Jeff Fleming | Ghosts
1/6/2025Opening Reception at Moberg Gallery
Friday, January 10, 2025 | 5 pm – 8 pm
2411 Grand Ave. Des Moines, IA 50312
Free and open to the public | Parking behind the gallery
Join Moberg for the opening reception of our first 2025 exhibit: Jeff Fleming’s Ghosts. There will be refreshments, and the artist will be in attendance. DJ Dennis Atherton will be filling the gallery with music.
Ghosts inhabit this body of work. Family photographs from the early 1960s serve as source material for the imagery. Phantoms of the past appear in grainy, sometimes indistinct images, weaving in and out of focus. Some encounters are known only from conversations or stories, and the photographs are reminders that the events happened, and the people lived. The process of working on a chalkboard, with its ability to show the ghost images of previous attempts at composition and accuracy, adds a tangible dimension to these memories. – Jeff Fleming
Jeff Fleming paints delightful (yet haunting) works, using gesso, India ink, white charcoal, and pencil. In making this series of work, Fleming uses the processes associated with the traditional chalkboard—its ability to record the process and history of a drawing—to create ghost images that can be nostalgic and pleasing, as well as desirous and haunting. Stories and memories comprise each of our lives; these images are autobiographical for the artist, but they also exemplify a collective lived experience.
Fleming earned his MFA at Pratt Institute, has shown nationally, and held positions at The Metro Opera Association and the Smithsonian Institute, before moving to Des Moines to work at the Des Moines Art Center, where he remained until 2023. Recently returned to his studio to draw and paint, Fleming resides in Des Moines.
Media contact: ryan@moberggallery.com | 515 279-9191
