Past Exhibitions

October 26 - December 2, 2023

Twin Cities Iranian Culture Collective

  • Opening Reception: Thursday, October 26, 6 - 8 PM

This exhibition showcases work by local Iranian-Americans whose creative work in the arts reflects or illuminates their rich heritage. It is an opportunity for viewers to learn about Iran's history and culture through visual art.

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Hearding 3 Waterfront-Crail-Harbor

Catherine Hearding -  Water Works - An Exploration of Patterns and Palette

  • Opening Reception: Thursday, October 26, 6 - 8 PM
  • Artist Talk: Monday, November 13, 2 PM. If you wish to attend, please RSVP to Jim Clark.

As a landscape painter, Catherine Hearding emphasizes the elements of color, shape, value and light, inviting the viewer to see the subject from a unique perspective. To accomplish this goal, she focuses on more intimate views of the landscape.

Douglas Oudekerk Scenes From a Mystery

  • Opening Reception: Thursday, October 26, 6 - 8 PM
  • Artist Talk: Monday, November 13, 2 PM. If you wish to attend, please RSVP to Jim Clark.

Douglas Oudekerk has always loved to draw. He grew up in an era saturated with great artwork: including illustrations in books, magazines, comics, and advertising. For Oudekerk, this is artwork that tells a story - images that augmented the written word in powerful ways.

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September 15 - October 21, 2023

Members Juried Exhibit 2022

Fall Members' Juried Exhibition


Annual fall show of work by Friends of the Hopkins Center for the Arts Member Artists. The art on display is the result of a juried competition. For further information about submitting work for the exhibit visit: https://www.hopkinsartscenter.com/152/Fall-Juried-Show

Roger Nordstrom – Time  Water  Earth 

  • Opening Reception: Friday, September 15, 6 - 8 PM
  • Artist Talk: Monday, October 9, 2 - 4 PM. If you wish to attend, please RSVP by email to: jclark@hopkinsmn.com

As a photographer, Roger Nordstrom is attracted to lines, shapes, and form.  The images in this exhibition were captured in travels from Northern Minnesota to the US Southwest, and explore the commonalities between disparate regions through the elements of Time, Water, and Earth.  

‘These intimate black and white images of frozen water and desert sand show us the beauty of sameness in such opposites. They help us to see more clearly how the earth holds the memory of change allowing us to bear witness to our past and the prepossessing harshness that is the cycle of time made visible.’ 

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David Strom – Drawing to Painting: May I Have This Dance… 

  • Opening Reception: Friday, September 15, 6 - 8 PM
  • Artist Talk: Monday, October 9, 2 - 4 PM. If you wish to attend, please RSVP by email to: jclark@hopkinsmn.com

David Strom’s paintings and drawings are how he explores, reflects on, and interprets the landscape in which he lives, and as he puts it ‘lives within him’.  A combination of realism and fantasy, his artworks are about living in the fertile farm country of southwestern Minnesota.  References include gray steel grain bins, elevators, wind turbines, round bales, roads, ropes, rows of crops in all stages of development and rest, and the abstract way that we define the land using maps, specifically plat maps of townships in six square mile divisions. He combines these elements into vignettes, connecting them together ‘much like one would make a quilt or illustrate a graphic novel.’ 

August 3 - September 9, 2023

Ger Xiong "The Stories We Carry"


Artist Talk: Sunday, September 10 at 10am. If you wish to attend, please email Jim Clark

Ger Xiong's work reflects his Hmong American experience, identity, and stories through materiality, object, and adornment. While living in-between cultures, he looks at the navigation, negotiation, and reclaiming of his cultural identity within a dominant nation state.

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Toni Gallo "Continuous Thread/ Unraveling Insight"

  • Artist Talk: Monday, August 14 at 11am. If you wish to attend, please email Jim Clark

In Continuous Thread/ Unraveling Insight, Gallo intends to mimic a meditative state, which promotes an overwhelming experience of sincerity. She aims to inspire viewers towards infinite potential by sharing her exploration, practices, and expression of this concept.

William Z. Linmark "Portraits of Paris"


Artist Talk: Sunday, September 10 at approximately 11am (immediately following talk by Ger Xiong.) If you wish to attend, please email Jim Clark

Inspired by frequent trips to Paris, this exhibition of Linmark's photography, sketches, collages, assemblages and paintings is a collection of artists, writers, and ideas that resonate from the City of Light.

Linmark_Bar_du_Jazz

Nifty Nikki

Nikki Besser "Quillin' It: Life in Paper"

  • June 22 - July 29, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, June 22, 6 - 8 pm
  • Artist Talk: Sunday, July 16, 10 am

Based in northern Minnesota, self-taught artist Nikki Besser uses hundreds, often times thousands, of strips of rolled paper, glued and shaped together in various forms to create original, one of a kind artworks. Her paper quilled artworks capture positive life moments of joy, happiness, love, and beauty.

MaryAnn & Gary Carlson "A Confluence of Objects"

  • June 22 - July 29, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, June 22, 6 - 8 pm

Assemblage sculptors, MaryAnn and Gary Carlson, use found objects to create sculptures that spark stories of the past and present. Their goal is to awaken the viewer to the extraordinary beauty of ordinary objects, and the potential of these objects to communicate beyond their former utility.

07a MA Carlson Cerulean Wobbler 01 s
07b GCarlson Lumberjack Waltz s

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Polly Norman "Tooled in Space"

  • June 22 - July 29, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, June 22, 6 - 8 pm

Polly Norman's work is rooted in movement and rhythm. Working in New Media, she blends and reshapes intersections of image, color, and form in active, sometimes frenetic picture planes. Sometimes languorous, sometimes ecstatic, again, the motion is always there, asking the eye, and maybe the heart, to follow.

Blair Treuer "Identity Portrait Series"

  • May 18 - June 17, 2023

Blair Treuer's work is an exploration into the role Native American traditional cultural and spiritual practices and beliefs play in shaping the way her family sees itself collectively and the influences or effect it's had on her own personal identity.

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Chuck + Peg Hoffman "At the Edges of Wilderness"

  • May 18 - June 17, 2023

While Chuck + Peg Hoffman paintings are a study of edges, boundaries, and contrasts coming together, their continuing narrative inspiration is about bearing tension. Tension is a place where they sense the breath of Spirit moving and creating within and through each of us.

Keith Buswell "That Which Connects Us..."

  • May 18 - June 17, 2023

Keith's exhibition presents arboreal imagery as a symbolic language expressing community connection: not only community as the interrelation of heritage or proximity, but also community through idea exchange and a desire to help on another.

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Members Nonjuried Show First Floor Lobby 4.2023
Members Nonjuried Show Redepenning 4.2023
Members Nonjuried Show Second Floor 4.2023

Spring Members' Exhibition

  • April 8 - May 14, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Saturday, April 8, 6 - 8 pm. Award presentation at 7 pm.

The annual spring show of work by Friends of the Hopkins Center for the Arts Member Artists. All members are eligible to show 1 to 2 pieces of work in this show. Works will be judged for awards and announced at the award presentation on April 8 at 7 pm. For more information about participating, please visit: Spring Members' Show

MAA Image 2 2023

Minnesota Artists Association

  • March 2 - April 1, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, March 2, 6-8 pm 

Formed in 1937, the Minnesota Artists Association is an all-inclusive organization welcoming members working in a variety of mediums. Throughout MAA’s history, their membership has boasted a veritable who’s who of art in our state.  Celebrating its 86th year, this exhibition features a juried selection of work by current members.

UBAH Sumeya Osman (2)
UBAH Abdirahman Mohamud
UBAH Zainab Abdi

Ubah Students Exhibition

  • March 2 - April 1, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, March 2, 6-8 pm

Ubah Medical Academy presents work from their Photography, Visual Design, and Sculpture students. Their aim is to show their talent and passion through various mediums. This gallery is a sampling of what the students have accomplished throughout this school year. 

J Pony Allen  '... Ampersand Anon'

  • March 2 - April 1, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, March 2, 6-8 pm

This body of work examines and explores the delicious friction between organic growth and manufactured disruption.  Inspired by discoveries of bush plane wreckage on barren high tundra, intrusive thoughts, F250s abandoned in woodlands, Darth Vader's paternal admission, irritated molluscs birthing nacreous gems, and stick framed barns caved in by giant's feet; these paintings are, in essence, bootleg interior & exterior landscapes.  Like unauthorized recordings of Rock Gods, their authenticity is questionable but the spirit of fanaticism is earnest.

J Pony Allen lives and works in the area.  He was born and raised in an interstitial space, a pocket universe between the IDS building and Amber Waves of Grain. He grew up in the wilds of Minnetonka where great mares once ran free, Dead Man’s Hill swallowed sleds, and the Swamp and Woods held great treasure.  The woods and swamp have shrunk, fully plundered. The hill has been capped with gardens and Dishes. And the horses have scattered west and east, north and south.

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Arts North 28 Logo

Arts North International

  • January 14 - February 25, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Saturday, January 14, 6 - 8 PM 

In its 28th year, this highly competitive international juried exhibition showcases work by artists from throughout the United States and abroad. 

Recent ANI exhibitions have featured work from 27 states, four provinces of Canada, and China. There is a wide range of mediums represented including acrylic, oil, and watercolor paintings, sculptures, fiber and textiles, ceramics, photographs, and more.

JURY & AWARDS   More than $10,000 in awards are available, including Best of Show ($3000), 2 Awards of Excellence ($1000 each), 2 Awards of Merit ($500 each), and First, Second, and Third in media categories. Awards are subject to the discretion of the jurors. All jury decisions are final. Additional Special Awards ($100+ each) will be selected by the sponsors.

Reveal: Adult Art Students & Their Instructors - Hopkins Community Education

  • December 8, 2022 - January 7, 2023

Reveal features the work of Hopkins Community Education adult students and instructors. Hopkins Community Education, a component of Hopkins Public Schools, strives to create meaningful opportunities for lifelong learning, connection, and engagement within our community.

Greg Lecker  'Watershed'

  • December 8, 2022 - January 7, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, December 8, 6-8 PM

Greg Lecker’s art transports viewers to natural & inhabited settings filled with motion, emotion, and color.  Energetic chaos up close; then coming together as light & objects when viewed from a distance.

This body of work originated during artist residencies Lecker completed on both the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers.  Funded in part by a Minnesota State Arts Board grant, he traveled across Minnesota painting the major watersheds: the Mississippi River, Lake Superior and the Red River of the North while engaging passersby.  The resulting paintings embody the physicality of exploring water and its environment.

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Bindewald Glint Party

Josh Bindewald  'Muchness'

  • December 8, 2022 - January 7, 2023
  • Opening Reception: Thursday, December 8, 6 - 8 PM

Josh Bindewald creates active, maximal images that reference natural and developed environments.  Approached in playful and intuitive spirit, he composes prints, collages, and paintings that are a distillation of the splendor he finds in the natural world, the need for order imposed by humankind, and the resulting discord.  This embedded contradiction reinforces the oft-conflicting emotions informing it.   The resulting art contains the power to enchant, intended to separate the viewer from all context and provide an undefinable but beneficial type of nourishment.

Members' Juried Exhibition

  • October 27 - December 3, 2022

Annual fall show of work by Friends of the Hopkins Center for the Arts Member Artists. The art on display is the result of a juried competition. 


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Susan Hensel  'At Play in the Fields of Color Perception'

  • October 27 - December 3, 2022

Susan Hensel makes sculptural textile work, transforming personal experience, private and public spaces, and experiences of beauty, through the alchemy of color, scale, lighting and placement. She combines mixed-media practices with fabric and embroidery across digital and manual platforms.  Her desire to communicate ideas through art continues to be a powerful motivator.

Kar-Keat Chong  'Impressions of the Twin Cities in Ink & Watercolor'

  • October 27 - December 3, 2022

Kar-Keat Chong’s life experiences have always been highly informed by the rich heritage and culture of his hometown. He grew up honing his sketching and painting skills on the vibrant streets of Penang, Malaysia, where multi-racial communities co-exist and live in harmony. Over recent summers, Kar-Keat has been out and about sketching landmarks and industrial relics in the Twin Cities he has called home since 1999. Working on location with fountain pens, watercolor and rice paper, he seeks to capture the atmospheric quality of these buildings and sites at a specific moment. As a result, the art he creates is his emotional response to this phenomenon - always striving to be honest and realistic in his interpretations. Through sketching and painting, it makes Kar-Keat pause and be present, truly observe with keen eyes, and understand his subject matter at a more refined level. He hopes through his artwork, he can inspire others to slow down from our fast-paced lives to pause and truly appreciate the beauty that surrounds us each and every day.

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Twin Cities Iranian Culture Collective

  • September 22 - October 22, 2022 

This exhibition showcases work by local Iranian-Americans whose creative work in the arts reflects or illuminates their rich heritage. It is an opportunity for viewers to learn about Iran’s history and culture through visual art.  

Barbara Lidfors 'Metaphors of Trees, Woods and Forests'

  • September 22 - October 22, 2022

Barbara Lidfors is a landscape and figurative painter who paints the allure of everyday moments and celebrates the significance of the people and places around her. Her nature paintings often incorporate the deeply symbolic and metaphoric possibilities inherent in the natural world to reference universal experience and meaning.   

Recently returned to her Minnesota roots after decades of involvement in the German art world, she is enjoying rediscovering the specific beauty of Minnesota’s people and natural wooded areas. She earned an MFA from Vermont College of Norwich University and has exhibited her work in over 100 solo and group shows throughout Germany, the United States and 5 other countries.

LIDFORS_Closely Grown Roots

August 4 - September 10, 2022

  • Gwen Partin "Material Elements"
  • Amy Usdin "Remnants"
  • Brandon Movall "Embracing Our Shadows"

June 23 - July 30, 2022

  • Jean Hawton & Shelby Meyerhoff "Beyond & Bizarre: Natural Illusions"
  • Angie Huffman "Dear"
  • Nishiki Sugawara-Beda "To Your Own Space: Truthful Peace"

May 12 - June 18, 2022

  • Carol Jenkins, Eloise Larson, Kim Presley, Cathy Valentine "And Now This..."
  • Carolyn C.S. Kleinberger "Up Close From A Distance"
  • Jeanne Aaron "Silk Paintings & Batiks"

March 26 - May 7, 2022

  • Spring Members' Non-Juried Exhibition

February 17 - March 19, 2022

  • Dan Tran "Lost & Found"
  • Jessie Rasche "The Spirit of Prairie Life"

January 8 - February 12, 2022

  • Arts North International 27

December 2, 2021 - January 2, 2022

  • Tom Dimock "Boats, Wind, and Sea"
  • Carrie Price Schwert "Beauty in the Ordinary: Paintings from the Pandemic"
  • ArtHop on Main: Adult Art Students and Instructors, Hopkins Community Education

October 28 - November 27, 2021

  • Fall Members' Juried Exhibition 2021
  • Andrea Canter & Cindy Fuerstenberg "Naturally Unexpected"

September 23 - October 23, 2021

  • Keren Kroul "An Architecture of Longing"
  • Brenda Litman, Dona Kos, Joan Porter-Einsman "Nature, Transformation, and Vision"

August 5 - September 11, 2021

  • Twin Cities Iranian Culture Collective
  • Minnesota Iran Photographers "Iran Today: Photographs by Minnesota Travelers

June 24 - July 31, 2021

  • Chris Cinque "Beyond the Reach of Words"
  • Kristi Kuder "Momento"
  • Leah Yellowbird "Can You Hear Me Now"

May 13 - June 19, 2021

  • April Malphurs "Refraction: Capturing Joy Through Glass"
  • Contemporary Realism: Work from the Atelier
  • James Byrne "New Works"
  • Fawzia Khan "Becoming Visible"

March 26 - May 8, 2021

  • Spring Members' Non-Juried Exhibition

February 18 - March 20, 2021

  • Genie and Paco Castro "Cold Press"
  • Akama Paul "Things Fall Apart"
  • Linda Snouffer "Grasslands, Woods & Wetlands: Muckboots Recommended"

January 9 - February 13, 2021

  • Arts North International 26

December 3, 2020 - January 3, 2021

  • ArtHop on Main: Adult Art Students and Instructors, Hopkins Community Education
  • Ken Herren "Soul Patch"
  • Bonnie Folkerts "Common Threads"

October 29 - November 28, 2020

  • Erik Jon Olson "Downstream Sacrificies"
  • Keith Holmes "Pursuit of Happiness"
  • Members' Juried Exhibition

September 24 - October 24, 2020

  • Marcia Haffmans "Out of touch"
  • Michael Borg "Being Havana"
  • Jeanne Kosfeld "Coffee Portraits"

August 13 - September 19, 2020

  • Members' Non-Juried Exhibition

June 25 - August 1, 2020

  • Kristin Hoelscher-Schacker, Klaire Lockheart, Becca Cerra "Embodiment"
  • Charlie Brown "The Monumental Aspects of Nature"
  • Aaron Packard "Networks of Noise"

May 14 - August 1, 2020

  • Kristin Pavelka "Bohemian"

May 14 - June 20, 2020

  • Living Tradition: Figure Drawings from the Hopkins Center for the Arts Life Sessions Cooperative
  • Mary Catherine Solberg "Shine"
  • Sue Cranston "American School Girl"