By Tessa Solomon
From a gritty Williamsburg loft to Los Angeles’ Western Project Gallery, University of Iowa alum John Schlue’s art has taken him from coast to coast. Now, he is having an Iowa homecoming, one to revitalize his childhood community.
The exhibit, aptly titled EatChewAlive — a graphic mixture of bold geometric shapes, Americana-inspired neon, and felt materials — will open Saturday at the Belle Plaine Area Museum’s Henry B. Tippie Annex, 901 Main St.
“The work is very bright,” Schlue said. “The patterns can be alarming, and that’s not an accident.”
More than a gallery opening, it is an event for Belle Plaine’s community. Any child attending will have a chance to create her or his own geometric painting, which will culminate in a grand mosaic to be pieced together at the event’s conclusion.
Before he led art classes for Belle Plaine’s children, Schlue was another neighborhood kid, exploring the town that serves as a home to 2,500 people.
His rural upbringing proved beneficial to his artistic evolution and subsequent urban adventures.
“When you grow up in a place where everyone is looking out for you, it builds some confidence to leave,” Schlue said.
Moving on to the University of Iowa as an undeclared major, it took one summer of art classes to set the course for the rest of his life.
“[The classes] started to develop things in my mind,” he said. “I realized I really liked this, and it makes a lot more sense to me.”
After graduation, Schlue experienced the struggles and joys of life away from home, plunging first into the Brooklyn art scene before transitioning to the West Coast.
After a few years in Los Angeles, Schlue was able to realize his dream of exhibiting at the city’s famed Western Project Gallery.
On both coasts, however, Schlue was met with the harsh realities of trying to sustain a career as a working artist. While his time in Los Angeles necessitated a different form of survival than he had experienced as a young college graduate in New York — since moving to California Schlue had fathered two children — his motivations had become all the more pressing. Those survival instincts eventually led him to the inspiration for EatChewAlive.
“I was listening to a great Radiohead song, there’s a line in it: ‘We’ll eat you alive,’ ” Schlue said. “I started spelling it out, and thinking about the actions: eat food, chew, and stay alive. It was this really basic notion of survival but with the duality of survival opposed to the rat race.”
The exhibit — featuring large-scale oil paint and acrylic felt pieces — took years of experimentation and design. Schlue drew inspiration from both the neon signs of Los Angeles and his rural Iowa roots.
Once it was finished, though, he did not reach out to galleries in Los Angeles and instead began the long process of transporting his art home to Belle Plaine.
EatChewAlive will be the first exhibition by a solo artist in the Belle Plaine Area Museum’s Annex, a room endowed for the purpose of presenting local and regional art.
“We’re bringing in something new, something outside the box for everyone to come see and enjoy,” said Mitch Malcolm, the president of the Belle Plaine Historical Society.
Unlike past solo exhibitions, viewers will not find a single price tag in the gallery.
“For me I think there’s a certain amount of pressure and weight in showing art in the context of ‘this is for sale,’ ” Schlue said. “But here, there’s no context to influence people beyond taking it in; that’s a really freeing thing for me.”
Malcolm hopes that EatChewAlive will set a precedent for the gallery and the community, ushering in a new generation of Iowan artists.
“It shows young kids that just being from Iowa isn’t a restrictive thing. You can still go out and spread your wings,” Malcolm said. “But don’t forget your roots. Bring it back; that’s what John has done.”