Jul 252024
 

Canton Museum of Art’s Spring/Summer Exhibitions include three artists who have created engaging new worlds for visitors to explore.

Ginny Ruffner’s sculptures hide colorful surprises in her exhibition Reforestation of the Imagination. Working with animator and media artist Grant Kirkpatrick, they have created digitally animated fictional plants that burst from the certain sections of the works when using their app on your phone (the museum will also loan you a tablet if you need one). Ruffner has also provided delightful descriptions for these creations, as well as her drawings.

From the museum-

Imagine an apocalyptic landscape. It appears barren, devastated, and hopeless. It is not.

In this traveling exhibition from the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, internationally renowned artist Ginny Ruffner creates a seemingly bleak environment that suddenly evolves into a thriving floral oasis by combining traditional sculpture with augmented reality (AR) technology. In collaboration with animator and media artist Grant Kirkpatrick, Ruffner brings to life a colorful world where glass stumps suddenly sprout mythical flora that have adapted to their surrounding conditions in unexpected, beautiful and optimistic ways. By transforming the CMA lower galleries into a multidimensional experience, Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination calls into question the very notions of reality and fantasy, of concrete and abstract, and of desolation and hope.

Ginny Ruffner is among a vibrant group of artists bringing AR to museum installations. By using this technology as another art media, she transforms visitor experiences. The installation consists of landmasses featuring intricate handblown glass sculptures of tree stumps, with painted tree rings that function as discrete QR codes. These islands surround a landmass that supports a large fiberglass stump sprouting beautifully grotesque bronze and glass appendages. Other than the central stump and the painted shelf mushrooms and tree rings on the surrounding stumps, the scene appears colorless and desolate; however, when viewed through AR’s technological lens an alternate landscape is revealed.

Visitors can download the free app “Reforestation” on their phones or use the iPads in the gallery to bring this second reality to life. When the tree rings of a stump are viewed through the device’s camera lens, a hologram of a fictional plant appears to sprout from the sculpture. These imagined fruits and flowers have evolved from existing flora, developing dramatic appendages and skills necessary to flourish in this radically different environment. In this reality, tulips develop stem flexibility, pears contain windows to the outside world and flowers take on the form of birds. The installation includes Ruffner’s tongue-in-cheek descriptions of her fanciful flora and their remarkable, sometimes humorous adaptations, as well as 19 original drawings by the artist that were the inspiration for the AR images.

“This is nature reimagining itself,” said Ruffner. “The imagination cannot be exterminated. It just re-creates itself. To me, ‘Reforestation’ is about hope.”

The intricate porcelain works Janice Jakielski created for her exhibition Impossible Objects are reminiscent of papercut art. Through her unique ceramic process (detailed in the Ceramics Monthly article linked below) the delicate work takes traditional objects and presents them in new and intriguing ways.

From the museum-

Janice Jakielski is a Massachusetts (soon to be Colorado) based sculptor. By inventing new ways of casting and manipulating ultra-thin porcelain sheets she can create impossible objects of curiosity, beautiful objects to provide focus, retreat and pause in an overwhelming world.  Using meticulous detail, familiar forms and uncertain function she coaxes her audience to draw near, closing the physical gap between viewer and object.  In this way the details of workmanship and the excessive fragility of the porcelain act as a whisper, flirtatiously demanding investigation. Her impossible objects were also featured in the January 2021 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

For Laine Bachman’s paintings for Beyond Worlds, she has created detailed environments filled with creatures and color.

From the museum and the artist-

Suspended in the ether of some surreal galaxy, the worlds I create give a glimpse into flora and fauna that exist in a hidden interplanetary realm.  Each is a themed bouquet where I explore and study different species that exist in our own world.  I relish the details of their structures and include many forms of life I find fascinating. I approach each piece as a puzzle with parts that can coexist, painting a picture of a precious ecosystem that becomes more complex as the work evolves.  One may find a frog nestled below a fern or a mole napping under a toadstool. There are many creatures and plants we recognize from the past and some that have yet to be discovered. Creating these planets has been a journey to capture the beauty of nature and elevate small moments that may otherwise go unseen. Though they reside in the mire of a newly formed galaxy, they are truly a celebration of our world and the life that exists within it.”- Laine Bachman

As a young child growing up in a once flourishing town in the Rust Belt of Ohio, Laine Bachman always had an affinity towards drawing and painting. Her parents encouraged her creativity from the beginning which led to her attending art school in nearby Columbus, receiving a BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design in painting in 1997.

Often inspired by myths and folklore, Bachman infuses the worlds she creates with archetypal imagery, underlying themes, decorative motifs, and meticulous details. Working in watercolor and acrylics, her paintings are full of creatures and landscapes, real or imagined, that are all part of the larger story behind her work. Bachman’s work, recognized as Magical Realism, is greatly influenced by Henri Rosseau and his flat, lush, and detailed landscapes and also by surrealist Frida Kahlo.

Representations of life, death, beauty, innocence, and evil are depicted in Bachman’s work.  Whether it’s animals, insects, birds or favored objects, they become symbols of different expressions.  As owls are a symbol for wisdom or butterflies can represent a transformation, it’s this kind of idea behind the creatures that helps them tell a part of the whole story.

The works expose unique environments in which to explore and pay homage to the various forms of life that Bachman finds fascinating and mysterious in nature. Vast landscapes are used to showcase these life forms, showing the spaces between and the surfaces above and below. The worlds she creates are hidden and untouched by man, and give the viewer a glimpse into the secret lives of their peculiar inhabitants.

These exhibitions close 7/28/24.

The museum is free all day on Thursdays and tonight, 7/25, is the last of their Virtual Reality Nights. From 4-8pm you can create your own reality with VR headsets, guided by a CMA educator.

Jul 242024
 

The artists who make up small_bars, (Ry McCullough and Nick Satinover), are looking for participants for their new collaborative project– small_bars: To Activate A Landscape. Throughout July they are posting pairs of instructions, like the two above. You can choose to do any (or all) of the activities, in any order.

All contributions will be included and credited in a gallery exhibition at the Farmer Family Gallery at Ohio State University-Lima this August through October 2024, as well as the online archive of the project, and a small_bars printed publication.

Head over to their Instagram page to see all the different activities. Follow them to see what comes next, and send your submissions!

 

May 222024
 

Artist and activist Andrea Bowers is based in Los Angeles but was born and raised in Ohio. This provides the connection to the work in Exist, Flourish, Evolve, currently on view at moCa Cleveland, which advocates for environmental protections for the area. The educational material informs the viewer, while the artwork reminds us how much beauty there is to lose.

From the museum-

LA-based artist Andrea Bowers bears witness in her work, drawing attention to and inspiring movement around the most urgent issues of our time. Her drawings, sculptures, installations, and films chronicle and preserve history as it occurs, documenting collective action and amplifying the labor and lived experiences of activists dedicated to socio-political change.

Developed through an ongoing partnership with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and activist Tish O’Dell, Exist, Flourish, Evolve is a new, multi-site, multimedia campaign that builds awareness and action around the dangers facing Lake Erie and all of the Great Lakes ecosystems. It features a monumental neon sculpture installed on a waterfront balcony of the Great Lakes Science Center; a documentary investigating the impact of factory farming on Lake Erie’s ecosystem; and a presentation in moCa’s Lewis Gallery that includes a newly-created drawing of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, first-of-its-kind legislation protecting an entire US ecosystem that is part of the global Rights of Nature Movement.

Bowers was raised in the small town of Huron, Ohio and spent her childhood on the shores of Lake Erie, connecting to the lake itself like a member of her family to be cared for, cherished, and protected. Yet, Lake Erie and its watershed are abused and endangered by corporate practices such as contaminant dumping, toxic runoff from industrial farming, and the introduction of non-native invasive species. Exist, Flourish, Evolve demands justice for the Great Lakes, urging us to prioritize the preservation of our natural ecology over industrialization and capitalism.

Within moCa’s gallery, a timeline connects Bowers’s new and recent artworks with historical facts and archival materials using two catastrophic climate events as bookends to Bowers’s life thus far: the 1969 fire on the Lake Erie-connected Cuyahoga River (a result of oil slicks covering the water) and the massive 2014 algae bloom that blanketed Lake Erie and invaded Toledo’s water systems, preventing residents from using tap water.

From the Maumee to the Cuyahoga, the works in Exist, Flourish, Evolve come together to share the histories of our water, demonstrate the interconnectedness of ourselves and our natural world, and remind us, as Dr. Vandana Shiva states, “nature is not out there; we are a part of it.”

 

This exhibition closes 5/25/24.

May 222024
 

The amount of detail in Manabu Ikeda’s pen and ink drawings is astounding. You could spend hours, if not longer, looking at the many works currently on view at moCa Cleveland for his exhibition Flowers from the Wreckage.

From the museum-

Manabu Ikeda, from Saga, Japan, specializes in highly technical and detailed pen-and-ink drawings. He grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, a period when Japanese anime gained wide spread popularity. Using a nib pen, Ikeda creates imagery on paper reflecting his interests in outdoor activities, pop culture, civilization, and nature, thereby bringing a unique perspective to his work.

Ikeda’s art often incorporates insects, animals, rock climbing, and fishing, allowing him to explore nature from various angles. His creations seamlessly blend daily life, spiritual beliefs, and cultural insights, creating a mix of truth and fiction that might resonate with viewers.

Central to Ikeda’s practice are metaphors of grief and the undeniable aspects of life that are often beyond society’s control, such as the fundamental forces of Mother Nature. Ikeda’s drawings also reveal human resillience and the ability to rise above devastating situations even when it seems impossible.

Flowers from the Wreckage is Ikeda’s first solo retrospective in North America. Showcasing over sixty artworks, the exhibition highlights the complexity of Ikeda’s artistic endeavour, introducing viewers to this master artist’s pictorial allegories and immanent messages about the interconnected world.

Many of the works also reference specific landmarks and events. Pictured above is Rebirth, created from 2013-16 at the Chazen Museum of Art in Wisconsin. Inspired by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, it depicts a cherry blossom tree in bloom. On closer inspection the flowers are made up of artificial objects, and amidst the branches objects and landmarks that have been destroyed by disasters appear among the wreckage.

Meltdown (2013), pictured below, was inspired by the glaciers and lakes of the Canadian Rockies, and also references the Japanese nuclear power plant that was damaged in the 2011 earthquake.

The museum also reproduced History of Rise and Fall (2006), seen below, which depicts a tornado sweeping away a whole town and its history- from samurai battles to World War 2 and beyond.

This exhibition closes 5/25/24.

May 222024
 

Pictured above is Frank Stella’s 1986 work, La vecchia dell’orto, on view at Columbus Museum of Art, part of New Encounters: Reframing the Contemporary Collection of the Columbus Museum of Arta reinstallation of the museum’s contemporary galleries.

About the work from the museum-

In the 1960s Frank Stella began creating paintings with a composition of lines that closely followed the shape of the canvas. These works often resisted any sense of depth, but in the following decade, Stella would go on to create exuberant works like this, composed of brightly painted cones and other shapes that extend beyond the surface of the rectangle behind it.

The title of this work, like others in his Cones and Pillars series, is taken from an Italian folktale in which a mother’s only daughter is kept by a witch as payment for a cabbage she stole from the witch’s garden.

Stella’s practice was always evolving. In his most recent large painted sculptures, currently on view at Deitch in NYC, you can see how he expanded on the concepts he was working with here.

May 042024
 

Ewuresi Archer’s Indescribable Charm was created for Land Studio’s rotating space The Art Wall in Cleveland’s Public Square. Archer is a Ghanaian American artist who is based in the city and graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art.

From the artist about this work-

Indescribable Charm is a piece about capturing the indescribable feeling of tranquility through a vibrant landscape. With exaggerations in the textured grass with natural shades of green contrasted with bright oranges and distorted landscapes, this piece provides a space for people to stop, think, and reflect. Within this charming scene, a figure stands front and center with features associated with African Americans. My art is about celebrating myself and my culture; with this piece, I’m celebrating the beauty of black people. Putting an African American figure in a field of grass that calls for admiration gives a viewer no choice but to also admire the figure’s aesthetics. This piece puts them in a place of admiration. His strong yet ethereal presence adds depth to the piece as a whole. The serene landscape, in contrast to the figure’s beauty, creates a wonderfully harmonious composition that invites viewers to contemplate the majestic charm of the grass and the mysterious beauty of the figure.

You can also find Ewuresi Archer on Instagram.

May 032024
 

In March, Strauss Studios hosted Diane Belfiglio: An Artist’s Legacy, an exhibition celebrating the late artist. The Ohio artist and educator’s exploration of light and shadow give her subjects a unique graphic quality.

Here Belfiglio discusses her acrylic paintings-

My paintings prominently feature closely-cropped, sunlit architectural forms. Although realistic in their presentation, I rely heavily on their underlying abstract qualities to give to the already imposing images an even greater sense of power. Shadows, ethereal by nature, take on a rigid structural aspect in these compositions. Colors range from brilliant to subtle in an effort to reproduce the strong sense of sunlight streaming through each piece. Although these images are visually powerful, the delicate details in the architecture—and often in the surrounding vegetation–are also prominently featured in my work. The resultant blend produces a heightened, stylized reality. I work to transform the mundane into the extraordinary, so that we see beauty in images that generally go unnoticed by most of us on a daily basis.

And here she talks about her decision to work with watercolor, like in the pair above-

Never say never. For the majority of my life, I have not taken to watercolor as a medium I ever wanted to use professionally. But in 2015-16, the Canton Museum of Art had a spectacular show of Joseph Raffael’s watercolor paintings. The colors and luminosity in his work were so amazing that I just couldn’t get the images out of my head. A couple of years later, I was called upon to teach Watercolors at Walsh University, a class I normally don’t teach. So there was another toe in the water (pun intended). Fast forward to 2020, when I finally had the urge to vanquish my demons and give it a try. I started slowly, making plenty of mistakes, but soon realized that I could create the luminosity that I crave in my work in this medium.

Tomorrow (5/3/24), Strauss Studios will be open late for Canton First Friday and showing the new exhibition Exploring Light and Darkness featuring artists Emily Orsich, Heather Bullach, Jo Westfall, Joe Ostrowske, Mary Crane Nutter, Patricia Zinsmeister Parker, and Susan Wilkof.

 

May 022024
 

 

Emil Robinson’s paintings for Interiors, on view at Abattoir Gallery in Cleveland, are a meditation on space. The doors, slightly ajar, closed, or allowing glimpses of the outside world, invite the viewer to think about their own interiors.

From the press release-

The work stems from conversations about the history of interior paintings which serve as both records of domestic spaces as well as vessels for psychological profiles. Robinson, a classically-trained painter from Ohio, spent the past year studying local spaces, ranging from abandoned university buildings to the personal spaces of home and studio. With this show, the artist has focused his virtuoso brushwork onto smaller scale compositions in order to capture the essence of place.

Robinson has exhibited in institutions and galleries throughout the Midwest as well as in San Francisco, New York, and London. He is the recipient of grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council, among others.

Interior spaces invite a range of associations. Their open spaces welcome reflection and their spatial interludes are indicative of the various thresholds we encounter throughout our lives. The function and formal simplicity of the built environment is synonymous with psychological complexity in my paintings. I want the viewer to recognize my subjects while simultaneously losing a grip on the comfort of utility which rooms doors and all other functional spaces invite.

– Emil Robinson 

This exhibition is on view until 6/1/24.

May 012024
 

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen created Free Stamp, the 70,000 pound sculpture, pictured above, in 1985.

Cleveland Historical, which has detailed numerous historical sites in the city, provides a detailed history of the sculpture. They also have an app to simplify exploring the city.

Below is a section from their website about Free Stamp

…Commissioned by the Amoco Company in 1982, the Stamp was designed and fabricated in 1985. At the time, Amoco owned Sohio (Standard Oil of Ohio) and the building now known as 200 Public Square, and the piece was intended to reside in front of the building. But in 1986, before installation could happen, Amoco, Sohio and the building were acquired by BP America. The new owners refused to mount the sculpture—perhaps believing that “Free Stamp” was a metaphoric aspersion. Art historian Edward J. Olszewski has also noted that, in England, Pop Art is viewed more cynically and politically than in the United States, where it is considered primarily whimsical. Oldenburg is on record as saying that “free,” references the emancipation of American slaves during and after the Civil War—a plausible explanation given the piece’s planned proximity to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument.

So instead of adorning Public Square, the Free Stamp was denied its freedom: imprisoned instead in a warehouse in Illinois. There it gathered dust for five years before then-mayor George Voinovich invited Oldenburg and van Bruggen to Cleveland in hopes of selecting another site.

It eventually was decided that the Stamp should be located in Willard Park on Lakeside Avenue just west of East 9th Street; and BP agreed to gift it to the city of Cleveland with all installation and maintenance expenses covered. However, disagreements arose about how the sculpture would be positioned. The original intent was for the Stamp to stand face down on Public Square. However, Cleveland city planners felt that this approach was not right for Willard Park and the Stamp ultimately was mounted angularly, with the faux-rubber “FREE” proudly visible. According to Oldenburg, it was as if “a giant hand picked up the Free Stamp and angrily hurled it several blocks to its current location at Willard Park.” Not surprisingly, the Stamp—formally dedicated on November 15, 1991—aims directly at 200 Public Square “It’s pointed on a diagonal to the 23rd floor, which were [BP’s] corporate offices,” notes Olszewski. “It leads the viewer back to the original site.”

Apr 252024
 

Alyssa Lizzini, “Industrial Valley”, Ink and acrylic on paper on panel

Alyssa Lizzini, “East 41st”, Ink, acrylic, and found object on paper and panel

Alyssa Lizzini, “Unraveling City”, Ink and acrylic on paper mounted on 2 panels

Akron Soul Train is currently showing two exhibitions by Ohio artists. Alyssa Lizzini’s The Universe Between Here and There, pictured above, expands upon scenes from daily life using a mixed media approach. The works take the viewer into her expanded sections of the city, and encourages them to think about what may be unobserved in their own daily life.

From the gallery-

In The Universe Between Here and There, Alyssa Lizzini explores the interwoven connection between space, time, and memory through large-scale, multi-layer drawings. Lines, grids, maps, and data become the stars, black holes, and supernovae of an ever-expanding universe of memory. Using ink, acrylic paint, and collaged paper, Lizzini creates overlapping images that seem to compress space and time yet simultaneously fly apart or implode. Her drawings suggest that memory unravels in much the same way and investigates the almost inseparable connection between person and place.

“Drawings explore both my own personal histories related to remembered places and broader histories recorded through archival, ethnographic, and visual research of city spaces…The scale of [my] drawings allow the viewer to feel immersed in each piece, surrounded by swirling and morphing cityscapes, memory objects, and natural elements. They ask the viewer to consider the many layers of context not immediately visible in our urban world, and give a new language for understanding the ever-changing nature of memory.” – Alyssa Lizzini

Akron Soul Train Artist-in-Residence Melih Meric’s uses traditional Middle Eastern patterns to explore identity.

From the gallery-

Meric uses a traditional approach to their imagery through sacred geometry and explorations of Islamic geometric abstraction. Challenging traditional presentations of print editions, Meric’s print work crosses the borders of the paper. It highlights an expansion of patterns like Middle Eastern tiles. It also speaks to queerness without being explicitly queer. Stitched Editions: Exploring the New poses integral questions surrounding erasure and identity in Middle Eastern communities. Meric’s craft lies in creating wall-hanging objects that play between the realms of dimensionality while still being unmistakably paper. Their work acknowledges and is proud of its dimension, speaking certain truths to multiple minority groups.

“My work deals with making peace with a part of my culture that drove me to leave it. Finding beauty in design and simplicity, then creating systems to complicate those principles. I fell in love with printmaking and the idea of multiplicity when I first made the connection to tiles from the Middle East. It suddenly became a tool to create and expand patterns that challenge traditions in crafts.” – Melih Meric

Melih Meric, “I Think I Remember Something, Nevermind”, “Stitched Edition” of 12 linoleum prints

Melih Meric, “Carnation”, “Stitched Edition” of 36 woodblock prints

Melih Meric, “Carnation”, “Stitched Edition” of 36 woodblock prints (detail)

Melih Meric, “Swept Under”, “Stitched Edition” of 8 silkscreen prints

Both of these exhibitions close 5/11/24.