Artist Talk with Mike Klein

About

The John P. Monahan Gallery and the Sustainability Arts Gallery are featuring the work of Mike Klein. Both exhibitions run Sept. 8 through Dec. 18, 2026.

Contact Marria Thompson with questions.

Artist Talk with Mike Klein

Thursday, November 12, 2026, 6:00 PM 7:00 PM

150 Owens Science Center - 3M Auditorium

MIKE KLEIN | LITTORALLY | LITTORALLY REFLECT

Littorally (Sustainability Arts Gallery) explores our relationships to water and people, on and around the land occupied by the University of St. Thomas. The term littoral refers to the shoreline where a body of water and land come together. The term literal is the primary meaning, free from exaggeration or embellishment. Littorally invites the viewer to consider the meaning of water in relation to ourselves and our stories – past, present, and future. Littorally Reflect (John P. Monahan Gallery) is a journey of reflection as Klein contemplates personal and ancestorial ties to the water and land.

A waterway flows under our feet. It begins a mile southeast of campus, winds under the library, O’Shaughnessy Educational Center, and Murray-Herrick Center, then emerges in a ravine to flow over Shadow Falls. This area of land is known by Dakota people as Mnisina, “blanket of water.” This metaphor of a littoral waterway that was altered, renamed, and buried might help us uncover stories that have been literally neglected or erased. How might truth telling about the past help us acknowledge truths in our own time and work toward a shared future?

Mike Klein works in sculptural forms to explore intersections of identity, culture, and nature. Creative tensions between aesthetics and politics, story and agency, and humanity in the living world are throughlines across visual forms. He addresses social justice through art by integrating work as a professor of justice and peace studies, advocacy and activism in support of social movements, and cultivation of relationships and community as antidotes to fear and isolation. As a public artist, he has created site specific community works. He is also active in the Art is My Weapon collective, creatively addressing violence by transforming guns into art to promote dialogue and policy change. His more personal work often references forms of water and boats, made with reclaimed or sustainably harvested woods, stones and other found objects, then finished with raw linseed oil. These sculptures manifest interior questions or struggles that are otherwise frustrated by linear, discursive analysis. Though intensely personal, viewers are invited to engage with these universal materials, themes, and forms to find their own meaning and to inspire creative work in our human and ecological communities.