Wednesday, May 2, through Sunday, July 1
Quad City International Airport Gallery, 2200 69th Avenue, Moline IL
Two artists from Iowa and one from Illinois will fill the Quad City International Airport Gallery with paintings, stoneware, and photography when Quad City Arts presents May 2 through July 1 exhibitions by Michael Ryan of Cedar Rapids, Brian Roberts of Pella, and Trent Foltz of Geneseo.
Ryan's oil-painted traditional landscapes are filled with high-key color contrasts that strike modern notes adjacent to impressionistic tableaux. A professional painter and teacher of 45 years who studied at Drake University, Old Dominion University, and the University of Iowa, Ryan states in his artist bio: “My work is heavily influenced by the Bay Area Figurative school, the colorist traditions of the Cape Cod school of color, people like Wolf Kahn and Richard Diebenkorn, and historical figures like Matisse and Cezanne. I make my home in the upper Mississippi Valley among the bluffs and wooded hills of eastern Iowa. This is a subject I paint time and again – a beautiful oasis for an artist with a never ending variety of visual stimulation.”
Roberts is a stoneware artist inspired by many years of farm life, with his stoneware sculptures referencing the familiar architectural icons of the farm – silos, grain elevators, barns, and sheds. As Roberts writes, "Most of these buildings are, in essence, vessels for containment. I am drawn to the purity of the geometric forms of these buildings and to the visual complexity of their weathered surfaces." An Associate Professor of Art at Central College in Pella, Iowa, Roberts holds a B.A. from Central College, an M.A. in Art Education from Iowa State University, and an M.F.A. in both sculpture and metals from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Foltz spent 15 years as a successful advertising photographer in St. Louis before returning to his hometown to raise his two boys in Illinois. The landscape he found there, however, was very different from the one he remembered, as wooden barns and fence lines were disappearing, making way for housing and business developments. It was at that point he decided to turn his camera to the great beauty of the Midwestern landscape before it disappeared. The proprietor of Geneseo's Trent Foltz Photography, the artist received his B.A. in Photography and his B.S. in Forestry from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, and worked for the National Park Service and National Forest Service before opening a commercial advertising photography studio in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Quad City International Airport Gallery is located opposite the airport's gift shop and restaurant, there is a $1 fee for parking, and more information on the Ryan, Roberts, and Foltz exhibits is available by calling (309)793-1213 extension 108 or visiting QuadCityArts.com.
