Photos courtesy of Tad Anderson
Minnesota’s natural beauty has long inspired Tad Anderson—both in his 40-year landscape architecture career, and now, in his transition to digital painting. As the founder of a small, award-winning landscape design-build firm in Minnetonka, he has crafted outdoor spaces for residential, commercial, recreational, hospitality, and academic clients. But in 2015, his creative focus shifted. Instead of shaping the outdoors, he set out to capture them in their most natural state.
“My journey has been a self-taught mess of trial and error,” Anderson says. “Over the years, I’ve explored digital collage creation, canvas replication, textural brushstroke development, color and hue extraction, and color palette mixing.” His artistic style draws from American folk art, tribal symbolism, and primitive regional art. “The more basic, raw, and unmanipulated, the more it resonates with me,” he adds.
Throughout his creative journey, Anderson found much of his inspiration from the great outdoors, where he has immersed himself throughout his life and career. But for the first time, he was able to view nature through a new lens—one that intrigued him as an observer, hiker, landscape architect, and artist. “Most of my print pieces depict Minnesota settings,” he notes. “Nature’s poetics are sometimes revealed in close-up details, [and] other times in sweeping wide-open spaces. I’ve tried to capture some of that.”
His new exhibition, “Capturing Minnesota,” on view through June 27, highlights the “wow factor” of the state’s striking scenery. Anderson describes the 20-piece collection as his “personal fool’s errand”—a bold attempt to portray Minnesota’s vast beauty in a two-dimensional form. “For many years, I’ve felt that we [Minnesotan friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc.] too easily develop a habit of looking past our region’s unique character and compelling beauty,” Anderson says. “My digital paintings are regional stories, captured for that visual moment. I hope, if I’ve done my job, viewers will recognize, take visual ownership of, and find inspiration within.”
As for what’s next? Anderson says he’s still developing his own artistic narrative.
“Capturing Minnesota” is now on view at Brookview Golden Valley.
