Women Picturing Cleveland, and Duo, at Worthington Yards

Laila Voss, Looking North #10.

The Women Picturing Cleveland exhibition started as the “perfect vision” for a show scheduled back in March. Clearly, this show has significantly shifted gears. What has not changed is the number of talented and active women photographers shooting pictures here in Cleveland (and beyond). Many of the featured artists are mentoring younger women as mothers, grandmothers, daughters, university faculty members, teachers, activists and advocates who range in age from 18 to 83. The city itself becomes a dominant theme in this exhibition—from Cairo to Twinsburg to North Collinwood, through the settings of the Warehouse District, NASA and the industrial flats. Yards Projects is thrilled to present women who have shaped Cleveland photography, including Shari Wilkins, Amber N. Ford, Hadley K. Conner, Aja Joi Grant, Bridget Caswell, Jennie Jones, Nancy McEntee, Yana Mikho-Misho, Da’Shaunae Marisa Jackson, Lena Simovic aka Lena Atomika, and Anastasia Pantsios.

What happens when two independent artists have a shared partnership in the work they make together? What occurs when their private and professional practices collide as close friends, family members or life partners? Exhibiting together are Robin Robinson and Gary Williams, Laila Voss and Bruce Edwards, Todd Leech and Stephanie Craig, Alessandro Ravagnan and Devin Hinzo, Annie Peters and A. D. Peters, Erin Guido and John Paul Costello, Kate Snow and Eagan Rackley, Jacques Payne Jackson and Kristi Copez, Pita Brooks and Kristen Rogers, and Wendy Partridge and Lisa Rainsong.

Two of the artists in DUO, Laila Voss and Bruce Edwards, have shared a studio for more than twenty years. Bruce has been making screen prints from photographs for the last ten years, coming from a practice of sculpture and performance; Laila has been doing large scale multi-media installations, sculptures, drawings and public art projects. The most recent work that Laila has been creating are images of water and sky rendered in oil paint sticks on paper. Each piece has a strong horizon and a vibrant textured surface.

Bruce has been creating two bodies of work that relate to his relationship with his father and photographs that were taken by his dad and rendered in print by Bruce. When this series was complete, Bruce began a series of pieces that responded to the work that Laila had been creating: he started taking photographs of Lake Erie and using these to make prints, exploring a smaller scale that is more intimate. A dialogue occurred between them inspired by the lake and expansive sky near their home in North Collinwood.

These dynamic duos will present collaborations: cross-disciplinary and synergistic works made independently or collaboratively. DUO will celebrate the respective influences, support, challenges and vicarious impacts artists contribute as they make and produce together.

WOMEN PICTURING CLEVELAND | SEPTEMBER 12-OCTOBER 3

EXTENDED OPENING NOON-4PM SEPTEMBER 12

A virtual presentation by Jennie Jones will also be scheduled during this exhibition.

DUO | OCTOBER 10-NOVEMBER 21

EXTENDED OPENING NOON-4PM OCTOBER 10