Student Caleb Kobilansky poses for Art After Hours class. Photo by Nick Nelson/The Dakota Student.

Culturally diverse instructors are offering Art After Hours to adult students at the ND Museum of Art from 5:30-7:30 p.m. on Mondays in October. The classes cost $100, but no materials are required to bring to the class and no experience is necessary.

The class primarily uses charcoal, ink and collage in view of a live model, exploring personal expression and composed space, that focuses on masses, planes, design and abstract forces such as weight, movement, tension and rhythm.

The two artists that teach the class each have their own expressions and approaches to the class. Pirjo Berg’s approach is more of an experimental style with expressive elements where the artists can learn more about themselves in their art.

“Art is a way for people to express themselves in a different way and learn about other people through their art,” Berg said.

She loves to inspire people through her artwork and for people to inspire each other through theirs.

Berg was born in Helsinki, Finland and received her master’s degree in regional planning at the University of Tampere, Finland, before moving to the U.S. in 1991.

In 1996 she returned to academia to get her formal education in painting, and she moved back to Finland to attend the School of Art and Media in Tampere.

After graduating with her BFA she moved back to Seattle in 2000.

In the summer of 2008 she moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota and established her studio there.

Her paintings are inspired by Finnish traditional rag rugs and wall hangings, which are primarily composed of horizontal stripes. The stripe designs remind her of home and childhood where her mother, grandmothers and aunts were designing and making them.

Her latest paintings reflect her years living in North Dakota but also travelling in Greenland and especially in the summer months of 1991 in Svalbard, Arctic Norway. They also remind her of long dark winter months of her childhood back in Finland. They are inner emotional landscapes with repeating horizontal stripes.

Peruvian artist Guillermo “Memo” Gurdia is also instructing classes for Art After Hours. His approach to the visual model is less of an expressive style and focuses more on the skeletal structure and muscles.

Gurdia graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú with a bachelor’s in fine arts in 1999.  He also earned his master’s of fine arts degree in  ceramics at UND in 2005 and his master’s degree in industrial technology at UND in 2009.

Colin Johnson is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].