Featured artist brings ‘Multiplicity’ to Charles City Arts Center

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Russ Fagle said he hopes his artwork can appeal to people from all walks of life, with different tastes and different ideas of what art means to them.

“A lot of artists like to focus in and have one style, one medium and have a very focused presentation with their art, and I totally respect that,” said Fagle, who is the Charles City Arts Center’s featured artist for the month of August. “If I see something that inspires me, I will make a piece of art that’s probably going to be different than what I did yesterday, because everything in this world has so many dimensions and so much depth.”

Fagle is an artist and art instructor residing in Cedar Rapids with nearly 35 years experience in branding, graphic design, art, illustration and creative development. He said his artwork is often an attempt to embrace the variety he sees around him.

“To me, being an artist is observing and interpreting the world, and the world is a very diverse place,” he said. “Every subject has many facets to it — there are all different perspectives from different lenses and prisms to view everything.”

The CCAC will host a reception for Fagle on Friday, Aug. 6, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The public is welcome, refreshments will be served, and Fagle will be giving a presentation on creating digital art at the event.

Fagle is a graduate of Wartburg College and has won awards creating art for some of the world’s largest — and smallest — companies. Clients have included The Iowa Lottery, Brach’s Candy, Apple, Panasonic, GE Capital and local companies such as The Freedom Festival, The Newbo City Market and Rockwell Collins.

Russ has also worked extensively in developing communications and graphics for the health care sector since 2001, when he transitioned to an independent consultant.

He is a founding artist of the New Bohemia Arts and Entertainment District Board of Directors and has facilitated art-making workshops for many years and taught at the Eastern Iowa Arts Academy.

A highly diverse artist stylistically — Fagle’s work spans across pop art and fine art genres, from representational to abstract; from deep and serious to whimsical and comic. He is also a musician, father and avid student of world history and cultures.

Fagle grew up on a family farm near Stanley, Iowa, and is a 1986 graduate of Oelwein High School. His dad farmed and worked for John Deere in Waterloo and his mother was a CNA at a nursing home.

“Growing up in the 70s in rural Iowa, there wasn’t a lot of artistic instruction,” Fagle said. “We had art class in school, and that was pretty much the end of it.”

Fagle said he didn’t have any artistic mentors or guidance growing up, but he thinks that in hindsight, that lack of structure impacted his growth as an artist, and helped him cultivate the diverse style that he’s become known for.

Fagle said that as an artist, he is constantly growing, changing, evolving and revisiting past work.

“I have signature styles, but I have a range of them,” Fagle said. “Often, when people ask me about my work, they’ll assume I have several artists working with me in my studio, because of all the different approaches — but it’s just me.”

Fagle said he hopes his digital demonstration Friday will clear up some preconceptions that he believes many people have about digitally-created artwork. He said that there are people who don’t think digital art is as credible as traditionally created artwork.

He said that computer-created art is not cheating or a short cut, and the process for the artist is almost identical to creating art traditionally.

“If you can’t paint in watercolor traditionally, you can’t paint in watercolor digitally,” Fagle said. “Of course there are ways to cheat. You can apply filters to photographs all day long, but serious artists aren’t interested in doing that — serious artists are interested in creating something.”

Many artists focus on one theme in their exhibits, but Fagle instead decided to feature bits and pieces from throughout his career, spanning from 20 years ago or longer, to work he may have done in the last few weeks.

“I chose the term ‘Multiplicity’ for the show, because my work covers a wide breadth stylistically and from a medium standpoint,” Fagle said. “There is a lot of variety, and a lot of it is digital.”

The diversity will range from posters to fine art-oriented work to graphic design, he said.

“I just run with the fact that I’m an interested and curious person, the world is a interesting place, and I embrace that,” Fagle said. “It can drive a very diverse portfolio.”

Fagle has displayed and sold his work at Art-a-Fest in the past and said he has a good impression of Charles City. He said having grown up in Oelwein, the Charles City area and its people are very relatable to him.

“Culturally, my experiences are similar to the people in the Charles City area,” he said. “It’s exciting for me to show them some of the work that I’ve pulled from my upbringing in Northeast Iowa.”

Fagle has some farm landscape pieces in his exhibit, which he said were influenced by his upbringing, which he described as rural and blue-collar, with an emphasis on farming, tradition, and the blending of culture into the community.

“I’ve traveled a lot and moved to different places, but I always come back to eastern Iowa,” he said. “I want to be an ingredient in that evolving and constantly-churning process.”