Karen Kurka Jensen's "Needling the Sun" at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery -- through July 4.
Through Monday, July 4
Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, 2200 69th Avenue, Moline IL
A trio of varied artistic mediums by a quartet of gifted Midwestern artists will be decorating the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery through the fourth of July, with travelers and art lovers alike to delight in the sumi-e paintings of North Liberty, Iowa's Karen Kurka Jensen, the acrylic sculptural paintings of Chicago artist Sally Havlis, and the glass art vessels of Staunton, Illinois' father-and-son team James and Phillip Bruch Scheller.
Kurka Jensen uses the art of sumi-e ink painting to create abstract landscapes, and growing up among forests, lakes, granite rocks, and sparkling waters in Minnesota, she always felt at home outside. “From mountain tops to desert, deep blue skies to the mysteries of the cosmos, I’m inspired,” states Kurka Jensen. “Sometimes I just sit and look. I let these things be. I breathe. I dwell in this presence, quietly, patiently.” Her paintings take the viewer on a similar journey where it is possible to get lost and feel at home in the same breath.
Havlis is an artist and teacher with an MA and MFA from Northern Illinois University, and her work explores non-literal communication by using various media to pursue imagery that is devoid of symbols, but seemingly about something in an indirect way. She states, “I am interested in imagery that does not convey or reinforce existent information," and her Billow series is made of forms traditionally associated with the domestic life of women while participating in the male dominated history and tradition of abstract art. The wall-hung work consequently exists between sculpture and paintings.
Jim Scheller was raised in Mt. Olive, Illinois, a small town on old Route 66 halfway between Springfield and St. Louis. After two decades on the Chehalem Mountain outside Portland, Scheller moved to his home studio to the Illinois prairie near his son Phillip in 2018. Now in Staunton, Illinois, the father and son make decorative kiln-formed glass art. Jim became enamored by glass in 2012 after a long and rewarding career as an engineer and technologist, and he has dedicated himself to his craft and art. The vessels in this exhibition, meanwhile, are inspired by the work of early-20th-century painters such as Mondrian, Gorin, Kandinsky, Klee, Tauber-Arp, and van Doesburg.
Phillip Scheller began his practice at the studio in 2019, developing a unique series of intricate works. He starts by cutting thousands of 9x9mm pieces of glass from a 3mm thick sheet, and over a span of weeks, these pieces are assembled, fused, and slumped in a kiln – a process that results in one-of-a-kind artworks.
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 Karen Kurka Jensen, Sally Havlis, and Jim and Philip Bruch Scheller Exhibits exhibits on display through July 4 is available by calling (309)793-1213 and visiting QuadCityArts.com.
