Explore impossible landscapes tonight

COEUR d'ALENE - Abstract diagrams of "impossibility" and curious, imaginative circles will be featured from 5-8 this evening during The Art Spirit Gallery's opening reception of "The Impossible Landscape" by Colfax artist Timothy C. Ely.

Ely, who makes lavishly painted and unique manuscript books, has traveled extensively - teaching, lecturing and exhibiting internationally. His books and drawings are held in numerous collections including the Library of Congress, Stanford University, the New York Public Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

"A few months ago, while driving the backroads of the Palouse, I had a sudden phase shift and realized that what I had always seen as a gorgeous landscape was actually a massive factory producing wheat and other grains to feed a technical world," Ely said. "The connection -or lack thereof - between traditional landscape painting and the delivery systems of trucks, combines, and impact seeders was a paradox that I could not embrace easily lest I drive off the road. I began to see an impossible structure of co-tangent worlds: one of beauty that causes vans full of misty-eyed, vested photographers to make digital images of hills bathed in shadows from the setting sun, derelict barns, abandoned machines and red architecture; the other - of more interest to me and just as beautiful - of metal grain elevators and farm machinery, like the diesel-driven gathering vehicles that crawl furiously over millions of acres worldwide, leaving in their wake stubble like a military haircut."

Ely will give an informal talk about his work starting at 1 p.m. in the gallery Saturday. The Art Spirit is located at 415 Sherman Ave.

Info: www.theartspiritgallery.com/exhibitions