Familiar Strangers This Fall at Waterloo Arts

This fall the Waterloo Arts Gallery and Cafe will feature Familiar Strangers, highlighting work by local artists Cullen Houser, Josh Luboski and Will Wilson.

This group exhibition presents a collection of figurative pieces, and each explores the absurdity of the characters and the worlds in which they exist. Including paintings, prints, and illustration, Familiar Strangers showcases the ways in which these three artists engage in world building. Whether it’s the organized filing of yearbook photos, the hectic scroll of social media algorithms, or the segmented compositions of exquisite corpses, their work is populated with characters that feel as familiar as they do strange.

Cullen Houser is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Cleveland who works in printmaking, neon lights, and digital media. His work explores the interactivity of various materials that blur the line between analog and digital processes, furthering a complex and contentious relationship with media and technology. Houser received his BFA from Sonoma State University with an emphasis in printmaking in 2018. In 2023, Houser received his MFA in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Josh Luboski is a painter and illustrator with a BFA in Illustration from the Cleveland Institute of Art and is currently based in Cleveland Heights. Using an airbrush machine Josh translates the low-form visual language that defines meme culture and contemporary internet humor into physical pieces. His work showcases the absurdist content shared throughout the internet in a traditionally painted context, while analyzing the effect digital spaces have on the collective population.

Will Wilson is an artist who synthesizes a variety of traditional and non-traditional art forms. His recent work utilizes the framework of a yearbook, where many diverse students sit in front of the same backdrop, in the same position, etc. He then creates several “classes” that push the boundaries of how different we can be. Wilson was born and raised in California, and received his BFA in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Long Beach. He also holds an MA in Arts Education from Case Western Reserve University and is a high school art teacher.

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

EVENTS:

Familiar Strangers: Cullen Houser, Josh Luboski and Will Wilson, October 2–November 14. Opening reception 6-9pm Friday, October 2