Riverland Community College

In "Structures", his current show at the newly relocated and remodeled James Wegner Art Gallery, Minneapolis artist Ken Wenzel takes up some of the traditional concerns of observational landscape painting but with a twist. His inspiration comes from the accidental meetings of natural forms and the products of industrial engineering. Wenzel's compositions arebased on relationships: the shimmer of a railing on a bridge deck against aflowing river or the juxtaposition of an old tilted telephone pole and a towering, sun dappled power line support.

Says the artist: " The intent is to replicate and communicate the feelings, atmospheric conditions, and locations of these structures in engaging visual form and a deeply poetic manner... (r)ecognizing beauty in nature, in these impressively designed functional objects, and the underlying implications of their relationships... their ultimate purpose is to ask the viewer their thoughts on this.

Ken Wenzel has a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree form the School of Visual Arts in New York and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute.  He has exhibited his work regionally and has been included in juried shows around the United States.