Local Art Seen: Two Karen's at the DAI

The Duluth Art Institute attracted a very large crowd Thursday for the opening of two very fine exhibitions, Karen Lynne Burmeister's Life of Beauty and Karen Savage Blue's Spirit.  The two shows were totally dissimilar and fully engaging.

There was variety in both the seasons and the subject matter.

In 2013 Karen Savage Blue, who lives on the Fond du Lac Reservation, began a series of daily outdoor oil paintings, capturing the changing of the seasons while sharpening her familiarity with her medium. The daily discipline produced some wonderful results. But her show also includes a variety of other kinds of work such as "Cat Tail Dreams" and "Tragic Magic" (below).

If Blue's early interest in beading (age 12) gave her an appreciation for art, painting opened up the fuller breadth of art's possibilities.

As it turns out, both Karen's became art teachers. Karen Savage Blue teaches at Fond du Lac community college and Karen Lynne Burmeister taught at the Marshall School for more than two decades before her untimely passing in 2013.

Burmeister's Life of Beauty is a seductive show, each collage vividly striking. Many friends of the artist were on hand, a woman whose life touched many lives. This work remains and more will be moved.

The compositions were complex and drew you in.

The scale of Burmeister's images caught me by surprise.

ARAC Director Bob D'Armond examines landscapes by Karen Savage Blue.

A Salon Style Presentation of Landscapes 

Tragic Magic

The Duluth Art Institute is located on the fourth floor of the old Depot on Michigan Street, the beginning of Bob Dylan Way in Duluth. The galleries are open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Both Sprit and Life of Beauty will be on display till October 4. 

Meantime, art goes on all around you. See it.