Return. Roberta Paul

July 31 – October 26, 2025               

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 31, 5:30 – 7 pm
The artist will be present to speak about the exhibition.

Roberta Paul received her MFA in 1981 from UND and spent her formative years in Grand Forks. The artist currently resides in the Boston area and the NDMOA exhibition represents a “return” of the artist to celebrate her long career. Paul has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her works are in the collections of several museums, corporations, and private individuals. Her artwork spans several media from drawing, painting, video, and installation and they range in scale from the intimate to the monumental. Her keen eye and incisive use of line capture a range of subjects from people, animals, as well as inanimate objects, all with the same invigorating energy. Thematically, one of the ideas that has captivated the artist is the concept of time. For example, one body of work titled Breathe addresses the “most basic act of living (a simple breath) and experiences of the world around us.” The artist is also deeply invested in the bonds we form with other people and how these connections and experiences “define who we are and who we will become. In that process we may find meaning, beauty, and truth. My art always starts from the personal and tries to reach for the more universal.”

Paul’s exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art will represent the artist’s largest and most ambitious exhibition to date, and it builds on the Museum’s long history of bringing world-class contemporary art to the Grand Forks community and beyond. It also builds on the Museum’s legacy of maintaining close relationships with artists throughout their careers. Roberta knew our founding director, Laurel Reuter, at a time when the “museum” was a modest gallery in the student union in the early 1980s. As the Museum moved into its new 10,000 square foot location and became the official state art museum, this relationship continued. In 2008, the Museum featured some of Paul’s large-scale animal drawings in an exhibition that traveled throughout the state to much acclaim.

As Reuter observed, Roberta Paul, “is the kind of person who knows how to love and to be loved. Enthusiasm is woven into her very being.” It is this energy and enthusiasm coupled with compositional intelligence that define Paul’s exhibition and we are thrilled for her “return” to our Museum.

Exhibition support provided in part by Visit Greater Grand Forks and by a grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, which receives funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.