The University of Dubuque's Bisignano Art Gallery will host a free reception for the inaugural exhibit of the 2022-2023 season, "Quiet Power: Recent Work by Karen Kurka Jensen and Brent Rowley," from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Friday, September 16, 2022, in the gallery at Heritage Center, 2255 Bennett Street.
"Abstract art is needed now because it is a vessel of humanity and sensitivity. It shields us from the lies, pandemics, and violence of our age," said Alan Garfield, director of the art gallery.
"Quiet Power: Recent Work by Karen Kurka Jensen and Brent Rowley" is free and open to the public through Friday, September 30, 2022. The exhibit displays over 20 abstract paintings from the two artists.
Jensen, of Iowa City, Iowa, described her philosophy and passion as an artist deriving from her studies of sumi-e, or Japanese ink painting, and its history. Her abstract landscapes will take the viewer on a journey to mystical worlds where they can get lost and feel at home in the same breath.
"When I discovered the medium of sumi-e, where the importance is on connecting spiritually to your subject, I found the language of my soul," Jensen said in her artist's statement.
For Rowley, of Russellville, Arkansas, the goal of his art is to express the tension between stability and transience. To this end, he said he employs traditional compositional frameworks from historical aesthetic traditions in abstracted ways stripped of historical narratives.
"Through spontaneous and accidental mark-making techniques, I seek to push these traditional compositions to their breaking points," Rowley said in his artist's statement.
The reception for "Quiet Power: Recent Work by Karen Kurka Jensen and Brent Rowley" will take place in conjunction with Tito Puente Jr. And His Latin Jazz Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. in John and Alice Butler Hall, Heritage Center. For more information or to purchase tickets to the performance, please visit www.dbq.edu/heritagecenter.
Gallery hours are noon to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday during the academic year. The art gallery is also open in conjunction with all major events in John and Alice Butler Hall, Heritage Center.
"Quiet Power: Recent Work by Karen Kurka Jensen and Brent Rowley" is also available virtually at http://gallery.dbq.edu.
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