NoMo art revival: Karman Rheault

Karman Rheault brings her artistic talent to the latest Hop Art Third Thursday event in North Moorhead (NoMo) at 5foot20 Design Lounge, next to Junkyard Brewery. Karman’s work will be exhibited at 5foot20 through September 9.

Hop Art Third Thursday Arts and Craft events are every third Thursday and held at the 5foot20 Design Lounge at 1424 1st Avenue N, Moorhead. The Hop Art Third Thursday events bring music, art, and local beer to showcase local talent and stimulate community involvement. 5foot20 will have snacks and non-alcoholic beverages, and next door at Junkyard Brewery, there will be many beers on their menu, and patrons can enjoy indie acoustic music by Warren Christensen.

Dennis Krull, owner of 5foot20, says that they created the Third Thursday events “to give Moorhead another outlet for art, to provide artists a new place to show their work, and to create a hip, new artful community event for Moorhead.”

5foot20 Design Lounge, owned and operated by husband and wife Dennis and Jeannie Krull, has been in existence since 2010 and has been in its renovated current location since Spring, 2015. Their studio focuses primarily on event and corporate photography, graphic design, illustration, and fine art.

Dennis says that he and Jeannie are working on learning a new art form, “photo encaustic,” a technique that uses beeswax and damar resin as a medium to create paintings or mixed media photography.

Dennis describes the gallery’s mission as “providing a venue for emerging and established artists of high quality and unique perceptions for exposure, to encourage appreciation and understanding of art.” The intent of 5foot20 is to offer collectors and the public “the opportunity to participate in art experiences, to dialogue with the artists, and to purchase fine art works at affordable prices,” with a long-term goal to provide exhibition space to young art students and “providing studio experiences to young people outside the school day.”

After Karman Rheault’s show, the next Hop Art Third Thursday event at 5foot20 is an exhibition of the woodturning work of Paul Hedman, from September 12 through October 14.

Karman Rheault’s show will feature three-dimensional steel sculptures, including steel wall sculptures, including everything from small, 2 X 2 to larger 18 X 52. She will also be showcasing some of her jewelry. All work will be on sale, ranging from $8 - $5,000. After the opening, people can purchase Karman’s work at 5foot20 through September 9. She also has work for sale at Gallery 4, Ltd, in downtown Fargo and Main Frames Gallery in Perham.

As Karman creates, she says she is “mostly influenced by nature such as sun, ice, water, wind, land and also spirit.” She says that her art has changed over the years: “I have dabbled in a variety of mediums over the years from ceramics, to painting, to sculpture. Steel sculpture is my favorite so far and I plan to be working with it for many years. I've been creating flowing abstract forms as well as figurative forms for many years and I'm also inspired by nature so I have a wide range of subject matter. Currently, I am most often driven to use a plasma cutter and welder to create 3-dimensional steel sculptures and mixed media sculptures. I prefer to use the inherent colors of the metal and add color by heating with a torch or by rusting it to produce a rich natural patina. I am always creating something whether it is a wall sculpture, jewelry, or yard art.”

A Bismarck native, Karman has lived in Fargo since 1995. Her home and studio are in rural Moorhead. She participates annually in the FMVA Studio Crawl, in the first weekend of October, and she invites everyone to check out her studio and new work, and watch her demonstrate her tools. Her studio is in a recently converted 1 1/2 story, 100 year old granary. She is also working on pieces for a new sculpture garden on her property.

Karman also has some new large outdoor works in the courtyard of the Rourke Museum through mid-September and she will be giving a talk about those pieces on August 26 from 6:30-7:30 pm as part of Streets Alive. She is exploring making larger, outdoor pieces, with hopes to create “bigger and bigger pieces. My largest sculpture so far is 12' tall and I hope to double that soon.”

Karman finds the Fargo-Moorhead area “to be a very vibrant, supportive art community that I'm honored to be a part of. It's quite wonderful how many talented artists we have here. We are also very lucky to have the FMVA and The Arts Partnership as advocates for the arts.”

IF YOU GO:

Opening Reception, New Work by Karman Rheault

August 18, 5-9pm

5foot20 Design Studio, 1424 1st Avenue N., Moorhead