MINNEAPOLIS.- The Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (MAEP) at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts presents “A Constant Line,” a new exhibition celebrating the works of Minnesota artists Cheryle Melander and Donald Myhre. Containing mostly sculpture, this show explores the intricacies of memory and the way society contextualizes the past in the present. On view June 19 through August 9, 2009, in the MAEP galleries.

Free events related to the exhibition include the opening reception on Thursday, June 18, at 7 P.M; a talk with both artists on Thursday, June 25, at 7 P.M.; and a critics’ trialogue with critic Christina Schmid on Thursday, July 9, at 7 P.M.

Cheryle Melander’s work uses line to follow memory’s journey through time. She is looking for the places where one event connects to another, where history and instincts merge. In her drawings, synaptic lines represent the meandering paths of memory—overlapping, intersecting, and picking up new threads, new lines. dreams, illusion, and other realities (2009) is a seventy-five foot scroll that weaves across the gallery wall, where some lines come to the forefront while other recede into darkness. In other works, the artist layers the drawings on transparent vellum, exploring the strata of memories formulated over time.

Don Myhre creates souvenirs of the past with sculptures that highlight the emotional impact of remembered events. To Myhre, memory is a tangible thing, signified by tokens that combine past and present. Nostalgia and humor fill his work, which captures child-like wonder tempered by adult sensibility. In Myhre’s world, viewers can strap on wings and fly, or zip through outerspace in a minivan. He reveres visionaries in every discipline, as far-reaching as astronaut Neil Armstrong and cartoonist Walt Disney. His art acknowledges both his initial awe of these icons and their subsequent historical and social significance. Above all, he follows in their footsteps by using experimental techniques and materials in his work.

This exhibition is presented by the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, an artist-run curatorial department of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which is made possible by generous support from the Jerome Foundation.