Gin Templeton opening night reception for Big Country exhibit

Please join our very own Gin Templeton tonight for the opening night reception of the “Big Country” Exhibit beginning at 5:30 pm at the Plains Arts Museum in Fargo. Her paintings will be featured along with several other local artists.


More information follows:

FARGO, N.D. – Sometimes, the best things come in big packages.

That’s the idea, anyway, behind a new exhibition at Plains Art Museum featuring the work of members of Fargo Moorhead Visual Artists (FMVA). The exhibition, entitled Big Country: FMVA Scale the Plains, opens on June 24 and will be comprised of large-scale work by 13 FMVA artists.

The exhibition was inspired by a particularly large piece of art. In October of last year, the Museum hung The North Dakota Mural by artist and North Dakota native James Rosenquist. Its sheer size (13 x 24 ft.) prompted a challenge from the Museum Director Colleen Sheehy to the FMVA to create large, ambitious works that will reflect the size and overall approach that Rosenquist is famous for.

The challenge was a perfect fit for the FMVA, a volunteer organization whose mission is to promote and support visual artists in the area. The FMVA organizes four exhibitions of its own over the course of the calendar year and is responsible for the Studio Crawl, an annual event that invites the public into artist studios. Through these types of activities, the FMVA has become a vehicle for visual artists to have their work displayed throughout the community and a way for opportunities to find their way to FMVA members.

The Big Country exhibition will feature work by Sandra Cress, Ellen Diederich, Sarah Dotzenrod, Kaylyn Gerenz, Jon Offutt, Carl Oltvedt, Timothy Ray, Meg Spielman Peldo, Michael Strand, David Swenson, Eric Syvertson, Gin Templeton, and Chris Walla. Big Country: FMVA Scale the Plains will run from June 24 to September 4 at Plains Art Museum. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on June 23 at 5:30 p.m.