Judith Eastburn and Mike Leinhauser Exhibits at the Quad City Arts Center -- through October 8.
Through Friday, October 8
Quad City Arts Center, 1715 Second Avenue, Rock Island IL
Two exhibitions of beautiful, evocative, and occasionally comical black-and-white photographs byIowa artists are currently on display at the Quad City Arts Center, with the Rock Island venue, through October 8, treating patrons to the talents of Des Moines' Judith Eastborn and Bettendorf's Mike Leinhauser.
In her exhibit Elevators and Open Spaces, Eastburn's images are gelatin silver prints printed from negatives in the darkroom. The artist holds an MFA in photography from the University and has taught photography courses at levels ranging from children to university students for more than 20 years, and she she states at JeastburnPhotography.com: “I believe we are profoundly affected by the landscape of our childhood. It establishes our sense of space and how we fit into it, and we recognize as familiar those places encountered later in life which resemble it. I was born in Iowa, and grew up in the southeast corner near the Mississippi River in an area of limestone bluffs and wooded ravines. Visits to my grandparents meant drives to central Iowa through gently rising and falling open fields. These are the landscapes which serve as my point of reference when I photograph in other parts of the world. I think Iowa and its openness made me aware of the horizon and sensitive to smaller variations in the land’s surface.”
In his current exhibition for Quad City Arts, Leinhauser presents 51 portraits taken over 51 years of practice as a photographer. As the artist states, “a portrait captures something about the person that is part of what or who they are, their manner, habits, gestures, et cetera, that would identify how you know them. I don’t believe that portraits must show faces to be a portrait, even though many do. Look at my portrait Gary – no face shown, but it tells you a lot about Gary.” Leinhauser employs humor to put people at ease, which enables him to capture their personalities.
Regular Quad City Arts Center gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, admission is free, and more information on the Judith Eastburn and Mike Leinhauser exhibits on display through October 8 is available by calling (309)793-1213 or visiting QuadCityArts.com.
