Last fall, artist Jim Denomie invited Heather Rutledge, the executive director of Stillwater-based ArtReach St. Croix, over for a studio visit. Even though his work is in permanent collections at institutions such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center and Denver Art Museum, he felt excited to show his paintings and portraits at the regional art gallery.
"When Jim first came to ArtReach and he was looking around the gallery and imagining his work in the space, which is not a white box gallery at all, I got kind of all fan girl on him. I said: 'I am sorry this isn't the Denver Art Museum,'" recalled Rutledge. "And he said: 'This place has better light.' "
Rutledge felt that showed his generosity and warmth, and an ability to "lift this place up and understand that a place like ArtReach is important, too, in the art world."
When the Ojibwe artist's solo exhibition, "Sweet Dreams," opened on March 31, he wasn't present to see his contribution. Denomie died of cancer March 1 at age 66 and the news was a shock to his family, friends and the artists he mentored. His memorial service is in the works.
"This is one of the last shows that Jim had a direct hand in making, and it's fitting that as a longtime resident of the St. Croix Valley, it's in the community he loved," said his gallerist Todd Bockley, who has represented him since 2007.
Denomie, whose work confronts the country's troubled past with playful but biting wit and from a Native American perspective, was also the curator of the exhibit.
The show includes 26 two-dimensional works, ranging from 2014 to some recent, smaller works on paper dated 2021. Many of the works have a dreamy "night palette." The exhibition includes two acrylic and oil on canvas paintings, "Four Days and Four Nites, Blue Green River" and "Four Days and Four Nites, Orange River," (both 2020), pieces from the 2018 "Standing Rock" series, various expressively colored untitled 8-by-10-inch portraits with shimmery vivid figures and a mysterious small portrait of a topless Courtney Love.
His widow and writer Diane Wilson said: "He put as much interest and commitment into doing small shows as he would doing shows at a larger venue, so it was definitely a show that was significant to him and a show that he cared about."
