Visual Arts

See the world through the eyes of Black Hills artists

Step off Main Street in Spearfish into our Fine Arts Gallery. Around each corner (and even from the ceiling!) you will find bold, innovative, and diverse art pieces in every medium. All artwork in the gallery is created by Black Hills artists.

A passageway to the historic Matthews Opera House, the Gallery space transforms for art openings and community art projects. Events like the Community Art Show and partnerships with the Black Hills State University students and faculty demonstrate that the arts are for everyone, and everyone is an artist. 

Visit the Matthews Art Gallery

Admission is free. The Gallery is open year-round, Monday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Free parking is available directly in front of the Gallery on Main Street in Spearfish.

Summer Art Series Exhibit:

This showcase features the talents of Black Hills artists. The exhibit is open to the public from May through Labor Day. The series is structured to support the local artistic community with each piece in the gallery ready to sell and take home the same day.

Our 2023 Artists

Click on an artist name below to be taken to their bio.

Artist Bios

Michael Baum

Michael Baum is a South Dakota native, whom over the last twenty years has focused much of his time exploring the mountain ranges of California, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Alaska. His interactions with nature and the wilderness became the impetus for his graduate studies in fine art, which he completed at Washington State University with an emphasis in drawing and printmaking. Michael is currently an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. 

Michael’s work has been included in numerous national and international exhibitions. His drawings have been exhibited at Site: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY, The Tucker Cooke Gallery, UNC Asheville, and featured in INDA 9, International DRAWING Annual. His work has been selected for the South Dakota Governor’s Biennial Art Exhibitions. Michael is a past recipient of a career development grant from the South Dakota Arts Council, funded by The National Endowment for the Arts. 

Regionally his drawing and print-based work has been featured at The Plains Art Museum, the South Dakota Art Museum, the John A. Day Gallery at the University of South Dakota, and The Dahl Arts Center. His work has also been accepted into multiple public collections, which include the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Oregon, the Museum of Art/WSU in Washington, the Boise Art Museum, in Idaho, the Missoula Art Museum in Montana, Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas and Special Collections, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado. www.michaelbaumstudio.com 

SB Chandler

Sionainn Behre Chandler, known professionally as SB_Chandler, is an Artist based in the isolated Northern Black Hills of South Dakota. Not originally from the area however SB calls this place home.

SB Chandler’s art resonates with dark, sexual dissonance that critically examines the human condition. Focusing on themes relating to sex, gender, relationship with nature and technology, satire of religious practices, and experimentation with rituals.

Skott Chandler

Skott Chandler is a photographic artist, and educator at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. His photographic work focuses on experimental film and digital photographic processes, and conceptual image-making about the concepts of human relationships with time, spaces, fear, night, the unseen, and the unknown. www.skottchandler.com

Hope Christofferson

I believe in the continued use of fantasy as a tool to digest reality through play. I’m fascinated by how folklore once rationalized events like lightning, rainbows, love, death, and plagues. I draw parallels between the functions of folklore and the scientific counterparts that have come to replace it. Logic can explain how things happen, but not always why they happen. Choosing to see the world in an inquisitive light invites belonging and hope into the soul. The metaphors within myth and folklore provide answers that nothing else can address. Fueled by my deep love for nature, I incorporate personal symbology derived from my past to illuminate the sacred significance of plants and animals within human life. Many of my paintings are made in the woods, where I use watercolor to blend the intricate details of trees, mushrooms, and flowers with narrative symbolism.

Hope Christofferson spent her childhood homeschooling in the magical Black Hills of South Dakota, surrounded by nature which served to spark a love for fairy tales. Having an interest in traditional mediums, her works primarily consist of watercolor and oil. www.hopechristoffersonart.com

Sophia Clarke

Sophia Clarke spent the formative years of her life in The Bahamas. The country’s vibrant colours and bold personalities inspired a similar ferocity in Sophia’s attraction to lively palettes. Her work contains consistent threads and connections to her home, ranging from folklore, social issues, and flora and fauna.

Sophia is studying to receive a Bachelor of Education from Black Hills State University Spearfish, SD in 2023, majoring in Art and English. She has worked on local projects such as the Lookout Art Tunnel, Murals, and TAP through the Dahl Arts Center. She was in the HeavyBubble Quarenzine19 show and For the Love of Art.  www.sophiamclarke.com 

Donelle Culver

Donnelle Colver is a South Dakota native who currently resides in Spearfish, SD. She began sketching at an early age but did not become serious with painting until after raising her children. She currently enjoys painting various subject areas, such as landscapes, animals, and still-lifes using mostly watercolor and some acrylic on canvas. Her work captures a realistic view with vibrant colors! She has participated in several local art shows where she continues to grow and learn from other artists.

“Our best canvas is all around us, in everything we touch and do” – Fennel Hudson

Ethan Engel

Ethan Engel is an artist born and raised in Winner, SD. His passion for art began at four years old when his grandmother taught him how to paint ceramics. He later went on to Black Hills State University, obtaining a degree in art and graphic communications.

His works are inspired by his history with autism, showing his internal conflicts and the struggles of understanding his disability. Using his work as a powerful catharsis, Ethan strives to teach the public more about autism through his painting, sculpting, photography and mixed media works–creating positive, informative imagery from his personal experiences. 

“I want people to try and understand what autism is all about. How I deal with situations, my emotions. When you’re hearing me talk, I do have that processing issue. That’s why I wanted to play with the viewer a bit and get them interacted and try to connect with how the story goes.”

Tia Erin

Tia Erin is an experimental artist living and working in South Dakota. Her work is a reflection of her constant exploration of mediums and motivations. Obtaining her associate degree in Photography from Northwest College in Powell, WY started a journey that led to Spearfish, South Dakota where she would begin her BFA in Photography with an Art Management minor at Black Hills State University. Later adding BFAs in Studio Art and Graphic Design. Being able to work with a flexible modality has led to an eccentric portfolio spanning digital, 3-D, traditional, and alternative process artworks.

Tia has exhibited in several spaces in South Dakota and Wyoming including the Dahl Art Center in Rapid City, Matthews Opera House, and Black Hills State University, as well as Northwest College.Looking to the future, Tia is ready to continue her exploration of art in her own studio practices as well as work with her community to host accessible creative environments. www.tiaerin.art

Ed Gallucci

Gallucci is a photographer with 55 years of experience. His portraits of musicians and celebrities have been published in Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Penthouse, and his editorial photographs have appeared in Business Week, Fortune, US News & World Report, Discover, New York Magazine, Psychology Today and Science magazines, as well as on more than 40 covers of Newsweek. 

He is the photographic author of “Hard Corps” collaborating with author Michael Grumley, published by E.P. Dutton in 1977. Gallucci has won over 100 advertising industry awards, including five Andys and two Clios. Thousands of his photographs have appeared on print ads, billboards, book covers, annual reports, catalogs, and brochures. His works, among them a portrait of Bruce Springsteen, are in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art permanent photography collection in Kansas City, Missouri. Ed is one of the first photographers to photograph a young Springsteen and the future E Street Band for editorial use. The Bruce Springsteen photographs were featured in a one-man show, “The Crawdaddy Years and Beyond”, at Monmouth University October 2012. Forty of Ed’s RnR photographs are currently in the permanent collection of the “Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for the American Music, at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, NJ. Ed has lectured on the art of photography at Monmouth University, Montclair State University, Pratt Institute, and Princeton University. A life-long dream, six of Ed’s B&W photographs were made part of the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection in October of 2013. Ed has since had a one-man show exhibiting photos from his collection Frames Between Fares at the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, VA July 2014. Photos from Ed Gallucci’s Bruce Springsteen collection were a part of the Los Angeles Grammy Museum’s traveling show, “Bruce Springsteen: A Photographic Journey” documenting the early days of Springsteen’s career. The traveling show began at the Woodie Guthrie Center a museum in Tulsa OK in 2014 and ended its display at the Morven Museum and Garden in Princeton, NJ May 2017. Ed was honored to have one of his photos of Eubie Blake selected for exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in WDC. Also, his photos of Chicago blues musician Paul Butterfield are featured in the film “Horn From the Heart”, The Paul Butterfield Story which premiered April 2017 at the Newport Beach Film Festival in Newport Beach, CA. Ed Gallucci’s iconic Bruce Springsteen photographs are featured in the Netflix movie “Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives”. In addition another of Ed’s Bruce Springsteen photographs is now a permanent part of the NYU Clive Davis Exhibit on display at NYU TISCH. Also his Bruce Springsteen photographs featured in the film “Western Stars” 2019. 

Bruce Springsteen A Photographic Journey a traveling exhibit formerly held by the Grammy Museum in LA is about to go on the road again with eight of Ed’s Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band photographs, announcement and date to follow in 2023. Ed’s work is currently hanging in the Matthew Opera House & Art Center in Spearfish, SD.

Gallucci was born and raised in Park Slope Brooklyn, graduated high school in 1964 Berkeley Heights, NJ, studied graphic design and has a BFA in photography from the Kansas City Art Institute 1967-2013. He founded Gallucci Studio, Inc. in New York City in 1978, Sun Dog Ltd in 1994, Gallucci Imaging, Inc. in NJ 1999.

He has three grown children and three grandchildren and lives with his wife Donna in Custer, SD. www.edgallucciphotography.com

Helen Goodman Champ

Helen Goodman Champ is a Watercolorist in large part self-taught. Her style comes naturally as loose and fluid and impressionistic.  Her inspiration is the South Dakota landscape and the Black Hills that is the embodiment of Nature. As a resident of Spearfish, she is a member of the Black Hills Art Association. Her watercolors can be found at The Art Nest and The Matthews Opera House and Art Center in Spearfish.  She is also an associate member of The Northern Plains Watercolor Society and an associate member of Artists of the Black Hills. Most recently her rendition of Bridal Veil Falls won an Honorable Mention at the 2022 Annual Art Show sponsored by The Northern Plains Watercolor Society at the Dahl Art Center in Rapid City. Watercolor painting is both a meditation and a prayer for her. Facebook – Dragonfly Watercolor Designs 

Carol Lee Hilgemann

Carol Lee Hilgemann was born in 1947 in Aberdeen, South Dakota. She received a B.S. degree in art education from Northern State University, Aberdeen in 1969. That fall Carol moved to Fairbanks, Alaska teaching at Taylor Junior HS & Bed Eielson HAS< Eielson Air Force Base, retiring in July of 1997. Since 1989 Hilgemann’s work has been featured in numerous national group exhibitions. Solar exhibitions include the Well Street Art Company, Fairbanks: the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage; Slaska Pacific University, Anchorage: the Alaska Stae Museum, Juneau: and the Fairbanks Arts Association Bear Gallery. Her work in private and public collections include the Alaska State Museum, Juneau: Anchorage Museum of History & Art: University of Alaska Museum of the North, Fairbanks: and the DImond High School 1$ for Art, Anchorage, Alaska. She is featured in the book Found and Assembled in Alaska by Julie Decker, and in COLLAGE in all dimensions by Gretchen Bierbaum & Patrina Gerdner. Currently, Hilgemann lives in Spearfish, SD, and is an Emeritus Member of Artist of the Black Hills and a Signature Member of the National Collage Society.

Peggy Jankowski

Penny has lived in the Black Hills since 202. A self-taught gourd artist, Penny turns hard shell gourds into one-of-a-kind art pieces in various themes. A favorite being Western art. Being fascinated by the hard shell gourd, its history and the process from seed to dried gourd is what brought her to this medium. Each gourd has a unique shape, pattern, and thickness. All playing a part in inspiring her creations. Facebook – Gourd Art by Penny  

Jake Kiger

Born in Sioux Falls, Jake comes from a very creative family and was always encouraged to make messes and draw what he sees.  He moved to Spearfish in 1990, and his work has been found on the walls of local restaurants, and on the backs of their menus, since about that time.  He’s been Jake at Motor Service for twenty-seven years, and he’s constantly trying to recognize beauty in the everyday.  He’s been married to Katie for twenty wonderful years, and his children have grown into fascinating, opinionated adults.  But when he can stay up late or get up early and put himself in front of a canvas, there’s at least a little part of the universe where everything happens just as he’d like;  Only the paint does what he wants. www.kseroz.com 

Leangela Koerber

Leeangela Koerber has been painting since age 8. She started with watercolor paint and progressed to acrylic paints. She is based here out of Spearfish, South Dakota. She was born in Orlando, Florida. Other than art class in elementary school all the way to high school art class, she continues to learn different techniques of brushes, spatulas, and household articles to create the art she loves. Learning to make art in such a way had helped her at an early age with limited resources other than school to express herself in whatever life challenges.

She wants to ultimately make a person smile with her colorful work. Spending her career in dentistry early on, as a dental assistant, she was able to admire the many unique smiles. The most common subjects of art she is passionate about is nature, vibrant colors, and flowers in an abstract form in her visions. To learn a new technique with a paintbrush or even just her hands inspires her to keep making the art in new ways to bring color and shapes to life.

Being in nature envisioning the colors is her creative process. By observing other artists or simply doodling to find a peace through color is where she gets her inspiration. Leeangela’s hope for the future is to continue to learn different techniques and explore more abstract art.

Lucinda (Cindy) Merrill

Cindy has always had an urge to create. As a young girl her interest was piqued when she received a sketchbook for her ninth birthday.

After working 30 years in the Black Hills gold industry; where she had the opportunity to create several unique designs, she now has time to explore other artistic journeys.

Her interpretation of reference material as well as her varied imagination make an eclectic body of work using many different media. Some of her interests include acrylics, colored pencil, pencil, polymer clay and mixed media. She always enjoys trying something new.

Cindy likes using all the colors In the box; from earthy neutral colors to the bright colors of the rainbow. A lot of her work is bright and happy and she hopes through her art she can brighten someone’s day. Cindy believes there is a patch of blue in every grey sky. You just need to capture it.

Allen Morris

Allen Morris is a photographic artist based in South Dakota. He is an Assistant Professor at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota where he teaches classes in the Department of Art and Department of Mass Communication.

His research relies on a variety of light-sensitive materials, both digital and analog, coupled with contemporary and historical photographic processes and techniques. Morris’ work examines the relationship between humans and their environments with a particular interest in the impact that they have on the creation and evolution of human identity in social, personal, and political levels.

His work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally. He is an active member of the Postcard Collective and the Society for Photographic Education. www.allenmorrisphoto.com 

Quintin Owens

Quintin Owens is an Associate Professor of Studio Art at Black Hills State University. He received a Masters of Fine Arts from The Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Herron School of Art & Design. Quintin’s practice often explores creative processes that connect history, place, and immediate experience, with a special interest in merging craft and digital fabrication. www.quintinowens.com

Desy Schoenewies

Desy Schoenewies received her M.F.A. in painting from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, Missouri in 2010. In addition to oil painting, she has experience working with a number of mediums and themes, including encaustic, collage, drawing, and illustrative works. Her paintings are consistently exhibited in juried or invited exhibitions in local, national, and international shows. Desy has taught middle school and high school art in the St. Louis area for 9 years before moving to San Francisco, California in 2010. She taught art at the City College of San Francisco before moving to South Dakota in 2012 to teach at Black Hills State University. She has served on the Board of Directors with the Rapid City Arts Council and currently serving as a Board Member with the Matthews Opera House and Spearfish Arts Center. Desy is also working on a research project, 56 Houses Left. The project stems from the 1989-2009 land acquisition of the Carrollton Subdivision, a total of 2,000 parcel nearly a square mile wide in Bridgeton, MO by the Lambert- St. Louis International Airport for runway expansion. In her spare time, she is an amateur DJ at KBHU and a fiber artist.

This collection of work is a departure from highly-conceptualized art, instead as playful studies in oil paint and multi-media. By exploring color, composition, and form, the oil painting works are a return to the essentials of being an artist. Each of the paintings are created from a curated selection of everyday items we often see in multiples, such as small toys, candies, and thread. The animal works are digital drawings using Procreate and an iPad, then transferred into limited-edition screenprints. Once inked, each print is then hand water-colored as a unique work featuring common woodland animals integrated with an article of clothing. These works are simply whimsical eye candy to create and to enjoy. www.desyschoenewies.com or  www.56housesleft.com

Christopher Scott

Christopher Scott was born in New Hampshire and grew up in Massachusetts, and has lived in the American West for nearly all of his adult life. In 1986 he received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Self-taught in art, he has been seriously involved in painting (primarily with contemporary-abstract styles) for over 30 years and has exhibited his artwork in MA, UT, SD, CA and AK. He has also painted two outdoor murals in Lead SD, including the prominent “Newton’s Neutrino Nexus” on hyw14, just north of the traffic light. Christopher believes that art should stimulate the mental, spiritual, emotional, and aesthetic realms. Other creative endeavors of his include photography and classical music composition, and he has authored three nonfiction books. www.aciminsight.com

Anthony Speiser

Anthony is born and raised in South Dakota.  He moved to the Black Hills in 1997 and studied music at BHSU.  His current shop, KandyBikes, specializes in custom coatings and finishes, and with the space and tooling he has been able to experiment with a new medium and techniques to create his latest works.  While also being an avid cyclist in these wonderful Black Hills it is the arts that have his heart. www.kandybikes.com

Tobias Steeves

Tobias J. Steeves—a.k.a. AWAA—is a photographic artist.  AWAA stands for “Amateur with an Attitude,” a playful nickname Tobias affectionately earned from his younger siblings when he first started capturing “creation’s light” at the age of fourteen and was determined to prove he had an unrivaled eye for detail.  In the 12 years since those youthful, explorative days, AWAA has sought to master his craft and become a true professional in the craft and format of photographic art, and has won numerous awards and been recognized for his art and passion in storytelling and the ethereal effects of his work, but the nickname stuck, and has been his signature and photographic persona since.  When behind the lens, his greatest joy is framing a shot that illuminates the world in a unique way such that it captivates the viewer to contemplate all that is good, true, and beautiful.  For those who contemplate his work, he hopes the story the artwork tells will become their story, one they retell in their own voice as they live and grow with it.  Although he works extensively with macro photography—precisely because each vignette is a world in itself—he enjoys the entire range of artistic photography, striving bring attention to the missed moments of the natural world or the smallest details of the most common items as they strike his eye as he wanders the world around him.  AWAA lives in Spearfish, South Dakota where creation’s light shines gloriously throughout the year. www.AWAAphotos.com 

Susan Stoddart

Susan interprets the Black Hills landscape with watercolor. Often painting en plein air, she packs her supplies on her wanderings into the forest to record places seldom seen.  Using expressive brushstrokes and mineral pigments, Susan shares with you the magic, mystery, solitude, and peace found in the forest.

Sue has lived in the Black Hills for over 30 years. During that time, she has grown to love the peaceful beauty of the forest and trees. 

Through plein air study, Sue creates impressions of forest scenes using watercolor and oil.  As a former Geology major, she is drawn to natural mineral pigments such the variety that can be found in iron oxides such as umber, ochres, and sienna. Often, the majority of her paintings are created with these pigments as they just seem to fit with Black Hills scenery.

Sue has a spontaneous painting style in order to quickly capture the essence and mood of a scene. This is important when painting outdoors because the light and atmosphere can change fast – completely altering a landscape. Even in studio work, Sue likes to keep the painting loose to retain the impulsive appearance of her art. She loves all the drips, splatters, and accidents inherent in the watercolor medium. 

One of Sue’s favorite places to be is in the forest painting and at times hiking quite a ways to find her subject. Listening to the woods come alive, absorbing the scents, sun and wind, then putting all those things into her art are part of her creative process.  She hopes her paintings transport you to a place of peace and beauty. www.suestoddartfineart.com

Dick Termes

Dick Termes is an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been recognized from the US to Japan. His one-of-a-kind spherical paintings have been published in books all over the world. Unlike most painters, Termes paints on spheres. Each Termesphere is a revolving three-dimensional space/time exploration of an entirely closed universe.

What is a Termesphere?

A Termesphere is an optical illusion, an inside-out view of the total physical world around you on the outside surface of a hanging and rotating sphere. If you were on the inside of this sphere, this painted image around you would seem normal. Termespheres capture the up, down, and all-around visual world using a six-point perspective system. Dick Termes has been painting spherical paintings since 1968 when he received his Master’s Degree from the University of Wyoming. He continued his pursuit with his thesis on the Termesphere at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles where he received his Master’s in Fine Arts.

Kat Thompson

Kat grew up in a ranch country in western South Dakota and loves depicting the Western lifestyle. She works in many mediums, with oil as a favorite. She is self-taught in her art, has studied with various national artists, and is always striving to study and learn from artists she admires. She has taken advanced classes in sculpting, oil, & watercolor. Kat has given art lessons in private, schools,and community art clubs. She has taken up Plein Aire painting as a new adventure and enjoys the challenge of painting nature on sight.

Recently Kat had an oil painting selected by the South Dakota Arts Council into the Art for State Buildings Program where it will become a part of the state’s permanent art collection. Kat has prints and giclee’s of her work for sale offered on her website, also notecards and some originals. She also has her work on display at the 1875 Gallery in Sundance, Wyoming as well as at the Spearfish Matthews Opera House Arts Center.

She was a founding member of the Weaver Art Gallery of Sturgis, SD.; and has more recently displayed art at the Dahl Fine Art Center – Rapid City, SD., Mother Earth Art Show at Crazy Horse Monument, Short Grass Art Show Pierre, SD., Black Hills Stock Show Quik Draw, Center for Western Studies Augustana University-Sioux Falls, SD., and SDHCA Dakota Masterworks Show-Sioux Falls, SD… Kat works out of her Purple Sage Studio at Whitewood, SD. www.purplesagestudio.net 

Robert Vore

Robert Vore grew up on a ranch in Northeastern Wyoming. Being immersed in the landscape as a child has had a strong impact on his art. He graduated from San Francisco State University in 1978 with a painting major and a printmaking minor. After college, he took a job in the federal government and lived in various parts of the US. Upon retirement, he moved back to the Black Hills where he currently resides.

Robert works in representational as well as abstract. He develops his images through intuition by starting with a basic idea and letting the process lead the way. He works with a variety of mediums including acrylic, oil, collage, print, and charcoal.

Exhibits Include: Apex Gallery, Rapid City (solo); Wyoming Governor’s Capital Art (Juror’s choice award 2018); Clay Paper Scissors Cheyenne WY; Blue Door Gallery Cheyenne WY

Heidi Watson

Heidi’s style of photography has taken on many changes, but each change was for the better. It has been said, “Every new thing a person learns becomes an extension of him or herself.” For the last three years, she has been taking on a new approach to nature photographs by extracting parts of the whole to create an almost inner world from what she started with. To use Heidi’s own words, “One could call it almost abstract.” What you see is what you get with Heidi’s photography. She does not manipulate any of her images. All she does is what an art photographer would do in a darkroom. Rather than digitally doctor the image, she takes on a different perspective from when she first looked at the subject. This is a more challenging method, but, fortunately, Heidi loves a good challenge. www.blackhillsreflections.com

Bob Wilson

Bob Wilson is a native of Lead, SD. He has been fascinated with photography all his life, taking pictures with everything from his sister’s old Brownie to the latest in digital cameras. In 2005 he formalized this interest by attending and graduating from the Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula, Montana.

That year he also created Frogworks Photography as a vehicle to promote and market his art. His photographic pursuits are eclectic and involve landscape, commercial, weddings, portraiture, and fine art. His past clients include the Smithsonian Institution, South Dakota Arts Council, Spearfish Economic Development Corporation, and various Black Hills businesses and individuals. Locally, Bob has focused on making images of the historical and abandoned buildings of the area, using the technique of high dynamic range digital photography to capture the detail and character of these vanishing treasures. He has also begun to scratch his international travel itch by traveling to and photographing people and landscapes in Peru, Ireland, Uganda, South Africa, and Morocco. Facebook – Frogworks Photography