Dimensions of life

The two-dimensional and the three-dimensional will combine this month to produce an exhibit for people with varying artistic tastes at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri galleries.

The council will be featuring the works of local artist Tirrell Grimsley and California artist Joshu Lucas in its galleries at 32 N. Main St., starting with a First Friday reception today from 5 to 8 p.m.

The works of these two artists, Arts Council executive director Rebecca Fulgham said, presents a diversity of styles meant to please a variety of art lovers.

"We like to try and keep a mix between the more cutting-edge stuff in the risk of it not being understood," she said, "and the more traditional art people can understand, identify with and enjoy. We just like to have a mix of both, so there's something for everybody."

Grimsley's work brings in the more realistic, traditional tone for this month's exhibit. A graduate of the Pittsburg Art Institute with an associates degree in graphic design, he works as a graphic designer in the Southeast Missourian's advertising department.

The subject of his paintings and colored-pencil drawings is often life itself, depicted in realistic detail. One work, called "Great-Great-Grandma," shows an elderly lady, her head held high with a dignified look that can only come from the wisdom of decades of life.

The woman depicted is actually Grimsley's own great-great-grandmother, who just passed away in January. Works such as this, he said, are ways to preserve the memory of loved ones while giving his family art that comes from someone close.

"Since we're connected in that way, it just makes it more convenient," he said. "It gives us something to hang on the walls years down the road and look back on."

Another is a profile of the famous Queen Nefertiti, showing that same sort of dignity as the old woman. In another, two young children -- his niece and nephew -- embrace lovingly with joy on their faces.

Grimsley's work also captures the essence of life at its beginning, with a large set of hands holding a tiny newborn in a warm embrace, holding it up as if to the heavens.

"It's more of a challenge," Grimsley said of depicting lifelike subjects. "It started out as something that was hard for me, and I wanted to work at it to get better."

Grimsley started as an artist when he was 8 years old, drawing characters from comic books like Superman and Spider-Man. This reproduction is what started his fascination with realistic works.

Since then his work has won more than 20 awards, and he designed and painted a mural in downtown Sikeston, Mo.

He uses bold colors in many of his works. "I just wanted it to stand out, like it's a part of reality," he said.

In contrast, Lucas' work studies the human body and the mix of cultures and their traditions. "My work incorporates the many different contradictions of life in Los Angeles," Lucas said. "It interprets the convergence of many races and cultures and reflects the spiritual as well as the environmental aspects of the world around me."

Lucas spent much of his youth training as an athlete, allowing him to create his bronze sculptures with an intimate knowledge of the form of the human body.

One of his smaller bronze sculptures displayed at the galleries shows this detail, as a figure stands in pose with rippling muscles and taut tendons accentuated.

The subject of another sculpture is a female body, head tilted back, standing with the front side in full detail. While Lucas' figures present a study of the real human body, they are often shown in a way that makes them seem like mythological characters, such as a man with eyes closed with huge horns coming from his skull.

Fulgham said this month's featured artists, combined with the other local artists in the galleries, brings a combination of local and out-of-area artists the council strives for when creating its featured exhibits every month.

For more information, call the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri at 334-9233.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182