WAVERLY - It's hard to pull your eyes away from one of Darrell Taylor's collages.

Unlike other artists - who pack their canvasses chock-full of complimentary and contradictory images - Taylor blends the sum of his parts smoothly together. In "Migr(assimil)ations #1," the Hindu deity Ganesha reclines in an armchair while magnified red blood cells float above the goddess' elegant elephant head.

The image may sound jarring, but there is something sweetly seductive about the manner in which Taylor pieces together disparate drawings, photos and poster images.

Like a veteran puppet master, the artist ensures his audience never sees the strings.

"I don't just put imagery on top of imagery," said Taylor, whose work will be on display at Wartburg College starting Friday. "I create imagery that flows: Lines flow into other lines, swirls that flow into other swirls."

The result? It's difficult to tell where one image begins and the other ends.

So instead of dissecting Taylor's work, viewers can simply appreciate it and immerse themselves in the pieces' narratives.

"I put all my experiences, all my interests in these collages," said the Waterloo man. "But I hope people can find their own stories in them, too."

"Flow: Work of Darrell Taylor," will be on display at the college's Waldemar A. Schmidt Gallery through Nov. 9. In addition to collages, the exhibit will include drawings and chromogenic prints. A reception is planned for Oct. 18.

And although the artist is known for the unity he creates in collages, the show's title - "Flow" - actually refers to Taylor's inspiration for creation. Last spring, the artist, who also serves as director of the University of Northern Iowa's Gallery of Art, hit a rut in his artistic life.

"I was so busy with work (there) that I didn't do work at home in my studio," Taylor explained.

Then he read, "The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium," by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly. The author describes "flow" as akin to "being carried away by a current, everything moving without effort."

"He talked about how you get so involved in the project that you are working on that you lose sense of time and place and you forget to eat," Taylor explained. "It sounds scary, but it's really a meditative, fulfilling state. I recognized that that's the precise state I'm in when I'm creating art and I decided I needed to get back in the studio."

Several of the pieces in the Wartburg show were created in the past six months. Other works hail from the artist's trips abroad to Germany in 1998 and Russia in 2003.

Taylor expects (and encourages) visitors to attach their own meaning to his collages, drawings and photographs. But he also wants exhibit attendees to understand what ties all his pieces together.

"I hope that people will read my artist statement and realize that "Flow" is just a metaphor for work ethic," he said. " … Whatever their passion is, they need to challenge themselves and embrace that challenge."

Contact Mary Stegmeir at (319) 291-1482 or mary.stegmeir@wcfcourier.com.

GO & DO

WHAT: "Flow: Work of Darrell Taylor"

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday through Nov. 9

WHERE: Waldemar A. Schmidt Gallery, Wartburg College

COST: Free

ETC: A reception is planned Sat. Oct. 18, 6-8 p.m.