CR Museum of Art: the Ryan Bentzinger exhibit and ICON featured artists exhibit

        The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is opening a new exhibit on October 3rd, running it through January 17th, 2016. This new exhibit showcases artwork by Ryan Bentzinger, for his first of five graphic novels, entitled nAMUH (Human backwards). Rayn is 26 years old and lives in Iowa City. He uses watercolors to paint each "scene" of the book, essentially creating a cinematic "storyboard" of his book. He takes elements of a Lord of the Rings fellowship, Dungeons and Dragons, magic, etc. and combines them into this graphic novel.

        It takes place in a post-apocalyptic realm, which is divided into three "levels". The lowest level is The Rere Islands which consists of the sea, Blur, and 5 islands, Criime, Povertee, Salvaj, Lazee, and Kretivitee. The 2nd level consists of Dolg City, the Smog, and Sucksess. The Hevens is the 3rd and final level. All these are connected by the Ladder of Konfidense.

        The prologue to the story is a series of apocalyptic events that happen from 2027-2233. These events include loss of the ozone layer, higher solar+other radiation levels, etc. Eventually, the human population has to escape due to adverse conditions.

        I talked with Ryan, and he told me he drew these originally so he would know what to draw everyday when he was in collage. He based the world off society, exaggerating it exponentially, and all the characters off his friends and their personalities. The first book is almost done and the 2nd book is going to be worked on for the next 2 years.

        Another exhibit also opened, featuring several Iowa CON (ICON) artists, on September 12, 2015 to January 3rd, 2016. This exhibit showcases 10 ICON Artist Guests of Honor's work. As a sidenote, ICON is Iowa's longest running science-fiction and fantasy convention, and this year is it's 40th anniversary.

        So, come to the CR Museum of Art to see some great artwork from Iowa artists.