In a lush series of paintings depicting larger than life-size nude figures, Lauren McKenzie Noel explores the sensuous boundaries and psychological range of self portraiture. Nothing says “modern” with quite the same conviction as the self portrait, which in the centuries of Western art since Rembrandt has repositioned the human face and body in respect to history. In a self […]
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The best visual artists tend to tilt the status quo of perception, making us see a little differently. The worker in this age-old exchange between mind and matter renews human understanding, finding form anew, feeling the vertigo and vibrato of the edges of things, like a beachcomber on the shore of changing consciousness, as change and sameness wash by turn […]
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The dark paintings of MANDEM have an almost cinematic power, combining traditional and digital techniques in seamless layers to create personae that bleed across emotional and historical frontiers. Beginning in earnest more than a decade ago the tightly knit group made up by Maize Arendsee and Moco Steinman-Arendsee, (joined after a few years by their younger cohort Kitsuko) have evolved […]
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It’s been said that a prophet has no honor in his own country. When it comes to professional appreciation, artists can experience a similar problem. Familiarity can encourage complacency and neglect, at least on the home front. That’s one reason why it makes good sense to establish a countervailing force in the community, celebrating the accomplishments of native daughters and […]
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Liz Maugans, known over the past twenty five years as a power-house of inspiration and sustained effort behind the developing Cleveland arts scene, is also one of the region’s most admired visual artists. Her prints, collages, and drawings document her commitment to personal freedom and the complex emotional and cognitive problems of life in our times – as a […]
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For more than three decades Matt Dibble, one of northern Ohio’s strongest painting talents, divided his time between a thriving roofing business and a necessarily discontinuous studio practice. Summers were for roofing; winters were for painting. Not that the interruptions slowed him down very much. Visitors to his Superior Avenue workspace in downtown Cleveland knew they would need to tread […]
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In the twenty-three years since it first appeared, hallucination-like, along Chester Ave., Billy Lawless’ over-sized, playful sculpture “The Politician: A Toy” has become one of Cleveland’s most important pieces of public art. It’s not nearly as sinister as the snaking, twisted steel bar that constitutes Isamu Noguchi’s similarly huge 1976 “Portal”, installed on the sidewalk in front of the […]
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The subtle patterns and collage-like layers of Petra Soesemann’s textile-based works are like core samples, skimmed or extracted from a not-quite-physical dimension found near the frontiers of memory and human understanding. At the same time, they read as desirable, touchable, and the tension between these qualities lends them a lapidary oscillation – like precious stones seen in a shallow lake. […]
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Whether or not many people, local or otherwise, actually saw any of the works and projects completed by its 111 artists, or visited some (or even none) of its 26 sites in Cleveland, Akron, and Oberlin, FRONT Triennial was a big deal. It succeeded in putting our region decisively on any map of international twenty-first century art events. Ambitious planners […]
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Visions and Revisions Azziz Muhammad is a visual artist and community activist who grew up in East Cleveland. Comfortably seated in a window at the main branch of the East Cleveland Public Library, he spoke with CAN about his work as a part of the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion Data Cohort. The view along streets near the library is mainly […]
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