“Bowden, Moyer, & Smith" at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery -- through February 28. (pictured: James Bowden's "Diversify")
Through Tuesday, February 28
Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, 2200 69th Avenue, Moline IL
Fascinating, colorful, and occasionally very tall works by a trio of Midwestern artists are currently on display at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with the Moline airport, through February 28, hosting Bowden, Moyer, & Smith: a collection of acrylic paintings by James Eli Bowden of Peotone, Illinois, steel sculptures by Matt Moyer of Columbia, Missouri, and mixed-media paintings by Corrine Smith of Rock Island, Illinois.
James Eli Bowden is a retired art professor and owner of a signage company. His abstract paintings are linear with a focus on shape and color painted on sheets of PVC, and his work is painted in a flat, hard-edge style that creates a visual space on a flat surface. Each painting is preconceived, based on detailed small-scale studies that he first creates, with Bowden stating, “The paintings represent themselves, rather than being repetitional. Shape and color are assimilated to develop tension and an ambiguous space.” The goal of the artist's work is to create a painting that has contradictory qualities in which a work appears one way at first look, then changes into something different upon further viewing.
Matt Moyer is a nationally exhibited public sculptor whose steel creations pay homage to machines and industrial implements. Each sculpture is abstracted and embellished with patina and paint to give the work a feeling of time being passed. The body of work has a playfulness to it, hinting that real-world machines feature child-like qualities; evoking notions of playfulness, the desire to explore the world, and the joy of just having fun being themselves. As Moyer says, “I bridge the gap between development and deterioration by exploring human ingenuity, resourcefulness, and sometimes, the absurdity of our built environment. I encourage viewers to embrace the glory of mechanization and contemplate the expressive human qualities of efficiency, agency, and ingenuity.”
Corrine Smith is a mixed-media artist with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Kentucky. Her work is a formal approach to exploring the elements and principles of design, and Smith begins by rendering organic and geometric shapes visible in everyday surroundings to create stylized flat shapes. By combining acrylic paint and handmade papers, Smith blends contrasting forms and colors to create ambiguous spatial relationships within the work. “I do not perceive any of my work as an end in itself,” says Smith. “I am always striving for an aesthetic surprise.”
The Quad City Arts 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 Bowden, Moyer, & Smith exhibit on display through February 28 is available by calling (309)793-1213 and visiting QuadCityArts.com.
