Before Modernism, art drew upon a store of symbols common to all—or at least common to all the classically and biblically educated gentry who made up fine arts audiences. Modern and postmodern artists deconstruct common symbols, or dispense with them altogether. A contemporary artist’s pigeon need not represent the Holy Spirit—it could just as easily be an embodiment of resilience […]
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One of the area’s best Print Shows in years is tucked away in plain sight at Rubber City Prints’ new home on Main Street in Akron. The 1920s house with solid door and window frames, winding floor plans, and endless possibilities holds a budding print shop, complete with funky old letter presses, a hydraulic press that used to be housed […]
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Art is always about a relationship with the world. Sometimes that means trying to explain it, or re-interpret it, or document it, or comment on it, but sometimes it is simply a way of understanding how the world works. In Memory External—works of Matthew Gallagher and Mike Lombardy, on view now at Waterloo Arts—the key to understanding the works is […]
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The first time I saw Rebekah Wilhelm’s work I was seriously frustrated. The piece was a large installation of tiny scraps of paper strung together like a chain mail screen (above). On each piece of paper was a word, just barely legible in the dim light of the gallery. As I found myself struggling to read the words and piece together […]
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“Women don’t usually have muses” explains Lissa Rivera, gesturing at her genderqueer partner, artistic collaborator, and muse BJ Lillis during her recent artist talk at the Cleveland Print Room. And of course it’s true – women most frequently are the object of the male artist’s inspiration, the bottom player of a power structure so ubiquitous that it has become ingrained in the very fabric of art […]
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The Dead Boys were probably never your thing. That–based on Billboard charts–is a statistical fact, even in Cleveland, and more specifically even in Lakewood, their home town. Most people certainly knew the band’s name and rowdy fame more than their music. Even “Sonic Reducer,” covered by Guns N Roses and Pearl Jam, and now on occasion by twelve year-olds–their one […]
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How much is too much when everything is not enough? Welcome to the new Gilded Age, to climb onto a trope made famous by economist Thomas Picketty in his 2013 book “Capitalism in the 21st Century.” The original “Gilded Age” (so-dubbed by Mark Twain to describe the last quarter of the 19th century), was shiny and fundamentally rotten, just like […]
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Nothing speaks of mystery with more sibilance than an ancient tomb, where half-seen shapes whisper to the unconscious mind. Ohio University professor Tom Bartel’s most recent ceramic works, glazed with metallic oxides and high kiln temperatures to a cindery brownish-black, mean to evoke just that response. Installed in a small room to one side of a large gallery at […]
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“I don’t see myself as a landscape artist,” admits Eileen Dorsey… I can’t help but chuckle as I look around her space in 78th Street Studios, the walls covered with colorful landscapes. She corrects herself – “I know I paint landscapes, but I see them as something more.” I agree. Dorsey is known for her oil landscapes – usually she depicts deep, lush forests, […]
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“Weaving represents the inherent geometry of life and by stressing, cutting and manipulating this geometry, I constantly challenge and question this reality.” – Jessica Pinsky As I looked at Jessica Pinsky’s stunning weavings in the Sullivan Family gallery at BAYArts, I kept thinking about Greek mythology. Several stories from antiquity include weaving as a motif, but today I’m thinking about Philomela […]
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