Thursday, May 21, through Friday, June 19
Hosted by the Quad City Arts Center, 1715 Second Avenue, Rock Island IL
In a combined celebration of The Great Outdoors, beautiful and evocative works by a pair of Iowa-based artists will be showcased in the next Quad City Arts exhibition running through June 19, with the venue's Web site currently displaying photographs by Ken Urban of Durant and paintings by Margaret Ertz of Burlington.
Ken Urban's photographs tell stories as he travels the backroads of the Midwest with his camera in hand. His new exhibit is about the forgotten silos that blanket the countryside – edifices that are no longer in use, but are now towering symbols of days gone by. In the rural American landscape, with its ever-changing farm practices and abandoned barns on the verge of collapse, silos such as these are often the only reminders of the past. Occasionally, trees will bloom and grow in the protection of these silos, and Urban’s photographs capture and share a unique and intriguing story about the history of rural America.
As Urban states in his online biography: “Growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm next to a rocky stream and surrounded by woods, I developed an early appreciation of the natural beauty around me. My interest in photography started in college after adopting my family's 1940s-era AGFA rangefinder that my father purchased in post-WWII Germany. I have upgraded my equipment through the years and currently shoot with a Nikon D750 DSLR. Since 1984, I have lived in the Quad Cities area … Davenport, Iowa, and recently Durant, Iowa … I have participated in regional exhibitions and fine-art fairs for over a decade... [and] images are now in many personal and corporate collections.”
Margaret Ertz has been drawing and painting for more than 40 years. She uses both oil and acrylic paint to depict urban settings and cityscapes from her hometown of Burlington, Iowa, as well as other cities she has explored during her career. A master at capturing city lights at night, reflections on wet pavement, and floodlit architecture, Ertz states in her Facebook biography: “The goal of my paintings is to capture scenes of daily life and reflect the beauty and complexity of buildings and places I encounter each day. I find inspiration in quiet and un-revered places around me, as well as the grand and historic architecture I see. I am drawn to light and shadow, line and pattern, focusing on subjects of everyday life elevated to what we call art.”
Ken Urban's and Margaret Ertz's exhibitions will be viewable online via Quad City Arts' Web site through June 19, and will also be viewable in the venue itself as soon as the Arts Center doors are again open to the public. To view the exhibits and for more information, visit QuadCityArts.com/rock-island-gallery.html. For more information on the artists themselves, visit KenUrbanPhotography.com and Facebook.com/MargaretErtzArt.
