“The mind of the man [sic] who dreams is fully satisfied by what happens to him. The agonizing question of possibility is no longer pertinent… fly faster, love to your heart’s content. And if you should die, are you not certain of reawaking among the dead?” – André Breton, Manifestos of Surrealism, 1924 Doubting Thomas Gallery turned 25 in October, […]
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Humans coexist with the natural world and benefit from its abundant resources. From the soil all creatures emerge and will return in due course. It is the interconnectedness of life which inspires Debra Sue Solecki in her latest exhibition, Nature’s Networks: A Visual Exploration of Mycelium. By way of a complex mixture of writing, pasted historical photography and realistic paintings […]
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The exhibition of August Frederick Biehle’s work at Wolfs Gallery is one of the standout exhibitions in this region of the year—indeed of the last several years—and a major contribution to our understanding of the Cleveland School. Both in its visual impact and in its scholarship it achieves a level of quality that matches that of the shows put on […]
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The exhibition ITERATIONS: Rhythm & Reason, featuring works by Brinsley Tyrrell, Janice Lessman Moss, and Peter Christian Johnson, might aptly and alternatively titled Work ethic: What can happen when an artist commits to their studio practice and just keeps pushing. All three of these artists have deep ties to the School of Art at Kent State University: Brinsley Tyrrell (sculpture) […]
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One of the small handful of Cleveland artists with an international following, the photographer Abe Frajndlich, is almost invisible here in Cleveland because his career took an international turn. For over fifteen years he photographed celebrities, from rock stars to celebrated authors, for the weekend edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the major newspaper in Frankfurt. As a consequence he’s […]
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Some of the most tenacious and generous and art-savvy people in the region found their way to The Hall at St. James in Lakewood for CAN Journal’s benefit, Buy Art / Buy Ohio November 8. Thanks to generous support from Walk Your Plans, the organization had a gorgeous venue with a projection system we were able to use to bathe […]
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“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt.” – Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781 “I hope that [the] painting has the impact of giving someone… the feeling […]
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“[Pat’s in the Flats] was a dive bar with a shitty sound system that no one seemed to be able to comprehend. It was a venue that offered an uninhibited space for creative expression, [and] Pat [herself] was the magic.” – Shawn Mishak[1] In 1987 Patricia Hanych took over her family’s restaurant-bar at the bottom of Literary Hill in Tremont, […]
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Sixty years ago, Iran was an ally of the US. The two countries had made deals involving nuclear technology in exchange for access to petroleum, and it was the polite remains of that relationship that led to Andy Warhol’s 1976 trip to Iran to take photos of Empress Farah Pahlavi–wife of the Shah–as reference to make a painting of her. […]
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What are they thinking? That’s what artists wonder when they submit their work to juried shows, and what audiences must often wonder when they go to the openings. The jurors of the 2025 Paul and Norma Tikkanen Prize for Painting, administered by the Ashtabula Arts Center had interesting things to say. The jurors—all based in Florida–were artist and educator Pip […]
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