Past Events

2021

Kimberlee Rocca: Picking Up the Pieces

Ann Royer: Rhythm in Bloom

Satomi Kawai, Jillian Moore: Polyphonous 2021 Mimetic Lives II

Thérèse Murdza: any way new

Gilded Pear Gallery Staff: The Gilded Girls

Fred Easker: Meditations on Moments in the Landscape

Stephen Metcalf: The Promise of Life

Ellen Kleckner: Juncture

2020

Making Arrangements: Ataraxia by Crit Streed

January 23, 2020: 5:30-7pm
January 30, 2020: 5:30-7pm
along with video installation; exhibit will also display additional work by the artist.

"Making Arrangements is an ever-changing configuration in glass positioned in relationship to a video projected on the wall. The woman in the video is endlessly moving two chairs in an empty room in pursuit of the perfect arrangement. The shelves of milk glass have equally been arranged to balance, flow, fill the eye and evoke an interest."

Crit Streed was born in 1948 in Washington, Iowa, where she grew up. She received a B.A. in art from the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, and her M.A. in painting and drawing and M.F.A. in painting and lithography from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Between short-term teaching positions, she lived and worked in Nepal from 1982 to 1984, and has participated in various artist residencies nationally and abroad. She has exhibited widely and is Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, where she had taught since the 1980s. Recently, she completed a residency in Cadaqués and currently lives and creates in Cedar Falls, IA.

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Collector Showcase

Reception: February 21st, 5:00-7:30pm
Exhibit Dates: February 18 - April 4, 2020

Select group exhibit of renown artists of the Midwest.

This group exhibit celebrates the rich history of Iowan and Midwestern artists on a national stage. Their contributions to current regional arts programming, funding, and institutions are fundamental and they continue to garner attention on prominent platforms.

Artists featured:
Marvin Cone
Bertha Evelyn Jaques
Mauricio Lasansky
Conger Metcalf
Grant Wood

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Stillness and Occurrence by John Beckelman

Reception: [updated] May 22nd, 5:00-6:00pm
Exhibit Dates: April 17 - June 13, 2020

Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the gallery has adjusted the reception date to a "Closing" reception. On view dates will remain the same. Check back periodically for updates on virtual reception.

Using the expressive potential of clay and a variety of other materials, the work explores liminal space and are often times referenced as topographic or cosmographic. At the same time, this work attempts to gently entice the viewer into the inner landscapes and interior spaces of our imagination and memory.

John Beckelman's work has been exhibited in shows throughout the country, including California, New York, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, South Dakota, Montana, and Iowa. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, commissions, and grants. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics and his Master of Science in Ceramics from Illinois State University. John is the Robert O. Daniel Professor of Art, Emeritus at Coe College. He lives and works in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where he maintains a studio at the Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio in the Historic Cherry Building.

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Peculiar Reality

Exhibit Dates: June 26 - August 8, 2020
Virtual Reception with Mary Koenen Clausen: July 24th, starting at 5:30pm CST
Virtual Reception with Jillian Moore: July 25th, starting at 11:00am CST
*RSVP for video details

Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the gallery is withdrawing submissions for the national call. Instead, Peculiar Reality, will be a 2-Person exhibit with the invited gallery artists to participate: Mary Koenen Clausen and Jillian Moore. Peculiar Reality: National Juried Exhibit will be announced at a later date when threat to health becomes less of a concern. For more information about the call, visit Call for Entries.

Check back periodically for updated dates for the reception. We're navigating our schedule day-to-day.

Mary Koenen Clausen’s mixed media collages are rich in texture and image. Her works frequently are comprised of three visual fields or planes: the heavens, earth, and underworld. Figures composed of mismatched heads and bodies float among animals, icons, musical notes, and foreign texts on backgrounds thickly painted with deep hues. Mary sees the musical notes, symbols and foreign text, many of which she reproduces in her own hand, as messages emanating from her spiritual guides while channeling energy from other time and space dimensions. She gathers her material from Italian magazines, 17th and 18th century Bibles, antique books, among other sources. Mary also uses photographs of her surroundings in her work. Her home and studio are full of paintings, photographs, wall hangings, dolls, and other collected objects, an environment that reflects the complexity of her work. Mary lives and works in Muscatine, Iowa.

Jillian Moore is an artist and writer based in Iowa City, Iowa working primarily in the field of contemporary jewelry and small sculpture. Her work is inspired by forms in the biological world and amplified by an interest in the fantastical. Operating with a background in metalsmithing and a foreground in experimental resins and other plastic processes, Moore's work is comprised of a variety of new materials and techniques executed with the obsessive, monomaniacal approach of her craft discipline training. "Our natural tendency to seek out patterns results in a sensitivity to the congruities in biological forms. Deliberate exploitation of these phenomena results in objects that are both ambiguous and evocative. Some are organs removed from the body in which they once belonged, revealing structures with unknown functions.”

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Vision: Inner and Outer by Marcia Wegman

Exhibit Dates: August 21-October 2, 2020
Reception: Virtual, September 18th @ 5:30pm cst.

Due to the Derecho that impacted Cedar Rapids August 10th, the gallery opened the exhibit August 28th.

Marcia Wegman lives in Iowa City, IA. She has worked in multiple media, including intaglio printmaking (which she studied for her MFA at the University of Iowa), oil, watercolor, collage, and paper making. Her landscapes of the Midwest capture the spirit of Iowa. In addition to pastoral pastels, she also paints abstract landscapes on Yupo. They convey a feeling rather than the exact details of a location. The layering of long brushstrokes fractures the landscape and rebuilds it in new and exciting ways.

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Endless Planes
by Julia Kottal and David Kupferman

Due to the staff testing positive for (COVID-19), the gallery has adjusted the reception date with Julia to a "Closing" reception. On view dates have been extended.

Exhibit Dates: October 16 - November 28, 2020
Reception with Julia Kottal: December 4th, 5:30pmCST

Julia is a native mid-westener, born in Michigan. She has studied art in Florida, Maryland and California before moving to Iowa in 1992. She has a B.A., with painting as her emphasis, from Coe College. She has work in various collections nationally, including Alliant Energy, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Coe College, Kirkwood Community College, University Miami of Ohio, Millhiser Smith, Terry, Lockridge and Dunn, and United Fire Group. She is currently a full time painter.

Kupferman’s work combines spontaneous, gestural imagery with geometric abstract shapes of color and linear patterns that weave a tapestry of flowing images in a unique fusion of Eastern and Western styles. He was born in Boston,and is son of artists Ruth Cobb and Lawrence Kupferman. He studied and apprenticed with his father, Head of the Dept. of Painting, at the Massachusetts College of Art and with sculptor Mirko at Harvard University. He attended the University Of Wisconsin, Madison and MERU, Switzerland.

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Mission Happiness by Mary Zeran

Exhibit Dates: December 11, 2020 - January 23, 2021
Virtual Reception with Mary Zeran: December 11th, 5:30pm CST

Mary Zeran was raised in a family of women artists whose textiles, embroidery, and woodcarvings, existed as their visual language; enigmatic shapes and forms were their words. Each time she picks up a brush or scissors she immerses herself in the language of her family, which brings her ever closer to their traditions, histories, and stories.

Mary Zeran received her B.F.A and M.F.A from University of Iowa. She was born in Iowa City in 1964 and now lives and works in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is the recipient of several awards and honors and her works are in numerous public and private collections as well as many notable corporate collections. Her collage works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States and abroad including the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art; Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, in Kansas City; SOIL Gallery in Seattle; Higher Art Gallery in Michigan; and Chaing Mai University in Chaing Mai, Thailand.

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Jewelry Cocktail Party

Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the gallery will not be hosting it's yearly Jewelry Party in-person.

Join us on our social media, where we are holding our "Stories Jewelry Party" each day the week of December 14th!

Follow us and check in on our available jewelry selections this year.

Video: Crit Streed | Making Arrangements

Collector Showcase: Group

John Beckelman: Stillness and Occurrence

Mary KoenenClausen, Jillian Moore: Peculiar Reality

Marcia Wegman: Vision- Inner and Outer

Julia Kottal, David Kupferman: Endless Planes

Mary Zeran: Mission Happiness

2019

Anastrophe~ ©2018 SENGANAMO

Kinesics by Senganamo.

January 24th, 2019: 5:30-7pm
January 31st, 2019: 5:30-7pm with remarks from the artists
prints available for purchase January 23rd-February 1st

"We are all vessels, exploring our physical existence in whatever space we occupy – both swallowing it up into our own form and spitting it back out for others to ingest. Our investigation of this liminal space sometimes freezes the gesture as if trapped in an ancient metope, and then sends the captive back into the entropy."

***screenings contain mild nudity***

January 24th
4 animations on continuous loop

Hieroglyph, Digital Video Animation, 35 seconds
Parasympathetic, Digital Video Animation, 35 seconds
Purgatory, Digital Video Animation, 35 seconds
Importunately, Digital Video Animation, 35 seconds

January 31st
2 Films looping one after the other. While the films have started their second loop the artists will speak briefly about the work/process and take few questions if any are to be asked, all while the lights are down and films continues to loop.

Liminal Space, Digital Video, 4 minutes 23 seconds
Leaving Again, Digital Video, 3 minutes 27 seconds

Carnaval de Craft

Curated group exhibit. Participating artists Jill Allan, Judy Bales, Michael Bauermeister, Mimi Damrauer, Kristina Fjellman, Ellen Kleckner, John Krizan, and Steve Sinner & Joe Meirhaeghe

This group exhibit celebrates the whimsy in line and color in contemporary craft works. Playful and meticulously created- a joyous celebration.

Exhibit Dates: February 8th-March 15th, 2019

True Maps by Thérèse Murdza

Reception: April 5th, 2019 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates: April 5th-June 7th, 2019

A writer turned visual artist, Thérèse Murdza began drawing big words on giant rolls of paper circa 2000. Using an animated range of circles, lines, and colors, she continued her work onto stretched canvas, eventually building her signature bright, richly textured paintings. Her musical training remains an influence: ‘I am keenly aware of the precise and imprecise moments of sound-making, shapemaking, emotion, and contact -- not so concerned with narrating the beginnings and the ends, but in opening up the middles. Making marks within the potent middle of things. With you. Yes, you. Do you see? We are in this thing together.’

Cedar River Artisans

Reception: June 14th, 2019 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates: June 14th-August 16th, 2019

Cedar River Artisans:
Our group is composed of ceramic, sculpture, fiber, photography and landscape artists. We explore themes and tell stories through our diverse media presentation. The variety in our backgrounds and experience, as well as in our chosen mediums and styles, create the depth and interest in our collaboration as a creative body. Though we create independently, as a collective we invite viewers to join our conversation.

a line goes for a walk by Priscilla Steele

Reception: September 6th, 2019 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates: August 30th-October 4th, 2019

Priscilla Steele was raised in New Jersey, just outside of New York City where regular trips into New York and Philadelphia opened a large, somewhat daunting, but very exciting, cosmopolitan world. She studied at a small liberal arts college in northern New York, and four years later spent a productive academic year in Europe where she developed a strong interest in drawing and printmaking.

After graduating in 1973, she moved to the Midwest and balanced printing and drawing with theatrical design and painting, as well as furniture design with her husband, Craig Campbell. In 1986, her family moved to Iowa so she could attend graduate school at University of Iowa and acquired an MFA in printmaking. She stayed in Iowa to teach at Coe College and has since retired and continues her journey as a working artist focusing on figurative and botanical subjects in Omaha, NE.

Open Air
by David Gordinier and Kristin Stoeffler

Reception: October 18th, 2019 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates: October 11th-November 29th, 2019

This show brings together the work of artists who illustrate a particular style of moments in Midwest scenery. Both artists appear to have romantic or idealized renderings of these realistic vistas. The space between the sky and the earth is vast. Land reaches out to the endless horizon and the foliage seem to breathe the air that chase the clouds in that moment. Adventure and solace can be found in these paintings; the hunt for the cloud you could cut with a knife, the well-traveled path highlighted by the afternoon sun, or the colorful field within soft rolling terrain. The works themselves vary from the very large punchy style of Kristin’s and the mid-sized detailed serenity of David’s.

Keeping the Bubble Happy by Mary Zeran

Reception: December 6th, 2019 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates: December 6th, 2019-January 17th, 2020

Mary Zeran was raised in a family of women artists whose textiles, embroidery, and woodcarvings, existed as their visual language; enigmatic shapes and forms were their words. Each time she picks up a brush or scissors she immerses herself in the language of her family, which brings her ever closer to their traditions, histories, and stories.

Mary Zeran received her B.F.A and M.F.A from University of Iowa. She was born in Iowa City in 1964 and now lives and works in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is the recipient of several awards and honors and her works are in numerous public and private collections as well as many notable corporate collections. Her collage works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States and abroad including the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art; Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, in Kansas City; SOIL Gallery in Seattle; Higher Art Gallery in Michigan; and Chaing Mai University in Chaing Mai, Thailand.

Holiday Jewelry Cocktail Party

December 11th, 5-7pm

Please join us for select custom crafted, holiday inspired cocktails to celebrate our 3rd Annual Cocktail Party showcasing our selection of Contemporary Jewelry