PARK RAPIDS — Artist Daniel Kerkhoff has created art all over the world, and at each place he visits, he finds inspiration to create.
Kerkhoff has pieces in two exhibits opening at the Nemeth Art Center in Park Rapids on May 1. “The Least Among Us,” features mixed media works on rounded paper and has glitter, glue, latex house paints, inks and lots of tape.
This series started as rectangular drawings and paintings Kerkhoff created and wasn’t sure what he would do with.
Kerkhoff told Area Voices on the KAXE Morning Show, “I didn't feel they were finished pieces. So, I started just tearing them up and making them almost into almost quilting, like crazy [quilts].”
He felt reorganizing the pieces made them more interesting. Then, while traveling with these pieces in Ghana, Ecuador and Vietnam, he had to fold them so they would fit in his luggage. He ended up liking the creases and added them to the pieces.
Nemeth Art Center will also feature “The Exhausted Landscape,” mixed media pieces with acrylic paintings on matboard with soil.
Exhibit origins
He started creating “The Least Among Us” pieces in 2009 while living in Ghana at an artist’s residency. He brought books and art for libraries, connected with other artists, had exhibitions and worked with children making art.
He was living in a small room and creating drawings and paintings on office paper using laterite soil.
“Pretty soon, I started connecting them, seeing relationships with them and started connecting them and I just kept on connecting them until they got big.”
"The Exhausted Landscape” pieces started from older works made 25 to 30 years ago. He started collaging them but in a unique way.
“I often try to do [things] really against my aesthetic. Try to do things that disturbed me that I didn't like, just to break up the typical patterns that I would be in and that was exciting for me ... and then it became something that was new. And then I grew to like it even more.”
Kerkhoff lets his artwork lead the way, interfering as little as possible. At the end he steps back in and tweaks the patterns which have emerged.
Sometimes he gets inspired to add things, like in one of his “The Exhausted Landscape” where he added old paint lids just because he liked how the looked. He hopes additions like that will become springboards for viewers to reflect on elements in their own life.
Artist beginnings
Kerkhoff grew up around art. His uncle was a potter, his aunt was a photographer, and his parents' friends were artists as well. He went to an experimental school in Mankato, where he got involved with a lot of culture and art.
When talking about art classes he said, “It just felt the most freeing and liberating of any of my courses. So, in high school I really tried to take as many art classes as I could.”
He didn’t go to college for art but continued creating on his own. He visited places around the world learning new art skills and even worked as a guard at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
“[I] had a lot of experiences going to lectures, and just looking at art has been my main kind of inspiration.”
Audience experience
Kerkhoff hopes people take time to really look at his work — not just to have reactions, but to consider why they’re reacting the way they are. His own approach to art over time has changed, too.
“I didn't feel that need to try to associate it with something. I just started seeing it as itself, and that was just like this breaking out of the matrix kind of experience for me, where you looked at a work of art and you just took it as it is without trying to make it into something that you can relate to.”
Kerkhoff’s exhibits “The Least Among Us” and “The Exhausted Landscape” open Thursday, May 1, and will be on display until May 31 at the Nemeth Art Center in Park Rapids. There will be an artist reception at 4 p.m. May 23. You can find more of Kerkhoff’s work at his website and Flickr page.
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.
