The Blanden Memorial Art Museum announces “Pond Paintings,” a solo exhibition by artist Kim Bromley, on view in the East Gallery from Feb. 7 through April 18.

A public reception will be held from to 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Feb. 21, with an artist talk beginning at 3 p.m. This event is free and open to all.

For more than 15 years, Bromley’s artistic practice has been shaped by the quiet beauty of her rural Minnesota home, set on 20 acres of woods and water. Her studio is the landscape itself, where she paints en plein air, capturing shifting light, reflections, and seasonal color as they move across an eight-acre pond and surrounding forest.

In 2019, Bromley traveled to France to study the work of Claude Monet and visit his gardens in Giverny. The experience left a lasting imprint on her vision. After two years of reflection, the influence of that journey has begun to emerge vividly in her work. Her paintings echo the spirit of the gardens that inspired Monet, reimagined through Bromley’s own lens of color, light, and place.

Each work in “Pond Paintings” blends observation with memory, pairing the rhythms of her Minnesota landscape with the artistic lineage she encountered in France. The result is a body of work that invites viewers into a luminous world where water, foliage, and sky continually reshape one another.

Through this exhibition, Bromley invites audiences to slow down and enter the quiet conversation between light and land, allowing nature’s subtle drama to unfold on the canvas.

“Pond Paintings” is the second new exhibition opening at the museum.

“Cityscapes,” a watercolor exhibition by Fort Dodge native Richard Hanson, will be on view in the second floor gallery from Saturday through March 28.

A public reception will be held from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Feb. 7, with an artist talk beginning at 3 p.m.

“Cityscapes” features Hanson’s richly textured visual impressions of Italian streets and architecture. Shaped by years of living, working, and traveling in Italy, Hanson’s work reflects a deep interest in art history and its relationship to the culture that produced it. The Italian Renaissance, with its innovation and artistic energy, continues to inform his approach to composition, structure, and visual storytelling.