Rogue Buddha Gallery

&

Nicholas Harper Fine Art

Hauntingly Beautiful Artwork

MAGICAL REALISM

POP SURREALISM

WONDROUSLY DARK

Explore the Collections Explore the Collection

Hauntingly Beautiful Artwork

MAGICAL REALISM | POP SURREALISM | WONDROUSLY DARK

Explore the Collections

A

Celebration of the Mysterious

The Rogue Buddha Gallery celebrates hauntingly beautiful and beautifully bizarre works of art with an emphasis on magical realism, pop-surrealism and the wondrously dark from local, national and international artists.


Now in its 25th year, The Rogue Buddha Gallery is based upon the artwork, inspirations and curiosities of gallery owner and artist, Nicholas Harper.


While offering the exquisitely dark and wonderfully strange visual artwork of Harper and friends within an enchanting and moody atmosphere, the Rogue Buddha Gallery proudly caters to every level of art enthusiast, from the first time art buyer to seasoned collectors.


“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton


A

Celebration of the Mysterious

The Rogue Buddha Gallery celebrates hauntingly beautiful and beautifully bizarre works of art with an emphasis on magical realism, pop-surrealism and the wondrously dark from local, national and international artists.


Now in its 25th year, The Rogue Buddha Gallery is based upon the artwork, inspirations and curiosities of gallery owner and artist, Nicholas Harper.


While offering the exquisitely dark and wonderfully strange visual artwork of Harper and friends within an enchanting and welcoming atmosphere, the Rogue Buddha Gallery proudly caters to every level of art enthusiast, from spectator and first time buyer to seasoned collectors.


“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton

Art is the Story of the Human Soul

What is the meaning of life and who or what are we as human beings?


These are the questions I began to ask myself one week after my fifth birthday, on the evening my father passed away in his sleep.  Since that time, I have been endlessly curious about the mysterious nature of existence, especially as it pertains to the nature of Self and Soul.


While sometimes overwhelmed by the sublime beauty that surrounds us, from the mundane to the extraordinary, I am endlessly fascinated by our world and the mysteries that shroud it.


 It was this fascination and quest for meaning and understanding that initially led me to bring a fine tipped pencil to the smooth tooth of blank paper as a child. By carving out my own realities in two dimensions, I better hoped to understand the world while perhaps simultaneously, escaping from its harsher realities, at least for a short while.


While art doesn't necessarily offer any answers to the great mysteries of life by means of logic or reason, it can deepen the mystery. In so doing, through an appreciation of these mysteries and the emotions they elicit, perhaps that is where we add richness and find meaning to life. It's with this understanding that art becomes a reflection of the human experience.


Art is the story of the human Soul.


While my fathers passing was not easy and forever skewed the lens by which I view and experience the world, it provided me with the greatest gift possible, an appreciation for it and a desire to take part in the act of creation myself.


It's from this emotional and psychological vantage point that I have sought to carve out my place in the art world. While paying homage to beauty as a requisite principle of life, I endeavor to create works wrought with the potential for allegory and story telling, to illicit memory dreams both real and imagined and to offer windows to the Soul, both mine and yours.


- Nicholas Harper

What is the meaning of life and who or what are we as human beings?


These are the questions I began to ask myself one week after my fifth birthday, on the evening my father passed away in his sleep.  Since that time, I have been endlessly curious about the mysterious nature of existence, especially as it pertains to the nature of Self and Soul.


While sometimes overwhelmed by the sublime beauty that surrounds us, from the mundane to the extraordinary, I am endlessly fascinated by our world and the mysteries that shroud it.


 It was this fascination and quest for meaning and understanding that initially led me to bring a fine tipped pencil to the smooth tooth of blank paper as a child. By carving out my own realities in two dimensions, I better hoped to understand the world while perhaps simultaneously, escaping from its harsher realities, at least for a short while.


Therein lies the irony and magic of art, it's ability to provide solace as well as discomfort, to illicit tremendously powerful and contrasting emotions, from joy and love to deep and great sorrow.


While art doesn't necessarily offer any answers to the great mysteries of life by means of logic or reason, it can deepen the mystery. In so doing, through an appreciation of these mysteries, perhaps that is where we add richness and find meaning to life. It's with this understanding that art becomes a reflection of the human experience.


Art is the story of the human Soul.


While my fathers passing was not easy and forever skewed the lens by which I view and experience the world, it provided me with the greatest gift possible, an appreciation for it and a desire to take part in the act of creation myself.


It's from this emotional and psychological vantage point that I have sought to carve out my place in the art world. While paying homage to beauty as a requisite principle of life, I endeavor to create works wrought with the potential for allegory and story telling, to illicit memory dreams both real and imagined and to offer windows to the Soul, both mine and yours.


- Nicholas Harper

Current Collections

THE OCTOBER COLLECTION by NICHOLAS HARPER

“All art is a memory of age-old things, dark things, whose fragments live on in the artist.”

- Paul Klee

For the first time ever, Nicholas Harper presents his most beautifully haunting and richly mysterious works in one place, The October Collection.

This body of work represents Harper's fascination with the mysterious, from the nature of spirit and soul to the afterlife. His use of rich black and muted tones shroud each painting with a veil of intrigue while darkened eyes beg questions as to the nature and meaning of each individual work.

Shop the Collection

SIGNATURE PORTRAITS by NICHOLAS HARPER

“There is no exquisite beauty…

without some strangeness in the proportion.”

- Edgar Allan Poe

Nicholas Harper's signature portraits are characterized by a distinctive style in which he presents the human figure through a lens of magical realism, where long necks and serpentine torsos adorn a subject enshrined within ethereal and atmospheric backdrops.


With a curiosity for iconography, a pursuit of irregular beauty and an ever present awe for the mysterious and occult nature of the soul, a richly ornate vocabulary emerges within Harper's elaborate and painstakingly crafted works. His use of glazing, light and shadow and vintage frames hearken back to the masters of old.

Shop the Collection

THE OCTOBER COLLECTION

by NICHOLAS HARPER

“All art is a memory of age-old things, dark things, whose fragments live on in the artist.” - Paul Klee

For the first time ever, Nicholas Harper presents his most beautifully haunting and richly mysterious works in one place, The October Collection.


This body of work represents Harper's fascination with the mysterious, from the nature of spirit and soul to the afterlife. His use of rich black and muted tones shroud each painting with a veil of intrigue while darkened eyes beg questions as to the nature and meaning of each individual work.

Shop the Collection

NICHOLAS HARPER SIGNATURE PORTRAITS

“There is no exquisite beauty…

without some strangeness in the proportion.” 

- Edgar Allan Poe

Nicholas Harper's signature portraits are characterized by a distinctive style in which he presents the human figure through a lens of magical realism, where long necks and serpentine torsos adorn a subject enshrined within ethereal and atmospheric backdrops.


With a curiosity for iconography, a pursuit of irregular beauty and an ever present awe for the mysterious and occult nature of the soul, a richly ornate vocabulary emerges within Harper's elaborate and painstakingly crafted works. His use of glazing, light and shadow and vintage frames hearken back to the masters of old.

Shop the Collection

NICHOLAS HARPER AMBIENT LANDSCAPES

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”

– Vincent van Gogh

Nicholas Harper's Ambient Landscapes, or Nocturnes, draw upon emotive imprints from places real and imagined, whose memory, when conjured, is felt as much as it is remembered in any literal sense. With a palette of rich colors laden with black, pristine glazing and a minimalist approach, Harper presents seductively moody tableaux cast in mystical light and shrouded in melancholic shadow. Harper's somber and emotional vistas express the sublime qualities of the natural world, carving a space for introspection while offering still moments of solemnity and reverence.

Shop the Collection

AMBIENT LANDSCAPES by NICHOLAS HARPER

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”

- Vincent van Gogh

Nicholas Harper's Ambient Landscapes, or Nocturnes, draw upon emotive imprints from places real and imagined, whose memory, when conjured, is felt as much as it is remembered in any literal sense. With a palette of rich colors laden with black, pristine glazing and a minimalist approach, Harper presents seductively moody tableaux cast in mystical light and shrouded in melancholic shadow. Harper's somber and emotional vistas express the sublime qualities of the natural world, carving a space for introspection while offering still moments of solemnity and reverence.

Shop the Collection

more than an art gallery...

Experience the Rogue Buddha Gallery

Contact us with your questions today!

Sign up to our newsletter

Nicholas Harper on PBS

VISIT US THURSDAY & FRIDAY 4-8pm (current summer hours)

OR BY APPOINTMENT

Hauntingly Beautiful Artwork

IN THE HEART OF THE NE MINNEAPOLIS ARTS DISTRICT

Share by: