PARK RAPIDS — Sometimes life takes people on unexpected paths. That happened to painter Madeleine Bialke. Park Rapids was the home of both sets of her grandparents, and she would visit them for a month during the summer when she was young. However, after they left Park Rapids, she thought she would never have a chance to return.
Now not only has Bialke returned to the area, but she’s also creating an exhibit called The Long View for the Nemeth Art Center as part of their artists in residence program.
“There's this very nostalgic aspect of the show where some of the subject matter is from when I was a lot younger and then some of it is just from the residence, so it's sort of blending two time periods in a way,” Bialke said.
Bialke currently lives in London but was sent an invitation to be a part of Nemeth’s artist-in-residence program. It seemed like a good fit with her history of the area. She said it’s been quite the experience these past two months.
“I think it's been great for me, and there's never going to be another residency that's as special because I got to go back to a place that I spent so much time with as a child, but I never really thought I was gonna go back in a meaningful way," Bialke said. " ... It’s just lovely to come back as an adult and very special to make a body of work kind of about that experience.”
Bialke was interested in art from a young age. Her mother is an artist, and Bialke and her sisters would draw as a sort of play when they were kids. When she went to college, she decided she wanted to be an artist.
She was really into digital art in high school, and painting seemed like the easiest way to translate those skills into physical art. She loved the color of digital art and oil painting could recreate those colors the best.
“I don't think I ever questioned it," Bialke said. "It just seemed like the best thing.”
Finding a style
The current chapter of her artistic journey started in 2017. She was working on drawing some trees when she made a new style of shape for the trees she thought was interesting. She then began applying that style in the rest of the painting.
Another important aspect of her work is the color. It’s taken some time to develop her current style of saturation and vibrancy.
“My goal is to make it feel kind of like almost like a computer screen," Bialke said. "I mean, since my interest in color sort of developed as a child on the computer. ... I want them to glow in a room almost like a computer screen.”
She feels her work is sort of like creating a second nature. She compared it to the geomagnetic storm of the northern lights that happened earlier this year when she first arrived in Park Rapids.
“Quite stunning just on its own, but it's amplified by the phone," she said. " ... the iPhone just picks up the colors a lot better or more vibrant. And so it's amazing to think that your experience of the northern lights can actually be augmented and enhanced by technology.”
While some may describe her work as dreamlike, Bialke said her paintings aren’t really inspired by her actual dreams. Instead, she’s more interested in the mood, and something about it is very personal.
“I want to sort of project onto the landscape my own internal emotions and my own internal landscape,” she said.
When asked if having a deadline affects her creative process, she said she doesn’t believe so. She sets a schedule for the next day every night and paces herself.
“It's like creating my own little business for myself,” she said.
Overall, Bialke said she hopes the landscape paintings in the exhibit will resonate with people and that they see something familiar in themselves in the subjects.
“I love that people can take all different moods or different impressions of what the paintings mean, or I'm so excited that they get to go be themselves somewhere else,” she said.
Bialke’s exhibit The Long View opens Saturday, July 13 and runs until Sept. 28 at the Nemeth Art Center in Park Rapids. There will be an artist reception from 4-6 p.m. on Saturday, July 13.
Tell us about upcoming arts events where you live in Northern Minnesota by emailing psa@kaxe.org.
Area Voices is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.
