How does art happen in hard-driving Los Angeles? Perhaps it happens when the pace slows down to that of an Omaha neighborhood storefront or in Story County Iowa’s big city, Ames.
Artists from those three cities, already friends, converged at NE Sculpture|Gallery Factory to install work in a show called Construction+Reconstruction a group residency and exhibition by a total of nine artists, curated by Wendy Frieze, which is on view through August 6 at two locations: the Gallery Factory quad at 1720 Madison St. NE #14 and Artspace Jackson Flats at 18-1/2 and Jackson St. NE. Many of the participants have architecture backgrounds.
Mike Nesbit, the youngest of the three, is from Los Angeles. He refers to Thomas Prinz of Arc-Studio in Omaha as “my angel.” They met in 2017 and are among the co-founders of the Maple Street Construct in Omaha. “Tom is authentic, kind, has a sensitivity to see other people and the world. It was important to me in coming into my own, to understand what it is to be an artist.”
On reception night at the quad, they caught up with Peter Goché, an experimental artist and architect who teaches at Iowa State University.
At Jackson Flats, Max Steele adapted his model (inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion) to fill even more of the gallery space when another artist dropped out. A system of wires across the gallery’s short dimension facilitates De Stijl-inspired pathways through the highly saturated images.
Steele explained that he works with digital images but prints them in multiple passes rather than assembling everything in his computer. The layering of toners has a richer effect. A light background made from the side of a pickup truck becomes water, onto which trees and horizon color can be layered.
Asked how architecture practice has affected his art, Steele said he sees everything as design, from the light to the details.
For more on the participating artists, here are links: Emily Clingan, Colleen “Coco” Murphy, Peter Goché, Rebecca Krinke, Mike Nesbit, Thomas Prinz, Barbara Robertson, and Max Steele. Click here for more About the show: Regular Gallery hours are Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays 12 – 5pm.
—Article and photos by Margo Ashmore