Tony Siebolt's "Strange Way of Looking" at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery -- through January 2.
Through Monday, January 2
Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, 2200 69th Avenue, Moline IL
Gloriously colorful and arresting works by a pair of Illinois-based artists are currently on display at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with the Moline airport, through January 2, hosting new ceramic works by Gary Beaumont of Champaign and recent acrylic paintings by Tony Seabolt of Rock Island.
Gary Beaumont became a ceramist after a 35-year career teaching communications at the University of Illinois. His crystalline ceramics series comes from carefully crafting pieces with the goal of making something unique, and the artist's platters and tiles convey a sense of the spirit of humanity, made from earth and created in a uniquely artistic way. ""For me ceramic art is magical," sad Beaumont, "taking earth materials, combining them in unique ways, and creating something artistic. Ceramics speaks directly to what it means to be human."
“I often think about early people sitting around a fire, discovering how heat made clay turn hard, and then shaping this clay into useful containers," continued Beaumont of his process. “Most importantly, they made their pots interesting to look at by adding color and texture and imagery. My goal is similar. To carefully craft pieces, so that when people see them they say, 'Wow. I’ve never seen anything like this.' In this way, my art offers people in this 'fast food' culture a reason to stop and notice how something looks and feels ... . Something that conveys a sense of the spirit of humanity."
Tony Seabolt is a painter of more than 30 years with a fine-arts degree from Moline's Black Hawk College. He works in an abstract style that explores the visual relationships between music, meditation, and space/color relationships. “I enjoy giving the viewers something to contemplate and provoke their own imaginations,” said Seabolt of his vibrant series of paintings. His lyrical abstractions consequently combine many aspects of recognizable forms to make each work seem familiar and bring out a reaction from the viewer.
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 Gary Beaumont and Tony Seabolt exhibit on display through January 2 is available by calling (309)793-1213 and visiting QuadCityArts.com.
