Conjuring Images, the title of Nikki Woods’ show of mesmerizing works on canvas, panel, and paper at HEDGE Gallery (July 17 – August 31), demonstrates the range and force of this artist’s emerging mastery. Her perception of painting and drawing as personal ritual serves as a theater to a Maya-like play of formal resemblance and revelation. Hallucination gives rise […]
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Amber Kempthorn stirs meticulously-rendered everyday objects and revelatory encounters into the sweeping stardust of her dream-like works on paper. Since earning an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2008, the Northeast Ohio native (born in Cuyahoga Falls, she also attended Ohio’s College of Wooster and Hiram College) has developed a tantalizing style, glimmering with mystique and memory as it […]
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Plein air painting is a joy, both for artists and audiences. It bridges the gap between a hobbyist’s enthusiasm for art and the deeper commitment of professional artists; even better, it prompts the painter to go outside and look around. Wonderfully basic, it’s a conversation with places and things that produces an enduring response. The process is a one-on-one encounter […]
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In spring of 2021, Antwoine Washington and Michael C. Russell’s organization MoCHA—the Museum of Creative Human Art—was a part of Imagine Otherwise, a series of exhibitions presented by moCa, curated by LaTanya Autry. That connection grew into a curatorial residency—MoCHA at moCa—giving Washington and Russell a prominent platform for their work, advocating and creating exhibit opportunities for Black artists. –ed. […]
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Dolls are ancient and universal. Most often these figurines, whether large or small, call them mannequins, puppets, dummies, or children’s toys – are of comfort or of use; others are distinctly uncanny. The tools of wizards and priests, such objects focus passion and purpose, and invoke (it is claimed) the spirits of the dead. In every corner of the human […]
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The 2022 FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art is due to open in multiple Northeast Ohio venues in July, 2022. Delayed by the pandemic, it’s been the better part of four years since the inaugural version of the exhibition, though it may seem even longer: we’ve all watched as the zeitgeist took a few wild turns between then and […]
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In his solo exhibit “Transience and the Gift of Curiosity” at HEDGE Gallery, David King’s small painting “Lava Field” shows two girls, running hand-in-hand toward the viewer. They emerge from a gray- brown wall of mist or smoke, across the glowing cracks of a lava flow. Members of the artist’s family, these girls are literally figures from the past, […]
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Sculptor Lauren Yeager and printmaker Corrie Slawson are winners, respectively, of the 2021 Cleveland Arts Prize for emerging and mid-career artists. Lauren Yeager, 2021 Winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize for an Emerging Artist Sculptor and photographer Lauren Yeager is recipient of a Cleveland Arts Prize for 2021, in the Emerging Artist category. Like the majority of fine arts […]
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New Narratives at Abattoir Gallery offers an intriguing selection of strongly conceived new paintings by six exciting new artists. Deftly curated by Lisa Kurzner and Rose Burlingham, the nominally representational works operate fluidly, switching between currents of traditional pictorial practices and more distanced, conceptual approaches. The six young artists (four from the Cleveland area, two from Chicago) each contribute […]
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Juried fine arts exhibitions–like the one on view now at Waterloo Arts in Cleveland, and like other all-American events–are both popular and under-appreciated by people likely to read a Curriculum Vita. Yet those shows are packed with memorable works, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the depth and variety of bodies of work developed by thoughtful people who conduct their […]
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