01/09/18

AMES, Iowa — An exhibition exploring landscape, architecture and a sense of place will kick off the spring 2018 season at the Iowa State University Design on Main Gallery, 203 Main St. in downtown Ames.

“Fractured Vistas and Mechanical Topographies: Jody Boyer and Russ Nordman” will be on display Jan. 16 through Feb. 13, with a public reception from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26. The artists will lead a brief discussion of their work at 8 p.m.

Gallery hours for spring semester 2018 are 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday and noon to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday or by appointment.

The show includes more than 40 works from the artists’ respective ongoing series. Boyer’s “Forest for the Trees” series “contemplates the literal and metaphorical forest we all share. Each piece is a series of small gestures that imply a much larger idea — a momentary glimpse, as if we are looking through a microscope to a memory of another place,” she said. She blends traditional painting techniques with 21st-century digital processes to create her work.

For his “Iowa Combines” series, Nordman travels across Iowa to photograph the unique architecture, historical sites and distinct characteristics of each county. His collage works “are an amalgam of imagination and place, contorting reality and fantasy” from his adventures throughout his home state.

About the artists

Boyer and Nordman are both on the faculty of the College of Communication, Fine Arts and Media at the University of Nebraska Omaha. They live with their two children in the Loess Hills of western Iowa.

In her studio practice, Boyer explores the broad interdisciplinary possibilities of traditional and new media with a specific interest in personal memory, cinema, landscape and a sense of place. She received a Bachelor of Arts in studio arts from Reed College, a Master of Arts in intermedia and video art from the University of Iowa and a K-12 teaching certificate from the University of Nebraska Omaha. Her artwork has been shown in more than 25 exhibitions across the country, including at the Des Moines Art Center, Urban Culture Project in Kansas City and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha.

Boyer has taught at universities, public schools and community nonprofits throughout the Midwest. She currently teaches studio art courses at University of Nebraska Omaha and visual arts at Norris Middle School in Omaha. In 2014 she received the nationally selected Caucus of Social Theory in Art Education’s Social Theory-in-Practice Award for K-12 Art teachers, which recognizes and honors a teacher who utilizes social theory in classroom pedagogy. Most recently she was selected the 2016 Nebraska Outstanding Art Educator of the Year by the Nebraska Art Teachers Association.

Nordman received a Bachelor of Arts in Art from Wartburg College; a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in intermedia and video art from the University of Iowa; and a Master of Arts in communication studies with an emphasis on film and video production, also from the University of Iowa. Since 2002 he has been an associate professor of intermedia and digital art at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

In his work, Nordman transforms observations of the ordinary and the everyday into contemplative and imaginary commentary on the human experience. His work has been exhibited across the US, including the California Museum of Photography, the Des Moines Art Center and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.

Contacts

Jody Boyer and Russ Nordman, Artists, (712) 309-5603, studio.boyer@gmail.com
Catherine Reinhart, Design on Main Gallery, designonmain@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, Design Communications, (515) 294-9289, hsauer@iastate.edu

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