Unutterable Spaces-
Landscapes of Northern Minnesota
– Mark Granlund, Painter
Kaul Gallery
Exhibit February 5 – May 1, 2021
Artist Talk Saturday, May 1, 2pm
Area Voices interview with Mark Granlund →
Image Gallery
Click image to open viewer
Mark Granlund paints in oil on canvases and panels
that he makes, and in gouache on paper.
Granlund, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, has exhibited throughout the Midwest and won First Place for painting at the 2019 Minnesota State Fair.
He is represented at two galleries: Gallery 360 in Minneapolis and Dow Art Gallery in Saint Paul. For the last four years he has been the Public Art Administrator for Metro Transit in the Twin Cities.
Artist Talk
Saturday May 1 at 2pm
Watermark Art Center will be hosting an artist presentation with Mark Granlund for the closing of his exhibit, “Unutterable Spaces – Landscapes of Northern Minnesota” Saturday May 1 st at 2pm in the Kaul Gallery.
Granlund will talk about his personal art practice, process and inspiration for his work, as it pertains to the exhibit. Touching on spirituality and the landscape experience, he will talk about the island’s on Rainy Lake and the Canadian Shield represented in “Unutterable Spaces”.
Limited capacity, seating will be arranged to accommodate social distancing, masks required.
This talk is free and open to the public.
Artist Statement:
Granlund’s paintings continue his exploration of the fundamental issues of experience,
particularly with regard to a Northern Minnesota landscape. His work is about the point of
convergence between experience and construct, the metaphysical landscape where energies of a
scene are distilled into patterns, layers and shapes. As the experience of Nature is a layering of sensory input, Granlund’s large canvases portray the bodily perception through a progression of paint handling: washes, fields of color, impasto strokes, and glazing and scumbling. As the viewer stands before the canvases, the eye always finds another layer, another moment of detail or enhancement,
taking them deeper into the experience of the art.
His regular visits to the Minnesota/Canada border, to explore the landscape of his father’s childhood, have forged an attentiveness to its unique combination of water, rocks, trees and sky. In his paintings he is recognizing the energy patterns that are kindred between body and rock, thought and sky, feelings and water, all in the presence of a witnessing spirit.