Anna Bland

May & June 2023 Community Artist on Display

Artist Statement

My current body of work is primarily in fluid painting. I am inspired by the natural world, by the sky and water. I am moved to response by the light, power, and beauty I see in the sky, and the fluid art medium lends itself beautifully to its wild freedom and unpredictability. For similar reasons, I’ve worked with images of water and the idea of viewing the earth from high above. All these themes evoke a sense of wonder at the vastness of creation and our relative smallness within it, both humbling and elevating us as we meditate on it. I find that this perspective shift helps to pull my awareness up and out, away from a narrow, small focus of my own daily life and into the world around me, into the beauty and fragility of creation that takes my breath away. This idea is at the heart of my Earth From Above, Shores, Iowa Skies, and Space series.

I began using fluid acrylics as a way to adapt my art practice to my chronic pain and health conditions that prevented me from sitting or standing at an easel for traditional painting techniques. My disability required me to find a medium that could be created quickly during times when I was well enough to be up. As my health improved, I have been able to expand this practice into larger pieces.

I explore the formal elements of art such as color, movement, contrast, texture, and composition juxtaposed with this very fluid, informal and free medium. It’s like a joyful, delightful collaboration with physics. I spend a lot of time working with the interplay of what I can choose and manipulate, and when I should just let go and let it do what it will.

My newest series is entitled Transcendence, and it’s all about the glimpses of beauty, spirituality, and transcendence through the mundane physical world. The life of the spirit in the midst of the life of the body. The beautiful things that show through the cracks of daily life if we have eyes to see them. This series utilizes a large amount of negative space, with color breaking through in different ways.

Anna Bland Art

Brenda Backman

March & April Community Artist on Display

We welcome our very own Wheaty, Brenda Backman, to the community art space for the months of March and April! You will have to see her series “Gut Punch” in person to truly appreciate the details in Backman’s work.

“I’ve been making art and stitching since I was twelve and started making my own needlepoint designs.  I’ve been hooked ever since.  In 2000 I graduated from Iowa State University with a BFA and began my professional art career.  I’ve shown my work all over the US and internationally as well.  My work is characterized by a lively use of color and a heavily detailed surface which gives an intimate quality to the pieces.” – Brenda

January & February Artist

Artist Statement
Kyle Renell

My work is my ticket to the exploration of the world around me. This group of drawings was completed in 2019, when life was simpler and without COVID. It includes studies for A Journey of Life, a major work; character development studies; and water studies. The media used varies, and includes graphite powder and pencils, colored pencils, and pastel. The techniques I developed in this grouping has aided me in my current in-progress series on Mass Shootings. Completed work from that series is on display at Morning Bell Coffee Roasters in downtown Ames.

Each framed drawing is $100 (tax included)
[email protected]
www.kylerenell.com