Moorhead artist Dennis Krull has fabricated the MoorHeart Award artworks presented by the City Council for the past year. (Photo/Nancy Hanson.)

The MoorHeart Award is created with encaustic, an ancient art medium made from beeswax and tree resin applied to a wooden base.

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

When Moorhead residents are presented with the city’s most prestigious award, they step forward for a handshake with Mayor Shelly Carlson … and an original work of art by Dennis Krull.
Krull, who calls his studio the 5 foot 20 Design Lounge, has been creating the handsome trophies presented each month at Moorhead City Council meetings. The 5×7” wooden mementos not only recognize their recipients’ outstanding service to the community. As an added bonus, they may literally last through the ages.
His MoorHeart creations utilize an ancient art technique called “encaustic.” Though little known among those familiar with more modern pencils and paints, it predates those media by centuries … and has the potential to outlast them all.
Encaustic art – the Greek word means “to heat or burn in” – dates back to ancient Egypt. Explains the artist, “It’s one of the oldest art media. The Egyptians used it in a lot of ways, from paintings in temples to decorating sarcophagi. It’s water-resistant, and bugs don’t like it.” He adds, “A woman who visited the temples a few years back told me it looked just like it was painted yesterday.”
Like the artists who painted those originals more than 4,000 years ago, Dennis employs all-natural products to create his encaustic wall art. He purchases refined beeswax, along with chunks of damar resin, a crystallized sap from trees in Southeast Asia. Pigments can be added for color.
The first step, he explains, is heating the two ingredients to melt and meld them. “My studio is full of kitchen equipment – a flat griddle, bread pans,” he says. “I can’t just sit down and start painting. The first step is turning up the heat and melting it down.”
The initial layer of his MoorHeart plaques is tissue on which he has sketched a simple map and other details. Atop that paper, he brushes the first of what may become 20 to 25 thin, translucent encaustic layers. When they’ve hardened, he carves out the path of the Red River, then attaches a smoothly sanded heart carved out, he says, “from Moorhead wood.”
Not all of his results turn out exactly as expected. “Encaustic can have a mind of its own,” he concedes. “Sometimes it’s a process of melting, brushing, then reheating and scraping it all off to start over. Most of the time, you can’t do exactly as you want, but there are happy accidents, too. It’s fun to put it all together.”
A graduate of the graphic design program at Minnesota State University Moorhead, Dennis also works as a photographer and commercial graphic artist. Both his photographs and encaustic pieces are displayed at Gallery 4 in Fargo, the downtown artist collective of which he has been a member since 2010.
Dennis is the third artist whose work has been presented to MoorHeart honorees. Former mayor Johnathan Judd received the very first, an original piece by Karmen Rheault, in February 2021. Rheault’s work was used in presentations during the earliest years, followed by pieces created by Huda Kobrinksy. Krull’s creations will continue to be featured through 2025.
Dennis’s paintings and photographs are displayed at Gallery 4 and, in March, will be shown in an exhibition at Moorhead’s Rourke Gallery + Art Museum. For more information, visit his website, www.5foot20.com/