Lanesboro Arts presents “My Wild and Precious Life”, an exhibition showcasing paintings by Kat Corrigan. The show opens on August 27th with an artist reception on Saturday, August 28th from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.; the show runs through October 17th. Inspired by the beauty of everyday objects and literary works, Corrigan found the exhibition title in Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day”; the exhibition itself will feature paintings of animals, landscapes and water scenes.
Lanesboro Arts is also celebrating the completion of the Parkway Place Mural Project, as well as launching the Little Free Art Library created by the Lanesboro Girl Scout Troop. Stop by the Gallery to tour the exhibition and then walk across the street to view the Parkway Place Mural and Little Free Art Library! There will be hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages that visitors can enjoy in Parkway Place (across the street from the Gallery). There will be live music from Anne and Andy Lowe from 6 – 8 p.m. in Parkway Place. Come on out for a celebratory evening of art and community!
About the Exhibition:
Through Corrigan’s paintings, viewers are invited to enter a universe that is sharp and alive with color, vibrates with movement, lights the imagination, and offers sanctuary from daily human complication. Corrigan has been painting for over twenty years and nearly daily since 2010. Her work carries impressionistic qualities through the way brush strokes and layers of paint embody her subject.
“Painting is an act of meditation and joy for me. It is the negative space around familiar forms that intrigues me- how to properly depict that curve of kinked tail, the twist in an ear, the slant of sunlight on fallen snow. I thrill to take a common subject such as a dog and elevate it to an abstraction of color and light. My work is translating the focus of a soul into brushstrokes, attempting to depict in pigment what is written in an eye,” explains Corrigan.
Award-winning Minneapolis-based artist Kat Corrigan’s formal art training began at a young age through the direction of her mother, an art teacher and exhibiting artist. Corrigan graduated from the College of St. Benedict with a BA in Art, including a semester of independent study in Ireland painting watercolors. She is active in the Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM) and participates annually in the Women’s Art Institute in Grand Marais, MN at the Art Colony. She exhibits her paintings throughout the metro area and actively seeks gallery representation and private commissions. Her work has won awards and recognition in juried shows throughout the United States and has been widely collected both in the US and in England, Australia, Japan, Wales, and Lebanon. Corrigan teaches painting lessons from her South Minneapolis studio.
This exhibit is sponsored by Inspire(d) Magazine and is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Always free and open to the public, gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. For more information visit www.lanesboroarts.org, call 507-467-2446 or email gallery@lanesboroarts.org. Handicapped accessible and free to the public, the exhibition gallery is located at 103 Parkway Avenue North in Lanesboro, MN.
About the Parkway Place Mural:
Lanesboro Arts and the City of Lanesboro proudly announce the completion of the Parkway Place Mural Project in downtown Lanesboro. Parkway Place, located in the gravel lot on Parkway Ave in downtown Lanesboro, is a central hub of activity for locals and visitors alike. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parkway Place increasingly became a destination for outdoor seating for patrons of area restaurants, businesses and the bike trail. Lanesboro Arts partnered with Lanesboro Area Chamber of Commerce, Lanesboro Economic Development Authority, and private property owner Andy Bunge to carry out the Parkway Place Mural project with the goal to activate a previously vacant space into a vibrant gathering space in the center of downtown. The Parkway Place Project included other updates to the space, including freshly painted picnic tables thanks to the Lanesboro Boy Scouts, flower planters, shade tents, and ambient evening lighting.
The mural features brightly colored flowers, leaves, the sun, and the Root River all framing big block letters that spell out “Lanesboro.” It is 6 feet tall by 32 feet wide and was installed on weatherproof plywood attached to the fence in Parkway Place. The design was created by Lanesboro Arts Administrative Intern, Kiara Hohn. Kiara is a recent graduate with a visual art degree from Luther College specializing in painting.
The Parkway Place Project is partially funded by the Lanesboro Community Foundation with additional support from Lanesboro Arts.