This Winter at Waterloo Arts

To start the new year, the Waterloo Arts Gallery and Cafe will feature the work of Dana Lynn Harper and Brian Fencl in January.

Dana Lynn Harper is a mixed media artist based in Columbus, Ohio. In Veiled Histories, Harper combines the evocative and tactile textures of paper clay, velvet, rice, pearls, dried flowers, and masses of glass beads to build altar-like, sculptural totems. These constructions are the artist’s attempt to connect with her maternal ancestry. Borrowing forms from Indonesian architecture, iron gates, candelabras, and religious altars, these ritualistic votives fuse familial history with an imagined and deconstructed past. Arising from Harper’s attempts to reclaim the cultures of her ancestors, the works are expressions of the gulf between experiential knowing, and what we can learn about our faraway origins across time and space through ancient cultural practices and Internet scrolling.

Dana Lynn Harper holds a BFA in Art & Technology from The Ohio State University (2009), and an MFA from Penn State University (2013) where she was awarded the Bunton-Waller Fellowship. Harper also received a 2025 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.

Also on view in the Waterloo Arts Cafe is Brian Fencl: Strange Vases. Fencl’s Strange Vase series is a tribute to his grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. The first signs of his grandmother’s cognitive decline was her habit of placing groceries in unexpected places, like fresh meat in a bread drawer, and especially the way she arranged flowers in nontraditional containers. Strange Vases is an exhibition of small oil paintings that feature these curious arrangements—flowers stuck in a container of Lysol wipes, or a bouquet placed into a half-filled bear-shaped container of honey.

Brian Fencl is based in Wheeling, West Virginia, and is a professor of Art at West Liberty University.

Both exhibitions—Dana Lynn Harper: Veiled Histories and Brian Fencl: Strange Vases—will be on display in the Waterloo Arts Gallery from January 2 through February 14, 2026. The opening receptions will take place from 6-9 pm on Friday, January 2.

WATERLOO ARTS
15605 Waterloo Road
Cleveland, Ohio 44110
waterlooarts.org
216.692.9500

EVENTS:

Annual Holiday Co-op Sale, November 28–Sunday, December 21

Dana Lynn Harper: Veiled Histories, January 2–February 14, 2026. Opening reception 6-9pm Friday, January 2

Brian Fencl: Strange Vases, January 2–February 14. Opening reception 6-9pm Friday, January 2