Prairie Poetics is a collaborative exhibition by artists Katie Beatta Hovden Wolff and Anne Skaug. The exhibition will be in the Inez & Milton Shaver Gallery of the Dahl Arts Center from Friday, May 31 through Saturday, August 24, 2024. In addition to this exhibition, the RCAC will host an artists’ reception on Friday, May 31 from 5-7pm with artist talks at 6pm.

Prairie Poetics centers around the artists’, Katie Beatta Hovden Wolff and Anne Skaug, uncannily similar origin stories that they discovered after meeting in 2019 at Black Hills State University (BHSU). Coincidentally, each of these artists has one parent from Hettinger, ND, and one parent from Bergen, Norway. Both artists suffered the loss of their American-born parents in childhood or adolescence. Together, with their mirrored origin stories, Katie and Anne sought to materially represent the interconnectedness of personal, familial, cultural, and historical lineages within a singular landscape situated along the most western borders of North and South Dakota.

Wolff and Skaug collaborated during their studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) to create this show. This exhibition uses photography, poetry, material symbology, and personally sourced objects and invites the viewers into a space where time evaporates, images become windows, and objects stand in for bodies. Both of these artists were named Chicago’s Best Emerging Artist of 2023 by InsideHook.

Katie B. H. Wolff is an interdisciplinary artist working in printmaking, fibers, collage, sculpture, and writing. She received her BFA in Studio Art from Black Hills State University (BHSU) in 2020 and a MFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in Printmaking at the SAIC in 2023. Katie now teaches at BHSU.

Anne Skaug is a Chicago-based artist who received her MFA at SAIC in 2023 from the Fiber and Material Studies program. She currently works at Arts of Life in Chicago.