One Minnesota museum specializes in great art inspired by water.

On every wall at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, artists look at the world below the surface with a desire to understand it.

“Everything we do is filtered through that lens of great art inspired by water,” the museum’s executive director, Scott Pollock, said.

The museum opened in 2006. The creativity of art can be found through a variety of mediums, always through the filter of water.

“Whether we were displaying a Picasso or Monet that had a water backdrop or working with contemporary artists who work with water as inspiration, as our curator always says, it’s kind of like the same theater just a different movie every time,” Pollock said.

About 30,000 people visit the museum every year.

“Why wouldn’t we have a water museum right in the land of 10,000 lakes,” Pollock said. “The Dakota name really translates into land that reflects the clear water, that to me is just fascinating, that’s it culturally embedded.”