40 North | 88 West presents
The 8th Annual Boneyard Arts Festival
NEWS
Sponsored by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
and The News-Gazette
Thursday, April 15, 2010 | DOWNTOWN CHAMPAIGN
Friday, April 16, 2010 | U OF I CAMPUS
Saturday, April 17, 2010 | DOWNTOWN URBANA
Sunday, April 18, 2010 | OUT & ABOUT CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
(Bondville, Mahomet, Rantoul, Sidney, St. Joseph, Urbana-Champaign)
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SIGNATURE IMAGE ANNOUNCED FOR 2010 BONEYARD
After evaluating nearly 60 outstanding submissions, a panel of local arts professionals has selected acclaimed painter and muralist Glen C. Davies’ Grotto of Broken Dreams to be the featured image of the Boneyard Arts Festival, appearing on all festival promotional materials. 40 North congratulates Glen Davies and offers its sincere thanks to all the artists who responded to the call and submitted work for consideration.
A colorful, surreal image of a piper in a landscape, Grotto of Broken Dreams features a number of themes and motifs important to Glen C. Davies. “The piper was a character that I have used off and on for over thirty years,” Davies comments. “First as a reference to the pipers who appeared in Dutch genre paintings of artists like Bruegel and the surreal religious paintings of Bosch. Later this figure became more of a symbol of life’s journey with the pipes serving as both the breath of life and the trumpeting of change (such as the apocalypse, sunrise, sunset, etc.).”
For more on Glen's work, visit the artist's website at http://www.glencdavies.com/.
Grotto of Broken Dreams, by Glen C. Davies
(All rights reserved. Image may not be used without the artist's permission.)
The judging panel for the Boneyard signature image consisted of artists Kurt Bielema, graphic designer and owner of Single Stereo; Erin Lippitz, marketing associate at The News-Gazette; Katrina Olson, adjunct professor of advertising at UIUC; Ann Rast, assistant professor of art at Eastern Illinois University; Maureen Reagan, assistant director for marketing at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts; and Christina Tapp, graphic designer at Surface 51.
Glen C. Davies Artist Biography
Glen Davies was born in 1950 in Chicago, Illinois. He was attending the School of the Art Institute there during the late 1960’s when the intrigue of the great museums and the influence of Chicago’s homegrown pop genre “imagism” combined to set the stage for his recurring art themes of spiritual conflict, grotesque figural fantasies and the journey toward enlightenment.
After fulfilling a childhood dream of traveling with the circus, Davies worked for a short time as a billboard artist and sign painter, eventually opening a mural painting business. Since completing a BFA at Drake University in 1978 and an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois in 1981, Davies has divided his time between studio pursuits and self-employment as a circus/carnival showpainter, sideshow banner artist, professional muralist, exhibition curator and educator.
Over the past thirty years Davies has worked for numerous outdoor entertainment venues, designing and painting fun houses, dark rides, show fronts and sideshow banners. Clients include Carson and Barnes Circus, Hoxie Brothers Circus, Link Carnival and Canada’s Conklin Shows. After meeting several banner painters and admiring their unique livelihood, he began producing banners for Champaign escape artist Andy Dallas. Throughout the 1980s Davies painted a series of banners promoting his escapes and illusions. Later in 1993 he was contacted by Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History to design and paint eight 10 X 5 ft. show banners for their exhibit “Life Over Time.” Presented in traditional banner style, these paintings were themed to reflect the nature of scientific mysteries and origins of the modern museum.
Davies works reside in many public and private collections including Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, Georgia Museum of Art, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Roger Brown Study Collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is represented by La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, Packer Schopf Gallery in Chicago, and Cinema Gallery in Urbana.
Glen C. Davies Artist Statement
“The narrative element of painting has always been essential to my creative process. I question the mysteries that I see in life and confront my fears by creating scenarios that visually explore this quest for answers. The act of creating helps me to overcome these fears by forging a relationship between the physical act of painting and the intellectual and spiritual processes I utilize during the creation of a new work.
I would sum up my goal in painting as trying to make sense of the world (specifically, my world) by breaking it down into a visual language. Perhaps it’s the muralist in me or my great “first love” of medieval and renaissance subject matter, but I have always felt an obligation to relate life experience as moral drama, played out in a public forum. I feel a duty to provide something in my work that communicates ideas and opens minds to choices and new ways of facing issues in life. It might be more accurate to say that I address these issues from a personal perspective and strive to give them a more worldly application by painting them in a metaphorical or allegorical setting.
The titles of the works often refer to a colloquial phrase, proverb, or saying employed as a clue to help unlock the riddle of the painting. Overshadowing most other considerations is my goal to suspend time and reveal a “moment of mystery” in the work. It remains an essential element in my artistic endeavors and relates to the sense of awe and intrigue that lies in my earliest childhood memories. Certain moments coalesce to form an inspired realization of life’s mysteries and the infinity of time and space. Even crude attempts by humankind to describe or invent mystery through physical means become a fascinating source of investigation and ultimately a source for my psycho-dramas.
Through symmetry, embellishment, and context I pursue this suspended moment and attempt to recreate it. Like warning signs, I want the work to confront the viewer. By creating a dialogue, the paintings invite interpretation and encourage viewers to stop, reflect, assess a point in their lives and proceed with caution or guarded optimism.”
- Glen C. Davies (http://www.glencdavies.com/)