PACE STUDIO ARTISTS
Fridays | 3rd Floor
The PACE Studio Artists offer a dazzling array of talents including oil, acrylics, pastel, photography, sculpture, home goods, media entertainment, and much more. Join them every Friday from 6:00-9:00 PM for Open Studio Hours.
BUCK CHRISTENSEN
Council Bluffs Photography
Artist Bio
I enjoy the challenge of finding the beauty in the pedestrian, often shirking the traditional for the unusual and always trying to find the subject’s essential parts. An abandoned barn catching the first light of the day, the gesture of a single flower languishing in a vase on a window sill, the swirls of smoke issuing from a pair of power-plant smokestacks . . . these are all stories that I love to retell through my photography.
JEFF KOTERBA
Cartoonist
Artist Bio
Jeff Koterba is an internationally-syndicated and award-winning cartoonist whose drawings have flown on the space shuttle. Entertainment Weekly called his memoir, Inklings: “…a powerful and moving portrait of an artist.” A two-time TEDx speaker, he’s also a two-time nominee for a Heartland Emmy Award. Although he studied fine art at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, he took a very long break from dabbling in oils. Now, however, with brushes in hand, he’s re-launched his more painterly side.
KENT HERTZ
Hz Productions
Artist Bio
Originally from Malvern, Iowa, Hertz has spent the last 20 years as an audio engineer, music producer, videographer and projection mapping artist in Nashville, Miami and Los Angeles. With over 600 projects published, Kent has established his position in the industry, teaming up with such artists as Julio Iglesias, Godsmack, Missy Elliott, Lauren Hill, Steve Miller Band, Beyoncè, Lonestar and Toby Keith. Recently, Hertz moved his production company (Hz Productions) back to the midwest, where he helps encourage and develop local talent. Kent continues his work with artists worldwide.
TIM GUTHRIE
Sculptor & Painter
Artist Bio
Tim Guthrie is Omaha-based multi-media visual artist and experimental filmmaker. He has presented his work at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, and had his work included in several books, as well as in a book about Ingres at the Louvre in Paris, and several novels, including an interactive novel with Lance Olsen that was included in the Iowa Review Web. He was awarded the Top 25 MFA Sculptors in the Nation by Sculpture Magazine and the international Sculpture Center.
Tim Guthrie was also a TEDx Omaha speaker in 2018, which touched on his documentary film about his wife, which won numerous “Best of” awards at film festivals around the globe, including a Humanitarian Award (GIFA).
Residencies include the Blue Mountain Center, Vermont Studio Center, Hall Farm, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and other awards and fellowships include International Sculpture Center, the Sierra Arts Foundation, and the Nevada Arts Council, each funded by the NEA, among others.
His films have won numerous Best Documentary awards, 2017 Humanitarian Award (GIFA), Audience Awards and other awards, and shown widely, including in Wales, UK (International), Sweden (High Coast), Bucharest, Sydney (World Film Festival), Hiroshima Animation Festival, 5th Annual Athens International Animation Festival (Greece), Control Arms Conference (Italy), Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, as well as festivals in London, Miami, Copenhagen, Hollywood, and Toronto.
He is a professor at Creighton University.
NANCY LEPO
Pen & Ink
Artist Bio
Pen-and-ink artist Nancy Lepo has drawn images for as long as she can remember. She is primarily self-taught as an artist. She credits classes in engineering drawing, architectural rendering, and sciences with sharpening her skills in visualizing and drawing. This background also reconfirms her belief in the power of a drawing to convey information. Lepo’s use of pen and ink applied in a pointillist (stippled or dotted) manner lets her create a tremendous range of gray tones and layered effects while using only black ink. She developed her technique as a result of her interests in impressionism and a fascination of black and white nature photography. By studying French Impressionism, she learned how to suggest detail in such a way that a viewer’s eye completes parts of a drawing. By studying photographs, she learned how to show movement or suggest motion about to happen. Lepo’s pen-and-ink drawings hang in numerous private collections throughout the United States. A series of her images hang in the Boys Town Residential Treatment Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Lepo is also an origami artist.
Nancy says of her artwork, "My use of only black, white, and complex gray tones in drawings on paper is deliberate. Through a technique known as pointillism, I create effects on paper with only black ink, black ink wash, or black ink in combination with graphite. I consider the drawing paper to be white. Then the darkest darks are applied first. I key all other values off those darks and the paper’s white. Tones and values are built by repeated applications of black ink. The result is a rich variety of tones and layered effects between black and white. It brings near-photographic hyperrealism to my drawings of abstracts, landscapes, and structures. Nontraditional origami paper sculpture stretches my use of paper into the 3D realm. Paperfolding makes me appreciate the differences in the workability and texture of various papers. Whereas the drawings on paper are monochromatic, the origami is the exploration of sculptural color."