Say Something: Diane Landry’s “by every wind that blows” at the Contemporary Arts Center
by Keith Banner Diane Landry’s “by every wind that blows” at the Contemporary Arts Center downtown (up through March 2, 2014) is revelatory and mundane at the same time, a beautiful mix of thought and action that shimmers in your mind a long time after witnessing it. Landry uses banal objects like empty water-bottles, plastic […]
Ron Kroutel: Conceptualist Redux
by Marlene Steele Suited man steps onto a roadway in a low level lilliputian landscape. A nubile intrigante strides openly along a residence-obscuring hedge. Nude male, barefoot in the waning light, apprehensively considers a dismal deserted industrial plant. Leaps of faith and expressions of ecstasy, escapes and admonitions, reactions to the unseen and the unforeseeable, […]
The Medium is the Message
by Jane Durrell The Medium is the Message is a fitting title for the new show at downtown’s YWCA. In it four artists, each besotted by color, express themselves in individual mediums. Even the two painters use markedly different methods, contrasting with each other as well as with the fabric artist and the glass artist. […]
Dixie Selden at Eisele Gallery
by Kevin Ott Although this is not a proper “show” of Selden’s work, there are 5 paintings displayed at the Eisele Gallery, more than one can usually find in one location by this respected Cincinnati artist and favorite student of Frank Duvenek. First the gallery: Eisele Gallery specializes in 19th and 20th Century paintings (and […]
As Lovely As A Tree
by Fran Watson “The Tree of Life”, Cincinnati Art Museum, November 29, 2013 – January 1, 2014 In a straight line from the main entrance of the Cincinnati Art Museum, past the sequestered “Icons” spotlighted in black caves, through the spacious hallway, footsteps echoing loudly, stood the very dead “Tree of Life”; its roots unlaced […]
Art For a Better World
by Saad Ghosn I. Images For A Better World: Paige WIDEMAN, Visual Artist Paige Wideman, born in Indianapolis, Indiana, grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has a BFA degree in sculpture from the Kansas City Art Institute (1989), and an MFA degree, also in sculpture, from the University of Cincinnati (1999). Wideman took 10 years […]
Geometrically Ordered Design: The Lords of the Skies
by Dustin Pike “The phenomenon of UFOs does exist, and it must be treated seriously.” –Mikhail Gorbachev There is an old parable devised by Plato in his Republic wherein the pre-enlightened man and woman are taught the ways of the world only through the play of shadows projected onto the walls of a cave. After […]
Summerfair Awards Local Artists
By Laura A. Hobson Over the last two decades, Summerfair has contributed more than $500,000 in awards and scholarships to individual artists as well as additional support to events and exhibitions, particularly small arts institutions. “Word is starting to spread about what we are doing,” says Sharon K. Strubbe, executive director since 2006. “We are […]
Postmodern Publication Design
by Danelle Cheney Graphic designers are taught to confront and reconcile the relationship between form and content. Is one more important than the other, or equally so? Does personal expression, emotion, and humanity have a place in design, or should designers focus on legibility, clarity, and unity of content? The first Bauhaus manifesto states: “Together, […]
Book Review: The Exiles Return, by Elisabeth de Waal
by Daniel Brown Edward de Waal’s award winning memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes, published about three years ago, traces the ownership of a large group of Japanese netsukes from its original owner, the author’s great-great uncle, to the author himself. De Waal uses the history of these objects to explore and discover his own […]