Heartland Artists Gallery is now showing over twenty local artists’ art with the media used ranging from metalworks, photography, oils, watercolor, pastels, textiles, found objects, enamel, ink, digital and mixed media. The Gallery invites the community to meet Member Artists and our Featured Artist, Jeffery A. Combs at an Open House, Sunday, Aug. 6 from 1-4 with refreshments, conversation and exceptional art! This show will run from Aug. 1 through Aug 26.
This month’s Featured Artist is Jeffrey A. Combs is from the South Bend area. He received his MIA in Photography from the University of Michigan, and his BA in Photography from the University of Dayton. Life has taken him to different places around the world. Jeffrey was born in Chateauroux, France, spent parts of his childhood in Germany, and lived in Michigan and Ohio before making South Bend, Indiana, his home ten years ago. He teaches digital photography and electronic imaging at Bethel College and Ivy Tech Community College. J. A. Comb’s art is exceptionally unique, he incorporates digital art and photography with the end product being Autostereograms. The creative ingredients of dimensions, layering and lighting achieved require further review and applause.
Jeffrey A. Combs shares his artistic journey with us,”I’ve always been drawn to innovative processes of image making, and to new visual experience. A wide range of art has influenced my work. In 15th century Bruges, I would be a student of Jan Van Eyck, creating complex spaces through triptychs and breathtaking images through elaborate detail. Had I been born in 17th century Holland, I would have been making perspective boxes and cylindrical paintings as I share their fascination with unique and experimental ways of making art. In the 19th century, I would have been exploring impressionist visions, and in the 20th century, integration of art and modern technology.
In my creative process, every autostereogram begins as a carefully orchestrated still life installation. I photograph it from several angles, merge those espials into a single image, digitally remake the image, and finally, with the help of a lenticular lens, transform it into a dimensional lenticular construct which relies on the movement and participation of the viewer to be brought to life. The boundaries of the static picture plane are broken and transformed, with elements of the image either being submerged or floating above the surface. The slightest change of the viewing angle or the light allows for infinite possibilities of aesthetic discovery. Lenticular art, like live theater, never repeats itself.
Over the years, my work has taken several paths: memory explorations, which transform human documents, such as old photographs and daily life trivia, into dimensional still life meditations on history and immediacy; fantastic transformations of old tech and other banal objects; and abstract conceptual explorations of strata, light, and movement”.
The Heartland Artists Gallery is at 101 North Michigan Street in downtown Plymouth. Gallery hours are Tues. – Sat. 10-4. The Gallery’s mission is to support area artists, to bring and to teach the arts to our community. Our not-for-profit Gallery gives area artists a venue to show and sell their art. Our art classes fulfill the passion for educating and assist in our financial means to maintain the Gallery. For more information call 936.9515 or visit www.heartlandartgallery.com or Facebook.
Photo Caption: Heartland Artists Gallery now showing twenty members’ art and July’s featured artist, Jeffrey A. Combs Autosterograms (Digital Art and Photography) through August 26th at the Gallery in downtown Plymouth
