin studio itself.
The result is 10 dreamy landscapes, or what she calls “treescapes,” in vivid colors and gradients. Bialke paints in conical shapes, similar to the tubism art of Fernand Léger. “Hot-dog trees,” Bialke said, laughing.
“So I wanted to kind of blend time a little bit between my childhood and coming back as an adult and sort of reforge the connection to Minnesota that I kind of lost for a while,” Bialke said.
“The Long View” is up through Sept. 28 at the Nemeth Art Center. Bialke is the second artist to complete the residency after it launched in 2023.
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