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"Odysseys of the Spirit" at The Heartland Gallery - Photo by Ross Topol

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Heartland Gallery »
Address: 112 W. Main St. Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 337-4767
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Heartland Gallery, located on Main Street in downtown Urbana, is hosting an exhibition entitled "The Odysseys of the Spirits," featuring professional photography from Joe Ethridge and acrylic paintings and photos by Lena Choe.

"Painting is my past, present, and future," writes Choe on her website. "It is like my heart; it beats as part of the collective consciousness, and without it, I would cease to exist." Choe was unavailable for interview at press time.

The signature patchworks in Choe's acrylics and digital photography from around the world, serves to further reflect Choe's life experiences and spiritual journey.

Painted in sweeping motions, the dark blues, violets and yellows of "Among the Wind" appears to represent synchronization with life, while the upward, unwoven patches of reds and pinks of "Against the Wind" represents a disconnection with it. In "Before Time," suns, moons, peace signs, celtic crosses and pentagrams, hang suspended, sticking out against back round colors, suggesting tranquility before the universe began.

"Choe is like me," said Joe Ethridge over the phone. "She carries the camera with her wherever she goes. When I ever I go traveling, I'm up at dawn, trying to capture this light or that light."

After 25 years of driving a truck, being fascinated with the interactions between light and landscape and shooting what he could on the weekends, Etheridge felt he needed a change. "I wanted something more challenging creatively," he says, and in the summer of 2005 opened Ethridge Photography Studio and Gallery in Charleston, IL. "Since then my interests have grown to include portraits, weddings and journalistic photography."

Etheridge's unique angles, as illustrated by the over the top shot of "The Belly Dancer," are inspired, in part, by cinema photographers. "I watch a lot of movies, especially foreign films, and I study the different angles, how they move tilt the camera and try to duplicate it. I use my feet. I'll get onto chairs. I'll get onto my knees, on my belly. I'll look for what works best, what will help and complement and even exaggerate the subject."

In photos such as "The Fiddle Players," Ethridge captures timelessness and what he calls the nature and soul of the human spirit. "It's not easy to capture," he says. "What people don't know is that's difficult on the other side of the camera. Sometimes, I'll be photographing a person and they'll be frozen, and then next moment they'll be talking and laughing with their friends, and if I can capture that, I'm good."

The Heartland Gallery exhibit will run through Friday, July 3rd. To order prints or to find out more visit, Lena Choe at www.lenachoe.com and or Joe Ethridge at www.ethridgephotography.com.