The Churchill Arts Council will present an artist’s reception for Montana artist, Jerry Iverson — whose works are on view in the E.L. Wiegand Gallery — on Jan. 21.
The artist will conduct a walk-through of his exhibition, “Black Lines Broken Lines, “ a series of large scale abstract paintings. The event will be held from 5-7 p.m. on Jan. 21 and is free and open to the public.
Iverson was raised on a farm in South Dakota and currently lives outside Big Timber, Montana. His work has been exhibited across the country ranging from such venues as hanging his series of Language paintings from a fence running across their ranch to being in the permanent collections of the Yellowstone Art Museum, the Boise Art Museum, the Portland Art Museum and many others.
The artist has said that his work has two parts, “how it looks” and “what it means.” He will discuss these ideas during his walk-through of the show.
How the work looks is determined by the balance and color of the forms and textures—for the last 15 years, the artist has used only Sumi ink, paper, rabbit skin glue on board—an in many pieces, previous layers show through translucent paper, showing the development of ideas deep below the surface.
What it means is reflected in the various series of works. Language deals with the difficulties of communicating; the Untitled Series is experimental and is concerned with composition; the Darwin’s Trees series evokes versions of Charles Darwin’s “Tree of Life” and how things diverge; and, Causation is sometimes about causal relationships in life and, as the artist notes, how sometimes it’s one big mess.
One of the high points of CAC’s 2016-2017 performances will be the show with the Bill Charlap Trio on January 28. Charlap is one of the most prominent, and critically acclaimed, pianists of his generation.
He’s recorded with many of the Jazz masters of our time, from Wynton Marsalis to Tony Bennett and Barbara Streisand and currently serves as the Artistic Director of the 92ndY’s summer Jazz Festival in New York. Over the years, he’s released a dozen albums including the Grammy-winning “Silver Lining: Songs of Jerome Kern,” with Tony Bennett and his Leonard Bernstein tribute CD, “Somewhere.”
Tickets are $17 for CAC members, $20 for non-members and can be picked up at Jeff’s Copy Express, ITT @ NAS Fallon, or by calling Churchill Arts at 775-423-1440. Please note that Charlap will also hold a free and open-to-the-public conversation on his musical influences at 3 p.m. on the day of the performance.
Kirk Robertson covers the arts and may be reached at news@lahontanvalleynews.com