PRESS & REVIEWS
View the article on Satellite City Transmissions in the Mar/Apr 2008 edition of Art & Society Magazine: www.peoriamagazines.com/as/2008/mar-apr/satellite-city-transmissions
Peoria Journal Star, Arts, Sunday August 4, 2007
Artists taking off?
Satellite City Transmissions launches local art into region
Gary Panetta - BACKSTAGE
Sunday, August 5, 2007
The gallery at the WTVP studio is large, cavernous and has a lot of metal piping across its high ceiling.
In other words, it has that perfect bohemian atmosphere for displaying paintings, sculptures, photographs and mixed-media work, which it has been doing for some time now - including on a recent Saturday when I visited an opening of works by a new, grass-roots artists group known somewhat cryptically as Satellite City Transmissions.
Whenever people organize themselves into a group, you can be sure they have ambitions, and its no different with Satellite City Transmissions, which wants to get artwork made in central Illinois out and about in the region at large. The other weekend's single-night gallery walk, for instance, served as a preview to another opening, set for Aug. 17 in Chicago, where the same artwork will go on exhibit through Sept. 15 at 33 Collective Gallery in the Zhou B. Center, 1029 W. 35th St. An exhibit at Bloomington's Studio 222 will open Oct. 5.
The group has been around for about five months, said Doug Goessman, and its name refers to Peoria and its satellite status to Chicago.
"It was kind of to bring the idea that Peoria has cutting-edge, trendy art," Goessman said of the group. "A lot people in Chicago are surprised that I'm doing what I do in Peoria. They consider it rural. They don't realize that Peoria is very urban, like a small Chicago, really. I didn't realize that until I moved here."
Goessman grew up in Chicago's Old Irving Park Neighborhood, studied at Western Illinois University and now lives in Pekin. He's also part of central Illinois' large visual arts community, from which Satellite City has culled 11 other members: Heather Brammeier, William Butler, Cheryl Dean, Chad Ellison, Jacob Grant, Chris Hutson, Gabriel Johnson, Rich Kirchgessner, John Tuccillo, Steph VanDoren and Erin Robert, who noted that the artists work in a variety of media, and come and go as they choose.
She was standing next to her small, mixed-media work mounted on the wall. Titled "Kentucky Wheat," it's an assembly of weather-worn looking objects: elegant-looking lace, a bourbon bottle label, dried-out wheat stem, bits of an old postcard and war ration coupons.
"Because I have connections to different places, I knew there was a lot of legitimate art going on out here," Robert continued. "I even had a professor in college out East who said that the Midwest is the next artistic place to be reckoned with. . . . So this is just an opportunity to show there is great art, there is a lot of talent in Peoria. There's a concentrated circle of artists here, and it's really surprising."
That circle of artists became a welcoming committee of sorts for VanDoren, who works in mixed media, placing materials like fabric on a canvas lightly coated with paint, painting over the fabric and then peeling it off, leaving behind the remains of what soaks through. The result is richly textured, eye-catching abstractions. VanDoren feels that she has grown much as an artist since arriving here from Des Moines, Iowa, to attend Bradley University.
"I love Peoria," VanDoren said. "The people here made me feel so welcome the minute I came across the state line. . . . They helped me find a place to live, they made sure I came to the art functions, that I got out socially. It's pretty amazing that I've been here a year, and that I'm involved in this type of group, and that I know as many people as I know. I think that says something about this community."
For more information, visit the group's Web site at www.satellitecitytransmissions.4t.com.
Gary A. Panetta is the fine arts columnist and a critic for the Journal Star. He can be reached at 686-3132 or gpanetta@pjstar.com.