Mar. 26—GRAND FORKS — A Grand Forks folk artist, Pieper Bloomquist, will have her work featured in a new exhibition, “Nordic Echoes: Tradition in Contemporary Art,” which opens April 5 at the Scandinavia House in New York City.
The show features 55 works by 24 contemporary artists whose practices are informed by Nordic traditional skills, according to an announcement by the American-Scandinavian Foundation, which is headquartered at the Scandinavia House on Park Avenue in Manhattan. “(It) showcases the malleability and persistence of these traditions in the U.S.,” and includes painting and textile traditions as well as works in wood and metal.
The foundation organized the exhibition and invited artists to submit their artwork.
Beginning this fall, the exhibition will travel to numerous locations throughout the Upper Midwest, including Fargo; Brookings, South Dakota; and Minneapolis.
The show “highlights how variations on traditional themes and innovations have led to the emergence of living, evolving forms,” the foundation’s announcement said. “No longer static objects rooted in an imagined past, these works explore themes of identity and belonging as well as how traditions have been shaped by their U.S.-based environments.”
Bloomquist has painted in the Swedish and Austrian styles of folk art for more than 30 years; her teaching has helped perpetuate that tradition across North Dakota and Minnesota.
This is the first time her artwork is being shown at the Scandinavia House, she said.
Her painted tapestry tells the story of the early days of the COVID pandemic, capturing images meaningful to Bloomquist when she began painting it in the spring of 2020.
The artwork, titled “Silver Linings,” represents a collection of stories, she said, with various images depicting “people — mainly artists that were involved with the North Dakota Council on the Arts, many of them — that were doing things in their communities to sustain our culture during isolation.”
Among the three horizontal rows of images are scenes such as the Waddington Brothers musical group performing for people attending, and listening to the radio in their cars, the first Easter church service after COVID struck. The art also depicts people kneeling by windows of an eldercare facility, using cell phones and Zoom to communicate with their loved ones.
The latter is based on personal experience, connecting with her mother-in-law.
Seeing people kneeling by the windows, “all I could think of was how much love there was at those windows, just people wanting to be together, but they couldn’t,” Bloomquist said. “The window is a great pathway, you can still see through it, but yet it’s still a barrier.
“I called that painting ‘Silver Livings,’ because all of these things were wonderful silver linings to that isolation, which was a horrible time for people.”
Many of the artists whose work is displayed in the Nordic Echoes exhibition — including Bloomquist — are past recipients of the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Folk Arts and Cultural Tradition fellowships, which have been awarded since 2018.
The traditional and folk art fellowships were available to residents of the Upper Midwest — in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — for the purpose of traveling to a Nordic country to continue learning a traditional art, then bring the artform back to the U.S. and “really advance our careers,” Bloomquist said.
“I think I was their first grant recipient” in 2018, said Bloomquist, who received a second fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation in 2023.
She spent a month in Sweden learning the techniques involved in a traditional style of art called “bonadsmålning,” which translates to “tapestry painting.”
Nordic Echoes is the first major traveling exhibition of contemporary Nordic folk arts and cultural traditions from the Upper Midwest.
After the exhibition closes in New York, it will travel to: the South Dakota Art Museum on the SDSU campus in Brookings, Oct. 4-Jan. 15, 2026; the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, Feb. 14-June 7, 2026; Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, Aug. 15-Dec. 31, 2026; Plains Art Museum in Fargo, Jan. 23-April 4, 2027; Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, May 8-Aug. 29, 2027; and De Vos Art Museum in Marquette, Michigan, in the fall of 2027.
On view through Aug. 2 in New York, the exhibition will be accompanied by a wide range of programming, including artists’ talks and panels, workshops, films, music, guided gallery tours and family activities.
Bloomquist has been invited to lead painting workshops at the Scandinavia House later this spring; exact dates are yet to be determined, she said.
Some of these traditional folk art techniques, such as seen in tapestry paintings, have been lost even in the countries where they originated, because emigrants “could not take it with them on the boat, so it got lost,” Bloomquist said. Efforts have been underway to revitalize and perpetuate these techniques in Scandinavia too.
At the Bonadsmuseum Unnaryd in Sweden, which operates a folk school, “I learned to do the egg tempera (painting),” she said. Because of its dedication to preserving folk art techniques, the museum was recently added to UNESCO’s list of cultural heritage sites.
Bloomquist was commissioned to create a piece of art for the museum, “and I have a permanent display there,” she said. “That’s the biggest feather in my cap.”
Bloomquist is honored that her art is part of the Nordic Echoes exhibition, she said.
“I feel so grateful that it’s not just me being recognized for this artwork, that is secondary. (In) my life’s work for the last 30 years … the whole goal I have had (since) I first learned that this artwork existed in Sweden, was to preserve it in Sweden. And I felt it was very important for descendants here in the United States to know what belongs to them and know this part of their heritage …
“It’s narrative storytelling and that’s what captured my heart, and it’s a great tool to use to tell our modern stories,” she said. “The old painters told their stories, things that were important to them — the Bible and church were important to them and that’s what they used it for.
“I tell stories that are important to us and important to me. … I feel grateful that that is being showcased and honored and validated,” Bloomquist said. “I’m grateful that it’s the artwork itself, and this tradition, that is getting the acknowledgement. That Nordic traditions in this exhibit are getting the attention that they deserve.”
