Illner Greene turns life back to art

BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - Lori Illner Greene got preoccupied with a new concept in physics called "string-theory", a controversial model of subatomic composition, and it spilled all over her canvas.

String theory was created when scientists asked 'What's more complex than a point is a line or a string' and came up with a disputable 'theory of everything'. With all that aside, Illner Green took her fascination with the theory and let it transcend from her my mind to her fingertips turning it into art.

Illner Greene is the featured artist this month at the Fort Madison Area Arts Association and has many of her string-theory art and other works on display through the month. She will also be hosting the Lunch Ala-Art this Friday at the FMAAA.

Illner Greene said she wanted to portray what she imagined the energy of string-theory would look like in a visual form in her art work and completed dozens of black and white, and color renderings using swirling motions. Her string theory pieces were part of the first art series she did.

After spending some time living in Illinois near the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illner Greene said she was exposed to the idea behind the lab and it converted to art for her.

Illner Greene points to one of her works in a series portraying string theory. Photo by Chuck Vandenberg/PCC

"Not so long ago string theory was a new concept," she said. "I started to think what those strings would look like as energy filaments and how they would come together and form a bond which would then become subatomic particles and just what would those look like. And that's what that series was created to be."

She did pieces where the whole canvas was taken up with the strokes as she tried to take the imagination of what those energy bonds would look like and turn into on the canvas.

"I wanted to engage in it, because I just loved the strokes, Illner Greene said. "I did different iterations of it and these things were twisting because of how I perceived gravitational pull or energy bonds that happen. So I played with filling up the entire paper, and then I moved to more of a cleaner look where the strokes were more contained. This was just coming out of my head."

At the same time, she said she was doing figure drawing and honing her skills on being able to do basic drawing. One of the works displayed downtown is a black-and-white of a couple of bourbon glasses in front of a bottle of Crown Royal.

"I was doing figure drawing classes because I really believe you need to be able to draw, you just can't make stuff up, so I would do studies just like a drawing student."

"I knew really good drawers, painters, and sculptors in our past had dealt with the human figure as their baseline for learning how to draw because you can't just fake it. Even though each of us is shaped differently, we can perceive whether that's a real body or whether the fore-shorting comes off as real, and whether your able to pull off dimensionality.

Illner Greene ,who was the former manager of the Elks Lodge in Fort Madison, said she threw her hat back in the ring last year as full-time artist and wants to make a living selling her works.

Now she has worked up a few series including a pet series that features dogs, cats, rabbits and horses, and a hummingbird series that allowed to her to transition the strokes of the string-theory pieces into the environment around the hummingbird to show how it's energy effects the space around it.

"I enjoy this kind of mark making. I like the layering on of color and I enjoy making a mark, and another mark, and another mark, and building up through six or seven layers of color to achieve something," she said. "I also still believe in dimensionally showing a piece, or subject matter, and it's fore-shorting - to show a beak coming at you or the plumpness of a pheasant."

She is now currently working on a Birds of Prey series and visitors can watch her work up an owl portrait at the FMAAA studio on Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m. Her works will be on display and for sale on the FMAAA's west side throughout the month.

She's currently artist-in-residence at the Victoria Gallery at 740 Avenue G and now has a studio in Niota called the Greene Acres Art Studio that is open by appointment only.

Those interested in getting a look at Illner Greene's work can see it at the FMAAA through July. She will also be showing in February at an art show at Southeastern Community College. For an appointment to her personal gallery in Niota, she can be reached at 630-235-8239 or by email at Lori@GreeneAcresArt.com.