Sunday, July 14, 2024 | 1:30 - 2:30p | Tickets: $5
Artist Tours are a ticketed opportunity to meet artists in an intimate capacity. Don’t miss your chance to tour the new exhibition Ultra Mare with the exhibiting artist, Kajahl, and to experience Across a Wide Ocean: Remarkable Stories about the Origins of Identity, with author Kao Kalia Yang, and illustrator Khoa Le. Assistive listening devices will be used on this tour. This program is part of the FRESH Water New Look Weekend at MMAM, July 12-14, 2024.
Space is limited and advance ticketing is recommended. This event does not include gallery admission, and admission to the galleries can be purchased separately. Admission to the galleries is always free for MMAM members! Not a member yet? Join today.
About the Artists
Kajahl
Kajahl’s work is inspired by the ancient world. He brings fictional characters to life in an imagined scene, through the medium and tradition of oil painting. In a sense, his work is based on a true story that diverges into fantasy, placing Kajahl as court painter to a mythical civilization.
Khoa Le
Khoa Le (b. 1982) is an illustrator, author, and painter based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She is the author and illustrator of numerous picture books, including Sugar in Milk (Running Press Kids, 2020) by Thrity Umrigar, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; and Miriam at the River (Kar-Ben Publishing, 2020) by Jane Yolen, an Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Honor Book.Though her artwork is digital— employing Photoshop alongside a Wacom tablet—Khoa Le crafts all textures using traditional methods such as watercolor or oil paint. For each project, she embarks on a creative experiment, blending personal touches to ensure the result aligns with the narrative she aims to convey.
Kao Kalia Yang
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses audiences and genres. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs, The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. Yang co-edited the groundbreaking book, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. Yang is a librettist for the The Song Poet Opera (commissioned by the MN Opera). Her children’s books, A Map Into the World, The Most
Beautiful Thing, The Shared Room, Yang Warriors, From the Tops of the Trees, and The Rock in My Throat center around Hmong children who live in our world, who dream and hurt and hope in it.
Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. Yang is McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.
FRESH Water New Look Weekend Programs + Events
July 13 - 14 General Admission Rate: $5 | MMAM Member General Admission: Free
Tickets are required for some programs and events.
Support Comes From
This exhibition project is presented by the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, a nonprofit mission-driven art museum located on the shores of the Upper Mississippi River. MMAM gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from our Board of Directors, the Carl and Verna Schmidt Foundation, Elizabeth Callender King Foundation, Merchants Bank, the Charmant Hotel, the Winona Post, the La Crosse Distilling Company, Lake and Company, and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, individuals, members and volunteers.
Carl & Verna Schmidt Foundation
Elizabeth Callender King Foundation
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts & cultural heritage fund.