Review: Greater Des Moines Exhibited 14

This is the 14th year of the juried Greater Des Moines Exhibited show at the Polk County Heritage Art Gallery. There are 37 artists whose works were selected for the exhibition. Although, with only one judge there are unifying themes.

The color green and a celebration of life is common in the objects. Louise L. Koch’s watercolors of a snow-covered landscape are noticeable exceptions, on first glance. Yet, one painting has evergreens and the other has trees full of leaves, albeit brown, as though winter can be ignored by force of will.

My favorite piece is Nancy Briggs’ pottery vessel. The shape of the vessel is that of an oval pod. The muted green color is that of a mature plant. The handles resemble ribbed stalks. The struts on the sides evoke thoughts of vines intertwining. All of these items draw attention to the shape of the top opening, its roundness and increasing width suggesting a rare and prominent single flower.

The shape of Ben Harle’s ceramic Raku teapot suggests a thrush or similar bird. The curves of a side design resemble both a leaf and a partridge. The lid brings to mind a chickadee or other song bird. All of these comparisons are based on subconscious thought without the use of overt avian images.

The works in the exhibit can be broken down into three categories. The most common is rural and other scenes of nature. Studies in the human psyche are also plentiful. The rest of the pieces fall into social commentary. Not all works fall neatly into just one category.

Some of the pieces seem to have been selected based on the artist’s exploration of technique. This is how I viewed Stan Greenwood’s pencils. I found myself looking at individual strokes and patterns instead of appreciating how, together, they create a scene of a horse grazing in a pasture. In contrast, lines, straight, curved, and circular, are used very effectively by Suzanne Pfutzenreuter in her woodcut, “Heavy.” In this piece, based on my frames of reference, I saw a person crawling out of the tunnel of a wormhole, disoriented and drained, sliding head first across the open matrix of a blank software program. On the other side of the matrix is a swirling turmoil that could be either another maelstrom or winds of change that might, just might, be brining hope.

Cheerful colors, the hope of spring green, and the order agriculture bestows upon the land are easily identified in Jennifer Lynn Bates’s “Roots: 3.” There is something disturbing in the picture, however. A lone plant, the size of Jack’s beanstalk, has sprouted. The impression given is that this one plant is sapping all the energy from the fields. As a result, none of the remaining crop, although in a flood of new growth, will yield produce.

Another example of horror or humor, depending on one’s gastrointestinal fortitude, is Kevin House’s digital collage, “Bad Night on the Midway.” The deep fried oreos and deep fried twinkies are only the beginning of the nightmare.

Due to its size, Nick Werner’s sculpture, “A Brief History of the Future Being,” will attract people who attend the show. Ignore the three-dimensional object and look up at the sketches. They are much more interesting.

The exhibition also includes works done in pastels, with mixed media, in oils, with photography, as serigraphs, and with other materials. Several of these pieces deserve more attention than I had time (or space) to give them.

Eight cash awards were presented at the opening reception. The show runs through January 31, 2008.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.