“Sky Into Stone” Opens this Fall at the Dennos Museum
Katrina Bello: Sky Into Stone
September 26, 2024–January 5, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 26, 7-9PM
Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI
Contact Tusen Takk: maggie@tusentakk.org, tusentakk.org
Contact Dennos Museum Center: cniemi@nmc.edu, dennosmuseum.org
The Tusen Takk Foundation and the Dennos Museum are pleased to present Sky Into Stone, a solo exhibition by Katrina Bello featuring charcoal and soft pastel drawings created around the time of her Tusen Takk residency in 2023. While Bello’s work has long incorporated history, Earth sciences, migration, and memories of her native Philippines, the residency at Tusen Takk afforded her precious space and time to re-examine former assumptions about land, landscape, and belonging. Amidst the beauty of Northern Michigan’s coastline, Bello’s encounter with such a vast inland sea–described as akin to a “raging ocean whose waves crash against the shore with a rapidity that borders on insanity”–catalyzed the creation of new work in response to time, humanity’s relationship to the natural world, and the divine.
About the Artist
Born in Davao City in the Philippines, Katrina Bello is a visual artist whose work is informed by memory, observations, experiences and narratives of land and natural surroundings during her experience of immigrating to the United States. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and the Philippines, and has been awarded fellowships and residencies in the United States. She attended the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and received a BFA from the Mason Gross School of The Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. She currently lives and works in New Jersey in the United States and Metro Manila in the Philippines.
About the Tusen Takk Foundation
Named for an expression of thankfulness, the Tusen Takk Foundation nourishes artists by giving them a place to work, engagement opportunities to enrich the culture of Northwest Michigan, and a platform to share their work internationally. Working across the visual arts, writing, and music composition, artists-in-residence have 24/7 access to the Foundation’s state-of-the-art studios and the beauty of Lake Michigan, located steps away.
Tusen Takk means ‘thousand thanks’ in Norwegian, often used to convey appreciation for something received, like a wonderful dinner or a helping hand. It’s with this same sense of gratitude and grace that the founders of the Tusen Takk Foundation wanted to express: thankfulness to artists for the transcendent truth and intangible joy they give back to the world in their work. Located on the isolated Leelanau Peninsula in Northwest Michigan, Tusen Takk is nestled into the quiet, forested dunes of Lake Michigan and was designed by world-renowned architect Peter Bohlin. For more information, visit tusentakk.org.
About the Dennos Museum Center
MISSION
The Dennos Museum Center builds community, sparks conversation, and inspires change for audiences of all ages through its exhibitions, programs, and the collection and preservation of art.
DENNOS MUSEUM CENTER HISTORY
Opened in 1991, the Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College is a premier cultural facility in northern Michigan offering a dynamic array of exhibitions and programs in the visual arts, sciences, and performing arts. The Museum includes temporary exhibition and permanent collection galleries, an elegant sculpture court, and a hands-on Discovery Gallery. The permanent collection features regional, national, and international art from the 19th-21st centuries. The Milliken Auditorium hosts events and concerts with performers from around the world. Visit the Museum Store for great shopping, including a fine selection of Inuit art for collectors.
The Museum's signature collection is Inuit art of the Canadian Arctic, one of the largest and most historically complete collections of these distinctive sculptures and prints in the United States. A significant collection of outdoor sculptures by noted international and Michigan artists surrounds the Museum on the beautiful campus of Northwestern Michigan College. In 2000, the Dennos Museum Center was recognized by ArtServe Michigan with the Governor's Award for Arts and Culture. The Museum expanded its original building in 2018, adding new galleries and auditorium spaces with wide support from the community.
In 2021, the Dennos joined a network of more than 200 other Smithsonian Affiliates in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Panama. Established in 1996, the affiliations program is designed to facilitate a two-way relationship among Smithsonian Affiliates and the Smithsonian to increase discovery and inspire lifelong learning in communities across America. Smithsonian Affiliates are collaborators on many of the Smithsonian’s strategic priorities, adding local content, context, and expertise to national initiatives to help tell a fuller story.
