Bereskin Gallery Showcases Artist Steve Banks in New Exhibit Through April
The Bereskin Gallery and Art Academy, 2967 State St., Bettendorf, will highlight the multimedia artworks of Davenport artist Steve Banks in March and April. An opening reception with Banks will be held Friday, March 5 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
One of the Steve Banks artworks on display at Bereskin Gallery.
Banks’ new exhibit. “Construct/Destruct,” emphasizes the architectural underpinnings in his artwork, which includes several ceramic sculptures. There are 25 pieces — both two-dimensional and three-dimensional works – in the gallery.
“It’s something this area hasn’t seen. This is the first time he’s ever exhibited anything like this,” gallery owner Pat Bereskin said this week. “I think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever seen him do.”
Many of the pieces “really pop out at you,” she said of the multi-dimensional aspects. “The cool part about it is, I love all of them.”
Steve Banks of Davenport will be at an opening reception on Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
One piece, “Ledger Balance,” combines influences of Roman churches, domes and contemporary construction, Bereskin said. Banks’ ceramic pieces incorporate steel and rivets from construction.
“I think it’s a beautiful expression of art, and also a wonderful testament to the variety and tenacity of those involved in construction,” she said.
“Seeing the weathered walls of Rome and walking through the ruins of Pæstüm had a profound impact on me,” Banks says in his artist statement. “The hints at what had been, what had been lost, and what had been repurposed, would serve as one of the major inspirations for my artwork for the next 25 years.
“Ruined temples, Ionic columns, maps, fragments of architecture, parking lots, and abandoned roadside signs thematically weave in and out of my pieces — for there is a similar beauty and melancholy to be found in both the old bones of a Greek temple and the carcass of an abandoned truck stop,” he says.
Banks earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in 1995 from Northwest Missouri State University, and a master of fine arts in 1997 from Florida State University.
He has had his work exhibited often in the region, including in 2018, at Davenport’s Figge Art Museum, and in 2014 at Moline’s Black Hawk College ArtSpace Gallery, and in Clinton, Iowa at the Cortona Gallery, Ashford University.
“Construct/Destruct” will be on display through April 30 at Bereskin Gallery & Art Academy, 2967 State St., Bettendorf.
“My artwork is about finding meaningful identity and individuality within popular culture,” Banks says in his bio at stevebanksart.com. “I strive to make energetic images that explore our relationships and interactions with what is precious, beautiful, necessary, serious, sensual, and non-sensical, through juxtapositions of disparate materials, clashing iconography, pungent color schemes, contrasting textures, scale, and, simplicity versus clutter.
“My image-making process is fueled by curiosity regarding the process of partial cultural assimilation,” he says. “These studio works are rooted in the quest for the individual within an apathetic culture of homogeneity and pre-packaged identity. This search for individuality often turns into commentaries about how we miraculously form meaningful interpersonal connections and relationships, while our souls seem to bob haplessly on an isolating sea of cultural white noise.”
The Bereskin show will be on display through April 30. For more information, visit www.bereskinartgallery.com/construct-destruct.
