Past Exhibitions

Iowa artist Jamie Bowers uses wood panels in his abstract work, allowing him to be aggressive with his painting tools - scraping and sanding the surface to achieve depth and texture, adding layers of polyurethane and varnish, and sometimes incorporating the existing wood grain into his composition. These are just some of the somewhat industrial techniques Bowers employs to create sleek, engaging, and colorful works of art.

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Our fall season begins with the Art of the Guitar at the Pearson Lakes Art Center, featuring everything from concerts and an exhibition on the instrument.

This exhibition of handmade guitars by Iowa artist Erik Smith showcases each guitar as an individual work of art, with personalities and stylistic choices brought out by the wood grain and pattern that Smith chooses to employ as part of the design.

Sponsored by: Perry & Teresa Pearson

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En plein air is a French expression meaning "in the open air".

Artists are invited to participate in a three-day painting period, causing the works to be fresh and of the moment. Papers and canvases will be stamped and upon the return of the finished works, the show will be hung with paint still wet to the touch. A wonderful show for collectors to take home a piece of "fresh" art inspired by our local landscape. This is also a great opportunity for the public and plein air painting enthusiasts to watch artists work while they are painting throughout the area.

Supported by: Phil Brown

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The Pearson Lakes Art Center is proud to announce that One Island, One Ocean, the new exhibit by environmentalist and photographer David Thoreson, will be exhibited in the Monte Pearson Gallery May 5th through July 3rd, 2011. 

Meet the artist Thursday, June 16th from 5 – 6:30 p.m. at a Special Reception; a presentation will follow at 7:00 p.m. in the Lauridsen Performing Arts Theatre. Tickets for the presentation are $10.00 each and are available by calling the PLAC Box Office at 712-332-7029.

One Island, One Ocean is the most recent work by photographer and environmentalist David Thoreson. This interactive exhibit explores the issues of ocean and sea ecology through an amazing sailing adventure. The 2009-2010 expedition aboard the 64-foot research vessel, Ocean Watch, traveled 28,000 miles circumnavigating North and South America.

Supported by: The Andrea Waitt Calrton Family Foundation

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The newest additions to the Pearson Lakes Art Center’s Permanent Collection, the Great Thinkers series by printmaker Mauricio Lasansky, was gifted to the PLAC in 2010. Great Thinkers are a series of eleven portrait prints of historical figures who have influenced Lasansky throughout his life. Lasansky is considered to be one of the “Fathers of 20th Century American Printmaking”. The series will be joined by works owned by private collectors as well as Dancer, which is also part of the Permanent Collection.

Gifted by Milt & Joanne Brown

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Ann & King Au work out of their studios in West Des Moines and Des Moines, Iowa. Ann is a jewelry designer and is known for combining precious and semi-precious metals and gems to create one of a kind, wearable works of art. King is a photographer who creates abstract images of found objects and artifacts.

Sponsored by: Anne Thorne Weaver

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The Dick and Marty Wikert Art Walkway is designated for new and emerging artists, from students through adults, as an introduction to exhibiting in a professional atmosphere.

Exhibitions last for five weeks. A spot may be available sooner than you think! Inquire today, or encourage an artist you know to exhibit in this space.

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The Dick and Marty Wikert Art Walkway is designated for new and emerging artists, from students through adults, as an introduction to exhibiting in a professional atmosphere.

Exhibitions last for five weeks. A spot may be available sooner than you think! Inquire today, or encourage an artist you know to exhibit in this space.

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Always our most attended exhibition - artworks by kindergarten through high school students, from all schools located in Dickinson County will be exhibited at this annual show, including Lake Park, Okoboji, Spirit Lake & Terril/Graettinger. The show is judged by a team of professional artists and placement ribbons are awarded.

Sponsored by: Bank Midwest and Dickinson County Endowment Fund

With Support from these local insurance agencies: Scott Trautmann of State Farm Insurance, Mike Thoreson of Farm Bureau, MHR Insurance, and Bank Midwest Insurance Services

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The Dick and Marty Wikert Art Walkway is designated for new and emerging artists, from students through adults, as an introduction to exhibiting in a professional atmosphere.

Exhibitions last for five weeks. A spot may be available sooner than you think! Inquire today, or encourage an artist you know to exhibit in this space.

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The PLAC Education Department offers art education to over 2,000 students, ages pre-school through ninth grade, each year. Please stop into the art center to enjoy the freshness of the works created by these budding artists, displayed professionally in a true gallery setting. The artwork of these little hands of Dickinson County may outweigh any art you might have seen before.

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The Pearson Lakes Art Center is proud to announce the winners of the 2010 Wanda J. Skogerboe Juried Exhibition. This biannual, juried exhibition is designed to further the art center’s mission by supporting and exhibiting contemporary art from the greater Midwest.  This show was named after Wanda J. Skogerboe, who was a special person with an appreciation for the arts, and enjoyed being a volunteer at the Lakes Art Center as well as telling people about the wonderful Lakes Area.

This year the exhibition was judged by Lissa Potter.  Potter is an artist and also the former Director of Visual Arts at the Pearson Lakes Art Center, who has served as a curator and judge for many shows throughout the state of Iowa.  Twenty artists with forty works were selected to participate. Of these works, seven were given special recognition - including the Best of Show award – and were announced the opening reception held on Thursday, December 9th.  Award recipients include:

Honorable Mention Awards:
Picture This, Dale Macafee, Council Bluffs, IA
Six Rue Rutabaga, Glenda Drennen, LeMars, IA
Cabin on the Hill, Mitch Eveleth, Estherville, IA
Mambo the Clown, Waxela Sananda, Milford, IA

Second Runner Up:  Expecting by Roger VanRoekel, Rock Rapids, IA

First Runner Up:  Irrigating Nebraska by Hank Hall, Spirit Lake, IA

Best of Show for the 2010 Wanda J. Skogerboe Juried Exhibition went to David Strom of Windom, MN for his large pen and ink drawing entitled Turkey Newels. As his award, Mr. Strom will receive a solo exhibition at the Pearson Lakes Art Center during the 2012/13 Exhibition season. Other works included in the show by Strom are Large Vertical Bin Drawing and Bin Drawing, which arealso in pen and ink.

Artists selected for the 2010 exhibition include: Linda Fries, Peterson, IA; Dan Sorensen, Swea City, IA; Marisa Sidles, Terril, IA; Lisa Bailey, Spirit Lake, IA; Avis Davis, Spirit Lake, IA; Mari Stewart, West Okoboji, IA; Glenda Drennen, LeMars, IA; Dennis Dykema, Spirit Lake, IA; Hank Hall, Spirit Lake, IA; Dale Macafee, Council Bluffs, IA; Sharon Sadusky, Jackson, MN; Wayne Thompson, Swea City, IA; Roger VanRoekel, Rock Rapids, IA; Mitch Eveleth, Estherville, IA; Waxela Sananda, Milford, IA; Ron McKewon, Sioux City, IA; David Strom, Windom, MN; Rosalind Gomez (Kirsch), Algona, IA; Olivia Skogerboe, Spirit Lake, IA; Judy Hemphill, Spencer, IA.

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As a retired architect, Lieb has been building abstract sculpture for the past six years - working mostly in plastics, woods, and metals. His most recent work includes major public sculpture in Orleans, Okoboji, Spencer and Sioux City. The main thrust of his art is to engage, enrich and energize the human spirit.
Lieb, of Spirit Lake, is the Best in Show Winner of the 2008 Wanda J. Skogerboe Juried Exhibition, held bi-annually at the Pearson Lakes Art Center. 

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The Plein Air Exhibition features artists working on location within a 50 mile radius of the Iowa Great Lakes Region.

En Plein Air is a French expression meaning “in the open air”. Plein Air painting allows artists to capture a unique moment in time and the beauty of Northwest Iowa on canvas, board, or paper. 

The Plein Air Exhibition is sponsored by Al & Delores Maser; Artist Awards are supported by Phil Brown.

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Digital Atelier is a printmaking studio for the 21st century with locations near Boston, Massachusetts; Boulder, Colorado; and Seattle Washington. Combining traditional studio and media techniques with digital imaging, artists Dorothy Simpson Krause, Bonny Lhotka, and Karin Schminke produce original fine art and unique editions using the latest computer equipment, imaging hardware and software. Although they each use the computer as a tool, their work and media choices are as varied as their backgrounds.

The show includes one of a kind paintings, collages, image transfers, monotypes, and prints on surfaces as diverse as plywood, silk, and rusty metal.  The artists’ advocacy for this hybrid medium is evident in numerous demonstrations, presentations, and workshops at venues they have conducted for institutions such as College Art Association, MacWorld, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Work from the Digital Atelier studios is widely displayed both nationally and internationally. Their art is in more than 200 corporate and museum collections including the permanent collection of the American Art Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.

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Brandel’s statement about her work:

With my past experience in figure drawing and twenty-five years in fiber art, I can’t stop making art about the human figure and its costumes.  I create collaged “characters” in fanciful stamp-clothing, and figures made from stamps, maps, and mixed media.  My imaginary people display their travels through life, their ancestry, desires and regrets on their garments or as part of their very skin. They are portraits of everyone and no one.

Inspiration comes from the stamps themselves, from life or news events, or things imagined.  I love making my art from recycled materials, and I delight in juxtaposing the imagery and meanings of the recycled stamps and maps, often finding humor. Beauty and irony reign.

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All are invited to attend the opening reception for Dennis Dykema’s exhibition of recent paintings at the Pearson Lakes Art Center on Thursday, July 1, 2010, 5-7 pm.

Dennis L. Dykema was born in Worthington, Minnesota in 1940. He studied art at Morningside College, and the University of Northern Iowa where he earned a Master’s Degree in painting in 1970. He was appointed to the art faculty at Buena Vista University in 1970 and has served there until his retirement in 2001. In 2006 he and his wife moved to Spirit Lake. Dykema’s second-floor studio is located at 1720 Hill Ave. in Spirit Lake, IA.
Dykema’s paintings have been exhibited extensively, including shows at the Des Moines Art Center, Sioux City Art Center, Olson-Larsen Galleries in West Des Moines, The Burnnier Gallery in Ames, the MacNeider Museum in Mason City, and the Anderson/Obrien Gallery in Omaha. In 1989 a group of his paintings toured Poland at the invitation of the Central Bureau of Artists Exhibitions. In 1993 his work was represented in the Fragile Giants, a touring show that focused attention on Iowa’s Loess Hills. Dykema’s work from that show was eventually show in such far reaching places as Washington, DC, and the US embassy residence in Swaziland, Africa.

Dykema’s works are included in many public, corporate, and private collections; among them, the Sioux City Art Center, MacNeider Museum of Mason City, 3M Company of Minneapolis, Norwest Banks of Sioux City and Des Moines, Principal Financial Group, Pioneer Company of Des Moines, Pella Rollscreen, and the State of Iowa. He is represented by Olson-Larsen Galleries in West Des Moines and Art on 16th in Spirit Lake.

Dykema’s statement about his work:

“I’ve been fascinated with the landscape for a long time and have come to recognize it as the most prevailing aspect of my environment. In recent years I have begun to explore the landscape subject as it is affected by changing conditions of light and shadow. At the time of day when these are most evident the subtle interplay of texture and surface, intersect with compositional structure of the subject to make, in my mind at least, a complete experience.

Since my move to Spirit Lake, I have discovered the vast prairie and wetland area that comprises the watershed for the Iowa Great Lakes to be a rich subject resource for my paintings. I paint with oil as I believe its color saturation and workability suit my painting intentions. While inspiration for my paintings comes from the landscape I continually explore the interpretation of the subject along a continuum from representation to abstraction. It is my intention that my paintings ultimately stand independent of the subject origin.”

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 “My work represents the faded and dusty fingerprint of man left on discarded objects that were left to die.  Weathered and crumpled materials become an organic abstraction of those who left their marks on it, and convey to the viewer a sense of the human condition. Most of the intentions surrounding my work involve salvaging and bringing to light objects that seem to have an expiration date stamped on them before their time was up, and giving them a purposeful destiny. The aesthetic arrangement of these materials communicates with the viewer on a sentimental and subconscious level. I let the viewer see where I have mended, nailed or fastened, as these are much like footprints and visually an integral part of the work. There is a language spoken in these works that may seem indecipherable and sometimes intentionally absurd.” 

Hamilton is a 1995 graduate of the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA and has had solo exhibitions at Hentschel Gallery, Des Moines, IA; Arthouse Gallery, Des Moines, IA; and Akhvlediani Gallery, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

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