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BROOKINGS, S.D.—Paintings by Paul Peterson and Tom Thorson are on exhibit at the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings through July 3 as part of the South Dakota Artists Series.

The museum will host an artists’ reception from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, April 8 for Peterson, Thorson, Dichroic Glass sculptor Ray Howlett, and a public reception for the exhibit Wayne Thiebaud: Works on Paper 1960-2000. An artists’ talk will begin at 5:30 p.m. Wayne Thiebaud will not be at this event. The event is free and open to the public.

Peterson, of Sturgis, a former draftsman and farmer, is a teacher and musician as well as an artist. He says he paints because it gives his life meaning; it connects him to a larger inner world that he knows he would not have access to if he were not making art. His work concerns a keen interest in the observation of both internal and external realities.

“Painting is an attempt for me to understand myself and the world around me,” he says. “Art pushes me and I respond by continually working so that I might better express myself as a painter. Art gives me a feeling of accomplishment, mastery and connection.

“I have lived in the state of South Dakota my entire life and my sense of attachment to the people, places and things of this area is very strong. For me, the painting surface should be a place where matter, mind and spirit meet. For the most part, my painting is representational in nature, but, as of late, the people, places and things have been appearing in increasingly abstract environments. Objects float through space. Gravity exists in the real world, but not necessarily in the world of imagination or the spirit and appears in painting only through the choices an artist makes.”

Thorson, of Custer, earned a bachelor’s degree in art with a minor in French from SDSU. He spent two years in Paris, France, participating in diverse art activities from avant guard performance at the Louvre and set accessory design at La Comedie Francaise.

“Though seemingly content while awake, I continued to dream about the Black Hills and so returned to my birthplace in South Dakota,” Thorson says. “My roots quickly took hold again while working on sheep and cattle ranches and substitute teaching on the Rosebud Reservation.

“For me, painting is yet another pretext to go outside and explore and connect with my surroundings. In my paintings, I hope to offer an experience of affirmed or echoed emotion through the orchestration of color and of rewarded exploration by subtly shifting perspectives and structuring not with a single, central focus, but within a stabilizing infrastructure distributing the focus all over the image.”

The South Dakota Art Museum is located on Medary Avenue at Harvey Dunn Street on the South Dakota State University campus in Brookings. It is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. For more information, call the museum at (605) 688-5423.