"BOG CYCLES" by Alan Montgomery

Fine Art Painting on Paper Exhibit

“Bog Cycles”

By South Dakota painter Alan Montgomery

Icebox Gallery has a primary focus on photography, but sometimes a show comes along that is too good to pass up. Alan has exhibited paintings with Icebox for years. “Bog Cycles” will be his third one-person show following his first “Moment to Moment” in January of 1995 and “Both Sides of the Divide” in 1996.
Howard Christopherson curated “Bog Cycles,” 33 small intimate works on paper.

“The entanglement of lines, rich colors and poetic rhythms are filled with surprises.  Alan’s work takes you to a place within, a place without, a timeless personal place of quiet discovery. A place under the surface filled with tree roots and peat.” ~H. Christopherson

 “The inspiration for the Bog Cycle series began back in 1994 in graduate school reading the late Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Heaney’s seminal pieces on the Irish peat bog is a journey through time and space and a signifier of the Irish culture. I spent the early part of my life in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the period known as the troubles. Heaney wrote a number of bog poems during this time and they reflect that period, but they also answer to the metaphysical, the ancient, and the richness of the Irish language and landscape. The patterns and rhythm of Heaney’s writing struck a chord in me. I see something in the writing that is profound and immense. I am not illustrating his poems, but rather I am interpreting the written text through the visual language of design and art in an effort to better understand how meaning occurs in my own work and how I can move forward with the Bog Cycle series.” ~A. Montgomery

“In the Bog Cycle work I chose ink because it is a fluid medium, which behaves in ways they are both unexpected and predictable.”



“The resolution of my Bog Cycle work is grounded in the belief that the process of making must communicate all other references; philosophical, emotive, and narrative. My desire to reach Heaney’s text in its abstract elemental form is embodied in my ongoing Bog Cycle series.” A. Montgomery

Alan Montgomery is a Professor of Art in the College of Arts and Sciences in the Digital Arts and Design program At Dakota State University, Madison, SD.  Assistant Professor of Art 2000-05, Associate Professor of Art 2005-11. He is a recent recipent of the South Dakota Individual Artist Fellowship 2016-2017.

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN, MFA, Painting Concentration, Spring, 1994.
MINNESOTA STATE UNIVERSITY-MANKATO, M.A Painting and Printmaking, Spring 1990.
MINNESOTA STATE UNIVERSITY-MANKATO, BFA, Painting and Drawing, Spring 1986

Exhibit title:  “Bog Cycles”
Opening time: 6-9 PM

Show continues through October 22, 2016

Regular Hours: Thursday & Friday 10-6, Saturday 12-5 and by appointment.