While 2020 ushered in so many unexpected changes followed by new beginnings, Cleveland artist Mark Howard had already begun shifting his practice, instilling incremental new ideas. Much of Howard’s past work maintained a Black sensibility and an urban theme, using life in the streets as his primary influence. He recently began questioning the relevance of figurative subject matter which has […]
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As we launch into the “new normal” of summer 2021, HEDGE Gallery artists Liz Maugans and Douglas Max Utter present brand new work in an exhibition titled AlmostREAL—paintings, printmaking and collaged drawings that examine heightened observation, sensitivity, expectation and the unbelievingness of our present time. They delve into the role of story-telling and explore how much of our experienced “reality” […]
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HEDGE Gallery has been hosting a Printmaking Spotlight exhibition for the past three years. This March, artists Karen Beckwith and Amber Ford will be featured, showing powerful printmaking and photography that portrays the evidence of human existence in our natural surroundings. Beckwith and Ford examine the impressions people leave on their environment, whether it be faded signs, graffiti, or remnants […]
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The perception of value has been at the heart of Dale Goode’s artistic practice in recent years. That has been manifest in sculptural works made of scavenged material, often covered in fabric, spray painted metallic gold. It was an interesting point to make during the FRONT Triennial in 2018, when he presented a cube of compacted aluminum cans, covered in […]
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Paintings can foreshorten and remake experience, transcribing in a directly sensual, primal tongue. This ambitious undertaking is often bitter and disappointing — but pocked with thrilling episodes. It’s a search for the kind of truth that immediacy conveys, a body-to-body, first person narrative approach to communication. Either there’s no room for error, or (more likely) the error is all the […]
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Artists are also educators, one way or another, whether as a day job or in the sense that they communicate through their art. They have an important role in the great human project of personal growth as they search out the hidden shape of the spirit. In a statement introducing Underestimated, her current solo show (on view through Friday […]
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HEDGE Gallery is looking forward to a compelling new year! We will be kicking off 2021 with an exhibition of Justin Brennan’s prolific paintings. Justin has been producing a multitude of works in his eclectic mix of mediums: oil paint, oil stick, enamel, collage, latex and spray paint. Themes of Pop Art-inspired portraits were evolving in 2019, but as COVID-19 became […]
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The months pass and the memes metastasize as the COVID crisis wears on; we become less familiar to one another and less sure of ourselves. The fact that most of us wear masks in public, now, is especially confusing, obscuring emotional cues and familiar expressions. It’s as if much of the nuance of the social world was blanked out like the pages […]
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Exploring Humanness at HEDGE Gallery Katy Richards hasn’t let a global pandemic hold her back from vigorously working in her studio, producing an ongoing series of seductive oil paintings. Her recent series focuses on tightly cropped images of the human figure that are both candid and erotic, celebrating our flesh and all its strangeness, imperfections and beauty, with an objective […]
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Back in late March, I had the great pleasure of speaking with artist Matthew Gallagher, whose planned show at HEDGE Gallery was put on hold (“Show Postponed, Artist Matthew Gallagher Grapples with the Impact of COVID-19“). At that time the future was very uncertain, as every arts institution in North-East Ohio began shutting their doors, cancelling programs, and quarantine began. I […]
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