“Matthew Boonstra and Alan Pocaro: SIGNALS” at Quad Ciy Arts Center -- August 21 through October 9.
Friday, August 21, through Friday, October 9
Quad City Arts Center, 1715 Second Avenue, Rock Island IL
A fascinating collection of sculptures, prints, and works on paper by a trio of Midwestern artists can be viewed in the latest joint exhibition at the Quad City Arts Center, with the Rock Island venue, from August 21 through October 9, showcasing new works in the exhibits SIGNALS by Matthew Boonstra and Alan Pocaro and Original Prints by Elizabeth Powell.
SIGNALS is a collaborative presentation by sculptor Boonstra of Charleston, Illinois, and printmaker Pocaro of Champaign, lllinois, whose show will consist of sculptures and wall-mounted works on paper. The artists explore what it means to communicate in an era dominated by technologies that promise to enable deeper, more meaningful sharing, but just as often provide the opposite. Both artists have shown extensively throughout the Midwest, as well as nationally. Due to travel restrictions, Boonstra will show just three actual sculptures in the gallery, but several more will be represented in the online gallery at QuadCityArts.com/galleries.html.
An artist based in Iowa City, Powell combines printmaking techniques including Intaglio, silkscreen and monotype, and likes to think of her body of work as “Freudian figures.” The abstract shapes in each piece are created by drawing and redrawing things that she sees in life, including the female form, until they are barely recognizable. Powell references jewelry, wallpaper, and other decorative arts as she creates statements about feminist issues.
As she explains in her artist statement, “While I make overt references to the body, I also create shapes that resemble bones or organs; visceral and sinewy. The forms are unusual, riddled with bulbous protuberances, abject and grotesque. Yet they are beautiful. Unexpected and sometimes disconcerting, the forms are not quite what they are expected to be from the first impression of beauty, symmetry, and patterning. They retain autonomy as they tease perfection with a pseudo-repetition.”
Regular Quad City Arts Center gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. Admission is free, and more information on Matthew Boonstra's and Alan Pocaro's SIGNALS and Elizabeth Powell's Original Prints – both exhibits on display from August 21 through October 9 – is available by calling (309)793-1213 or visiting QuadCityArts.com.
