About
Kapplinger developed a love of nature while farming and a passion for printmaking while attending Augustana University in South Dakota. He earned a Master of Fine Art degree in print/drawing from the University of Iowa. He is an Emeritus Professor of Art at North Dakota State University where he also founded the Printmaking, Education, and Research Studio (NDSUPEARS). His art has shown in over 300 exhibitions and is part of 40 public collections including Plains Art Museum in Fargo North Dakota, Special Collections Department at the University of Colorado, McMaster University at Hamilton in Ontario, Canada, Proyecto ‘ace, Buenos Aires, Argentina and is archived in Artist Printmaker/Photographer Research Collection of the Museum of Texas Tech University.
Statement
My work addresses socio-environmental issues and illustrates a search for a balanced and regenerative quality in life. I consider my work collaborative in nature, inspired by authors, reporters and researchers of environmental and cultural issues interpreted through my own rural-based background. I use metaphor to describe didactic relationships between innovation and progress. Dialogue of relatively cyclic relationships like time and place, need and reaction, problem and solution occur as one contemplates the subject of progress. Innovation results from these contemplative questions, but is often isolated because it addresses specific challenges while ignoring the whole. Though I want the viewer to explore relationships at singular stages, I prefer they look at the proverbial ‘larger picture’ and evaluate progress from a broader perspective. A viewpoint that often raises more questions than answers.
Selected Exhibition
2023 64th Midwestern Invitational Exhibition of Fine Art, The Rourke Art Museum, MN
2023 Delta National Small Print Exhibition, Bradbury Art Museum, AR
2022 Twenty Years of Marais Press: Imprinting a Campus and Collection, Hilliard Art Museum, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
2021 Solo show: A Quiet Voice Heard: Retrospective of Kent Kapplinger, Eide/Dalrymple Gallery, Augustana University, SD
2019 Solo show: Beautiful Recollections, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND
2018 Midwestern Invitational, Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, MN
2017 27th Annual International Small Print Show, CPC, Chicago, IL
2017 Marais Press: 20 Years of Collaborations, C. Diboll Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2017 To Reform, Eide/Dalrymple Gallery, Augustana University, Sioux Falls, SD
2017 Crossroads, Beck Gallery, Fergus Falls, MN
2016 Edinboro National Printmaking Competition, Bruce Gallery, Edinboro, PA
2016 NDCA 50thAnniversary, North Dakota Heritage Center, Bismarck, ND
2015 The Bakken Boom, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND
2015 East/West, Exchange Portfolio, Fine Art Gallery, Sequoias College, Visalia, CA
2014 Printmaking in a Modern World, Art Program Gallery, UMUC, Adelphi, MD
2014 The Space Between, Constellation Studios, Lincoln, NE
2014 Trace & Gestures, Richmond Center for Visual Arts, WMIU, Kalamazoo, MI
2013 FL3TCH3R Exhibition, Tipton Gallery, ETSU, Johnson City, TN
2013 Trace & Gestures, Proyecto ‘Ace, Dialogo Space, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2013 Solo show: Beneath the Surface, MacRostie Art Center, Grand Rapids, MN
Printmaking, Education, and Research Studio (PEARS) Department of Visual Arts, North Dakota State University http://www.inforum.com/content/pears-brings-printmakers-together