The Cyrus M. Running Gallery begins in the skyway that connects the Olin Art and Communications Center with the second floor of the Frances Frazier Comstock Theatre building.
Donald S. Clark is a professor of art/photography at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He has taught photography for over 30 years and has been making images for more than 40 years. The majority of his work focuses on environmental and landscape issues. He is also interested in the relationships of people in their environment and how these relationships affect culture. He has exhibited his work throughout the United States and internationally. He currently lives in Lake Park, Minnesota.
Since 2019, Clark has documented the places that have been instrumental in influencing the lives and words of both historic and contemporary nature and environmental writers throughout the United States. While we have always felt their passionate connection to their own environments, no book has ever made this visual connection between writers and their land before — the relationship between prose and place.
Featuring more than 40 of America’s most important writers, the content is as far-reaching as America itself: from sea to shining sea, forest to prairie, and mountain to coastline. Accompanying each gallery of stunning photography is a selected excerpt by the writer about their land. With the increasingly noticeable effects of climate change, the significance of these writers — and their personal connections to the environment — is even more timely.
Public Reception: 4-5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23
Artist Remarks: 4:30 p.m.
“This is how we used to understand painting until a few centuries ago: as one of the sciences pointing to the future, as a sister of medicine, astrology, and cosmetics.” — Jan Verwoert
From the artist, Andrea Ferrigno: "My practice is an arena for exploration and experimentation, processing and synthesizing information in unexpected ways. My approach allows me to yield new forms that aim to reconcile a scientific, logical worldview with the idiosyncratic nature of the complex lived experience. Painting opens up new spaces of thought and allows both the maker and viewer to move through time in nonlinear ways. I am interested in the history of how our scientific understanding of the world and our place in it has influenced the depiction of space, form, and light, which I consider foundational painting problems. My curiosity and sense of wonder are enhanced by what science reveals about nature, the definitive and potential attributes of the universe. Exercises such as visualizing how life grows from DNA to developed biological masses is a common way I arrive at form. I see my work and research in conversation with a continuum of artists weaving together this terrain, such as Arthur Dove, Hilma af Klint, and Agnes Pelton.
"Art creates space for alternative ways of knowing and communicating my experience of being in the world, immersed in and made of interconnected phenomena. It is a space disinterested in proving facts or ideologies, but I aim to open up new possibilities and forms of thought, vision, and understanding of experience.
"My early work began with questions of the human form, and I continue to harken back to this as a touchstone. As I began investigating the structure of the human body, I quickly found myself immersed in readings about sacred geometry, the golden mean, exercises in topology, and related philosophical agendas that try to map nature to underlying universal mathematical principles and thought. Initial exposure to these ideas took root and has continued to grow and expand, branching out freely in multiple directions. I am a rhizome in this way. This research, which has ultimately been guided by intuition, continues to inform my work and thoughts. I am inspired by the work in science and mathematics, while recognizing its limits, and I also want to push back and challenge the Western emphasis on objectivity. These scientific structures, systems, and metaphysical ponderings serve as a sturdy but fluid trellis for the emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of my experience. At some point, the latter may fully take over."
Andrea Ferrigno was born in Des Moines, Iowa. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was awarded the Mildred Pelzner-Lynch fellowship, and a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute. Ferrigno has exhibited nationally and internationally, including recent a solo exhibitions at the American University of Paris, Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, Knox College, and group exhibitions at Blue Mountain Gallery, NYC, The Painting Center, New York, Site: Brooklyn, N.Y., the Peoria Riverfront Museum, Peoria, Illinois, the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, the Figge Museum, Davenport, Iowa, among others. She was awarded the Helen Longmire Prize for her work “Turning Time” at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild. Her work has been published in Art Maze Magazine, New American Paintings, Studio Visit, and Visual Overture, and her writing has been published in Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art. Ferrigno’s paintings are held in various public and private collections, notably Fidelity Investments and the American University of Paris. She has been an invited artist in residence at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA), the Vermont Studio Center, DRAWinternational in Caylus, France, and is a summer 2025 resident at Relais Camont, France. She is an ongoing lecturer in the summer program at the American University of Paris. Ferrigno is currently the chair and associate professor of art at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, her primary place of residence.
Public Reception: 4-5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7
This juried art exhibition showcases the diversity and creativity of student designers and artists from North Dakota and Minnesota high schools.
This year’s juror, Anna Jacobson, is an artist, printmaker, educator, and art director based in North Dakota, with more than 20 years of experience in the visual arts. She currently serves as director of learning and engagement at the Plains Art Museum, where she leads educational initiatives, public programs, and community engagement. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Jamestown University and the University of North Dakota, offering courses in design, printmaking, painting, and drawing. Her collaborative work includes partnerships with institutions such as the North Dakota Museum of Art, The Arts Center, and the North Dakota Council on the Arts, where she has facilitated workshops, residencies, and arts education throughout the state. In her artistic practice, Jacobson combines traditional printmaking with natural processes like rust to explore themes of memory, heritage, and transformation. Her deep expertise in education, exhibition, and creative community informs her work as an artist and arts leader.
Public Reception: 5-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 15
Juror Remarks: 5:30 p.m.
This annual exhibition features the recent work of ¶À¼ÒºÚÁÏ art faculty: Ross Hilgers, Jess Matson-Fluto, Chris Mortenson, Dr. Danielle Gravon, Dwight Mickelson, and Professor Emerita Heidi Goldberg. Faculty members work in a variety of media, including clay, oil, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture.
Public Reception: 4-5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27
Artist Remarks: 4:30 p.m.
This juried art exhibition showcases the diversity and creativity of ¶À¼ÒºÚÁÏ’s student artists.
This year’s juror, Ben Rheault is a visual artist who works in various media and styles. Primarily an oil painter, he has also collaborated with other artists to create sculptural installation and animated backdrops. His style shifts and changes depending on the concept of each body of work. Ben graduated from Minnesota State University – Moorhead in 2002 with a BFA in painting. His work has been shown in solo shows at the Rourke Art Gallery + Museum in Moorhead and the Kaddatz in Fergus Falls, and he has participated in numerous group shows. His work is represented in private collections across the country. Recently, he taught a semester of Contemporary Drawing at MSUM, which expanded his thinking on what finished drawings outside of a sketchbook could be. These drawings, paired with larger paintings depicting a range of irreverent subject matter, is where Ben finds himself working these days.
Public Reception: 4-5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 17
Awards Presentation: 4:30 p.m.
This exhibition features the art and design of seniors graduating in May 2026 with an art, art education, or art history major.
Awards Announcement: During the Celebration of Student Scholars event on Wednesday, April 15.
Public Reception: 5-6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 2
Special Saturday Hours: 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 2
Special Sunday Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday, May 3
Monday-Friday: 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
The Gallery is closed during the following academic breaks:
The Gallery is open for special Saturday hours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. during Homecoming: Sept. 4-5, 2025.