Meryl Engler and Rita Montlack: Urges & Insanity at HEDGE

This spring HEDGE is ecstatic to feature a two-woman exhibition featuring Meryl Engler and Rita Montlack. Their artistic voices converge through reduction woodcut prints, photography and installations, and are on view March 19 through April 26.

Sharing the processes of sorting, layering and careful color selection, these artists create distinct imagery that interprets our everchanging world. They alter their subject matters with meticulous methods to create enchanting, even surrealist works on paper.

Engler describes her process: “Carving and printing are cathartic acts that require the full presence of self. I think of my reduction woodcuts almost like watercolor, printing translucent layers of color that mix on paper. The result is physical, subtle, and bold.” Meryl pushes the limits of printmaking with her larger-than-life woodcuts, chronicling landscapes and human presence in our environment. She will be showing a variety of new prints at HEDGE in her show, The Constant Urge to Walk All Night.

Meryl grew up in California, but moved to New York to attend Syracuse University where she received her BFA in sculpture and religious studies. She received her MFA in printmaking from the University of Nebraska and moved to Northeast Ohio, where she formerly worked as the artist-in-residence manager at the Morgan Conservatory and currently works as adjunct faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Montlack’s work has been seen in numerous exhibits and public spaces throughout Northeast Ohio, most recently at Kent State University’s Dixie Lee Davis Museum Store, and in Florida at the Cleveland Clinic Weston Hospital. Her recent obsession with artificial intelligence has taken her work in new, unorthodox directions. She explains: “The title of my show, AI: Artificial Insanity, addresses the issues of intelligence combined with the question of insanity. I mimic this concept in the contemplation and creation of my work; taking real photographs, then digitally manipulating them until they become surreal. I love taking things out of context and placing them where they don’t belong to make combinations of strange bedfellows.”

Montlack received her BA from the University of Miami and then studied painting and design at The Cleveland Institute of Art and photography at Cuyahoga Community College. She currently works as a full-time artist in Cleveland, where she has served on boards of the Contemporary Art Society, New Organization for the Visual Arts, and the Ingenuity Festival.

HEDGE GALLERY
1300 West 78th Street, Suite 200
Cleveland, Ohio 44102
hedgeartgallery.com
Facebook: HEDGE Gallery
216.650.4201

EVENTS:
Meryl Engler: The Constant Urge to Walk All Night and Rita Montlack: AI: Artificial Insanity, March 19–April 26. Preview reception 5pm Wednesday, March 19. Opening reception 5pm Friday, March 21