“Bowden & Shultz-Hetrick,” through August 31

Through Monday, August 31

Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, 2200 69th Avenue, Moline IL

With the artists encouraging their audience to pause and find hidden details in their work., two Midwestern talents are showcasing pieces at the Quad City Arts International Airport Garry through August 31, the Bowden & Shultz-Hetrick exhibit hosting abstract paintings by Peotone, Illinois' James Bowden and fused-glass art by Cedar Rapids' Barbara Shultz-Hetrick.

Born in Kankakee, Illinois, in 1938, James Bowden is a retired art professor and former teacher (Chicago State University, Murray State University, Chicago public schools). He currently owns and operates a graphic arts/signage business, which he started in 1973. In 1980, he decided to put down his artist's brushes in order to concentrate on growing his sign business and restoring his 1917 craftsman-style home. After a 25-year hiatus, Bowden resumed his painting in 2005. He works primarily in the medium of painting, focusing on linear and graphic elements.

In his Artist Statement at JEBowden.com, he says: "I am captivated by irregular, random relationships and how they shape everyday life. Rather than filtering out unrelated visual information, I embrace it – transforming the unexpected into paintings.

“Each of my works begins with a small-scale study, where composition and color choices are determined. These studies are created using collage – a playful, intuitive process that mirrors the unpredictability of life. Collage produces unexpected visual relationships that cannot be preplanned. Because I allow these surprises to guide my work, each painting stands alone. I seldom work in series or create variations on a single idea.

“The forms in my paintings are often drawn subconsciously from the world around me or from earlier works. While they may suggest familiarity, they are not meant to be representational. My aim is not to depict reality, but to create paintings that exist as objects in their own right.

"I use a hard-edge painting style with vivid, saturated color, typically on PVC panels. My work explores illusion on a two-dimensional surface. Sometimes, spatial depth is created solely through painted forms; at other times, I introduce cut-out shapes adhered to the surface. Occasionally, I use non-rectangular formats that activate the wall space, making it part of the composition.

"Shape and color are used to build visual tension and ambiguous space – forms that appear one way at first, then shift into something else. I strive to create paintings with dual qualities: an immediate energy that captures the viewer’s attention, and layers of meaning that slowly unfold with time. For me, the true reward lies in discovering the allusive, shifting visual narratives within a single work.

“Ultimately, I hope my paintings encourage viewers to see beyond representation—to experience a painting not as an image of something else, but as a visual structure with its own internal logic and presence."

Barbara Shultz-Hetrick is an art historian, educator, and accomplished artist in the fused glass world. Her work spans portraits, both historical and fanciful. She has more recently become interested in projects involving wild things, mounted in natural settings.

In her biography at HooplaNow.com, Shultz-Hetrick states: "As a child, I realized that I loved making art and that my six-year-old peers thought I had enviable skills. Since that early launch, I have relentlessly pursued the study, teaching and production of art. During my career as an artist and educator, I have worked in many media, with my special love of drawing and art history always forming the foundation of my work.

"Since 2019, I have focused exclusively on fused glass art, always seeking to push the boundaries of this relatively new art form. As I see light traveling through the colors of glass, the luminous effect opens inexhaustible possibilities for expression that are completely unique to this material. Although my studies and travels have led me to many countries and experiences that have influenced my art, I grew up in Iowa and remain grounded in the heartland today, with strong ties to the beauty of the land and to my family and friends here."

Meanwhile, Shultz-Hetrick's Artist Statement says: "I work with fused glass as a painter does with pigment, while taking full advantage of the luminous capacities of this medium to both reveal and obscure. By constructing portraits and landscapes that explore the intersections between mythology and mystery, my gods, goddesses and warriors form an investigation of power and beauty seen in cultures throughout history. I find glass to be a compelling medium, one that conveys the energy and transcendent beauty of otherworldly beings while also expressing the ultimate fragility of their strength. I’m intrigued by the dual nature of both glass and the characters that I create, fierce, dangerous, eternal, yet highly mortal and vulnerable.

"Alongside my mythical portraits, I create moonlit landscapes that examine the poetic mysteries of night. Through shifting transparencies and layered surfaces, I explore the quiet capacity of darkness to provide space for contemplation. Glass provides a conduit to channel the essence of nocturnal ambiguity, with its transparency and opacity synchronized with the manner in which the material world is both revealed and obscured. My work provides a space to contemplate the perception of that which is seen and that which exists only in the imagination. In my art, glass functions as a threshold through which the viewer considers enduring themes of power, myth, and beauty, a space where boundaries dissolve."

The Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery is located opposite the airport's gift shop and restaurant, there is a $2 fee for short-term parking, and more information on the Bowden & Shultz-Hetrick exhibit on display through August 29 is available by calling (309)793-1213 and visiting QuadCityArts.com.