THE MOST TALKATIVE GESTURES
LOCATION: HALE MEMORIAL CHURCH 401 W HIGH ST PEORIA IL 61606
Peoria-based Artists are occupying the windows of the Hale Memorial Church with their most talkative gestures. The project is a form of writing, offering a simple gesture with colors extracted from the personal practice of each Artist. The Artists selected for Terrain Exhibitions Biennial 2019, have a strong involvement with our local Artistic endeavors: Art collective members, engaged Art promoter, Artist run space founders, community inspired advocates, and gallery owners. They are modifying our artistic patterns, shaping them, challenging them. They are active creators of neo-cultural forms, revitalizing our town with creative gestures.
Curator: Natalia Villanueva Linares
DUNCAN KATLACK
BILL CONGER
When posed the concept of conceptualizing color in regard to this historic and weathered being—as we are all historic and weathered—the poignancy of both absence and fullness emerged. While thinking about this his sacred structure, I found myself focusing on the human determination to be vertical and to ascend. The resulting project on my part, which constitutes merely a fraction of the creative intervention of this beautiful space, demanded to be silent and in this silence, impart a sense of completion, of acceptance, of satisfaction, of submission—everything and nothing lost to time, which all is.
Bill Conger is an artist living quietly in Peoria, Illinois. His work has been exhibited extensively in the US as well as Austria, Germany, Poland, Ireland, and New Zealand.
ALEXANDER MARTIN
As a queer man of color, questions of my own identity, desires, and place in society were a constant presence in my early life. Growing up in small town Appalachia, not much discourse on these topics was present, nor were there many similar folk around. In my work I reference bits of queer and black history, common associations with masculinity and femininity, and stereotypes associated with these concepts in a way that explores these histories and raises questions as to why these ideas perpetuate our culture and society. This is in an effort to engage in my personal histories, and as a way of analyzing the constructs and confines that we as a society have created.
DAN OSSANDÓN
Using bright and playful colors have always helped me express my feelings in my work. In this piece I try to capture the movement and fluidity of emotions within myself using gradients and uneven lines.
KELLER ANDERSON
I work with a variety of mediums such as aerosol art, CRT tv installation, live analog visuals, and more. I often tend to have multiple projects going on never focused on one medium or process. Living in Chicago throughout college and eventually moving back to my home town in central Illinois has given me the urge to bring elements of the DIY art scene to smaller communities. I’m interested in how different elements of art can inform and influence a space and the communities that grow around it.
8-HSD
Local Peoria collective that exists beyond criticism or critique. Nearly five years of art paintings, large shirts, video, anti-mural propaganda, mural and video. Most recently, art compelled 8-HSD to make basketball. No wonder.
JESSICA BALL
As I dive deeper into abstract expressionism I am allowing more layers of color and texture to emerge. This runs parallel with revealing deeper expressions of my personal experiences and emotions.
JOHN SECKLER
John Seckler is a branding and design consultant from Peoria who spent 20 years working in San Francisco and New York City. He has returned to Peoria to continue freelancing and to explore creating collaborative public Art projects. He is currently developing a public Art projects program—a type of community “studio” focused on public Art works—in the East Bluff Community Center. John also gives his time to Yaku Peoria and Ukayzine as a director of branding and design.
JACI MUSEC
The marks on this piece tell a story. An abundance and multitude of colors represent both the actual colors I use in my painting & embroidery, as well as the ideas of abundance I infuse into my practice. There are imperfections throughout that relate to the ways in which I incorporate imperfection and the concept of embracing our humanity into all of my work. On close inspection you will see smudges and uneven lines, but you may also notice that all the directions of colors will work in conjunction with each other.
The message reads: You belong here, You Matter, I see you, & you are enough.
SARAH NESBIT
BRENDA GENTRY
I am a quiet, sleepy visual artist and plant shepherdess.
My paintings are about healing: from connection with the earth and its beings; life received from the sun; revelry in the moon and stars; the changes of the seasons, and the like. My portraiture is rich in the melanin that so often went missing from my art studies, and my landscapes are imaginative abstractions with celebratory skies.
BLAIR CLARK
Blair Clark *A lot of the time my work mimics my sense of humor. That doesn't mean that my pieces are always going for something "funny", but there is typically a lot of thought and depth to the work. My pieces tend to be smaller in their nature, but I'm always looking to capture detail...to create a compositional flow to engage the viewer and pull them in for that double-glance.