Art Hounds: Paintings hearken back to warmer seasons

Art and travel-lover Sue Thompson of La Cucina in Victoria, Minn., returns to the oil paintings of Ashley Dull to enjoy her handling of light on trees. “Her paintings are layered, layered, layered with lots of oil paint and so colorful. The leaves on the ground in her fall colors look as if you could step on the leaves and hear the crunch,” Thompson says.

Thompson particularly loves Dull’s painting “A Path Forward,” where two paths through a sun-lit birch forest come together as one. The painting took Dull 10 years to complete, as she paused after her children were born.

“She’s amazing at capturing the light,” Thompson said.

Vasiliki Papanikolopoulos founded Coimatan to celebrate local independent businesses. At Gallery 360 in Minneapolis, she discovered the mixed media art of Neysa Winterer.

What Papanikolopoulos first thought to be brush strokes in Winterer’s art turned out to be carefully torn pieces of paper. Winterer uses those bits of paper to mimic the impressionist brush strokes of Vincent van Gogh as well as to create her own landscapes and miniature scenes of homes.

Karl Sundquist of Virginia, Minn., who plays in the bands Big Waves and Bonfires and Pocket Knife, took an early listen to the newest album by Rich Mattson and the North Stars, and likes what he hears.

The album “Skylights” is more widely available on Friday. In lieu of a release party, the band will hold an “interactive video celebration” on YouTube that includes several homemade song videos.

Mattson is based on the Iron Range, where he runs the Sparta Sound recording studio in addition to playing his own music. His band has “an unbelievable, rich, good rock sound,” Sundquist said.

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