Local Artist To Have Keokuk Exhibit

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By Mike Scott

The artwork of Dan Ferguson, and Clark County R-1 graduate, son of Andy and Lila Ferguson of Kahoka, will be featured in an art exhibit at the Keokuk Art Center.

Ferguson, who now lives in Springfield, Mo, earned his bachelor’s degree ins studio art from Quincy University, and a master’s in visual arts at the University of Illinois.

The exhibit, titled “What Goes Around Comes Around, will run March 1 thru March 31, and feature 12 colorful collage paintings Ferguson has created in the past few years.

Ferguson provided this Artist’s Statement: “For me creating art is more than begin grateful for possessing the ability, you have to want it, spend endless hours after endless hours perfecting the craft, something I thing most of us have the ability to achieve. No matter what that is for you, possessing talent isn’t good enough, we have to do something with it.

I’d most likely go crazy if I didn’t have a creative outlet. I enjoy expressing myself through the use of writing and photography as well.

I can best describe my art asa collage of realism mixed with merely suggesting form, and even completely eliminating any recognizable form all together, leaving only composition and color to stand on their own. As well, I use a combination of impressionist, abstract-expressionist, surrealist, and abstract styles.

When I’m creating a composition I strive to stress emotion through form, color, and composition. I also find that my foremost creative moments surface when I’m thinking about nothing except the endeavor at hand, like becoming one with the moment. It’s incredible when you’re there, a moment of Zen; like being one with the Universe.

I also enjoy incorporating a number of water-based and dry media in most of my pieces, such as my art here on display, varying from acrylic paintings to mixed media woven collages.

Be creative, don’t be afraid to think out of the box, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes “Mistakes and spontaneity are the mother of creation.’’ A professor of arts once told me: “Through mistakes we learn, and through spontaneity we free ourselves from the worrisome bother of that eerie emotion… fear.”

So be an artist at whatever it is you do, but according to my understandings of the, laws of the Universe, whatever we give out to others, is what we are asking Universe to give to us.”