MURO

A collaborative art installation at Heartland Community College will evolve and change over the course of the exhibition’s display this winter.

The Joe McCauley Gallery at Heartland Community College presents M U R O by David Dow and Jim Neeley from January 6 through March 6, 2020.

Dow and Neeley’s history as collaborative designers and individual artists fuel this exhibit, their first site specific installation. M U R O balances concrete and symbolic elements with a fabricated, bollard wall that divides the gallery space. Viewers peer past the barrier into the space to view Dow’s signature, tribal masks and freestanding, abstracted figures created collaboratively and expressly for the installation.

During their exhibit, Dow and Neeley will revisit M U R O to create temporal shifts by repositioning figures and lighting, as well as adding and subtracting elements. Additionally, the artists will be collecting and incorporating public comments for inclusion to the exhibit and will install projector lighting effects to alter the exhibit as it progresses.

A reception for the artists will take place Thursday, February 20th from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Gallery.

About the Artists

Product designer David Dow returned to studio art and his love of clay in 2017. His current work explores masks: do they hide who we are or allow us to become something we’re not? The masks are influenced by David’s travels with partner Jim Neeley and by his family history in Hollywood. His grandfather headed the legendary Western Costume. Together, David and Jim lead Wisecracker Studio and Wisecracker Design, an interior and product design studio.

Designer and artist Jim Neeley creates assemblages of found objects, from antique to recycled materials. Primed, coated with gesso, then coated with layers of matte finish paint, the elements are reduced to their purest form. Mundane implements of metal or glass are transformed into sensuous objects, meticulously arranged in compartmented wooden boxes. These works allow Jim to explore visual ideas that reflect his personality as a designer and also as a bit of a Wisecracker.

For nearly thirty years, Dow and Neeley have created and built businesses, managed design projects big and small, and traveled the world - always being open for the next adventure. Wisecracker Studio is their fine art collaboration, represented by Norcross and Scott in Chicago. While their works reflect unique personalities and points of view, their art is graphic, polished and perfectly complementary, much like the artists’ lives.