Madeleine Bialke: The Long View

July 13 - September 28, 2024

The Long View presents ten paintings created by Madeleine Bialke during a two-month long residency at the Nemeth Art Center this spring and summer in Park Rapids, Minnesota. Some of the scenes depicted are memories from Madeleine’s childhood summers spent on her grandmother’s property in the woods around Straight River, south of Park Rapids, full of paths, ponds, dark woods, and meadows. Other compositions were born directly from the area around the residency house and studio, as well as Itasca State Park, where virgin timber—white and red pine— still stand. The past shapes how the present is seen. The trees depicted take on anthropomorphic qualities and build a narrative around familial relationships with titles like ‘Backbone,’ depicting a small tree growing tall and proud with a succession of older trees in infinite progression behind, and ‘Cradle,’ where tree branches hold the sun on a cold spring afternoon. Notions of life and death abound, as in ‘The Other Side,’ a scene of dead tamarack rot-resistant trunks looming out of the Straight River, the skeletons are still physical, lively and full of character. In these works Madeleine seeks to find new life in a place once thought lost, and aims to express that family ties, if strong enough, can live beyond time.

Madeleine Bialke’s paintings respond to our changing environment and reflect on her interest in nature and society. The tradition of landscape painting has taken numerous forms, with a changing outlook ever since the 19th century held a milestone as artists became more concerned with the profound changes in the natural world, often as a result of human influence on nature. Bialke’s desire to address ecological concerns in her paintings originates from environmental connotations such as extinction, domestication, and global ecological devastation. However, it is also born out of hope, believing that the natural world might encourage empathy and serve as a gateway to further understanding.