NCI ARTworks to host opening reception for Tony Seabolt, Jeanne O’Melia

NCI ARTworks in Peru will host an opening reception for the month-long exhibition of art by Tony Seabolt and Jeanne O’Melia from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 14, at the gallery in the Westclox building.

O’Melia studied art at Iowa State University and Augustana College, Rock Island, and The Clearing, Door County, Wisconsin. Traveling extensively throughout the world, she makes line drawings in ink or paints in watercolor on location. Her drawings from travels and at home are the inspiration for cyanotype prints, acrylic paintings and found-object sculptures, which she began creating 20 years ago from various materials, including metal scraps and cigarette butts.

O’Melia has taught art as part of the Illinois Arts in Education Artist Roster program. In Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica and San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, she volunteered to work with children creating art from found objects.

Her work has been exhibited in the Quad Cities and other venues throughout Illinois and in Cook, Minnesota. She also exhibited in Montreal and Atikokan, Quebec and won first place in Friends of Quetico Provincial Park art show. She was a delegate on a “Friendship through the Arts” Tour in China.

The NCI ARTworks exhibit contains her latest acrylic paintings and collages as well as Papier mâché creations she has produced within the last five years.

Seabolt is known for his abstract works, which consist of acrylic paintings and drawings that are a mixture of surrealism, cubism and Gestalt psychology, in that they have elements that draw the viewer in and allow them to see things that their own imagination creates. His work also includes portraits, landscapes and automobile-themed art.

His experience comes from 35-plus years of experimenting and working under other artists and his studies at Black Hawk College. He developed his artistic building blocks from early modern, mid-century and Bauhaus influences.

In recent years he has shown his works at Gallery West, Stardog Gallery, Galleria at Bucktown, Sol-Iron Gallery, The Artery, Gallery 114 and has participated in many MidCoast Art’s events. His works are included in many private collections, both nationally and internationally.