The Public Arts Commission and Mayor Bochenski have selected local artist Paul Gronhovd to receive the 2025 Mayor’s Choice Artist Award.  Established in 2010, the Mayor’s Choice Artist Award represents the City of Grand Forks’ commitment to fostering a vibrant artistic community and a continued dedication to the cultural enrichment of Grand Forks.  An open house reception and award ceremony will be held on Thursday, May 15, 2025.  The reception will be held at 5pm - 7pm in the 2nd floor lobby of City Hall located at 255 North 4th Street. 

About the Artist’s Exhibit: 

The act of seeing is never passive. In Sightlines: A Journey Through the Act of Seeing, photographer Paul Gronhovd invites us into a dual exploration of distant places and intimate spaces, united by a shared gaze attuned to shape, texture, and form. Through two distinct bodies of work—Uzbekistan Prints and Grand Forks Inkjet Prints—Gronhovd presents a compelling meditation on perception, memory, and materiality.

The first grouping, Uzbekistan Prints, presents black and white photographs captured during Gronhovd’s recent travels through Uzbekistan. Stripped of color, these images guide the viewer’s eye toward the essential elements of composition: the sinuous lines of a descending staircase, the intricate mosaic work of an ancient wall, the weathered surfaces of handcrafted pots. Through deliberate reduction, Gronhovd emphasizes structure over spectacle. Focus by elimination becomes both technique and theme.

What elevates these prints beyond documentation is Gronhovd’s mastery of the platinum palladium printing process—one of photography’s most intricate and revered techniques. Originally developed in the 19th century, this method yields prints of exceptional depth, warmth, and tonal range. The resulting images are not only seen—they are felt. With up to 16 stops of tonal gradation, the eye is drawn deep into the subtleties of shadow and light, revealing textures often lost in conventional photographic processes. Each print, handcrafted and subtly unique, is a singular object—both photograph and artifact.

In contrast, the second grouping of work—Grand Forks Inkjet Prints—grounds us in familiarity. These black and white photographs, captured in and around the artist’s hometown, reflect a quieter, more personal gaze. Here, the digital medium offers Gronhovd a different kind of expressive freedom, drawing on a background that bridges darkroom tradition with modern printmaking and graphic design.

Yet whether abroad or at home, analog or digital, Gronhovd’s vision remains consistent: to see the extraordinary within the ordinary. His photographs resist spectacle in favor of nuance, revealing worlds within walls, stories in surfaces. In a time dominated by fleeting digital imagery, Sightlines offers a pause—a moment to look again.

About the Artist:
Paul Gronhovd is a photographer and printmaker with deep roots in both traditional darkroom processes and contemporary digital practice. He holds a background in graphic arts and has exhibited work regionally and nationally.