The irony of the current dual exhibits at Rosewood Gallery is this: Stefan Chinov’s title of his body of work, “Double Reflection,” could clearly also describe Jeremy Long’s paintings in the adjacent gallery.
They are both members of Wright State University’s fine art faculty. Chinov is associate professor of sculpture and drawing, while Long is associate professor of art and art history.
Long is showing highly detailed environments in various styles, so that in some cases, those details are overshadowed by geometric and/or abstract forms. The highly detailed works are typically large-scale, while the smaller works done from the same image travel, to a small extent, along the line to abstraction.
For instance, “Oakwood Front Yard” is a large-scale oil on canvas showing many details of the home, toys the children are using, and even a piece of artwork inside the front window. That image becomes somewhat pixelated in “Oakwood
Front Yard Study,” a smaller oil on paper. The artist liked the composition so well, he did yet another version as a drawing.
“I work on smaller-sized paintings to explore complicated compositional strategies. Think of it almost like a small dress rehearsal for a play; the final large painting being the big final performance,” said Long, who lives in Dayton with his wife, Colleen, and three children. “I don’t get much sleep because I have to wait for the children to go to bed to get any quality work done.”
Long earned a master of fine arts degree from American University in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Chicago, he’s worked in Rome and taught art in Illinois and New York before joining WSU in 2012.
Chinov is presenting three sculpted heads in concrete, and six works of cast bronze and plaster on pedestals of cast plaster.
“I called my part of the show Double Reflection [because] the final cement casts are casts of the plaster molds from the clay originals,” said Chinov. “It stands for a conversation with the work, it development and the methods I employ to make it…both historical and personal.”
Most of his sculpted heads are self-portraits. The cast bronze sculptures invite the viewer to walk around and see how they change in perspective to angle. When asked about being in a show with fellow WSU Professor Long, he’s magnanimous.
“It’s an honor; he is a colleague and a friend, an outstanding painter. I admire his work, and I feel privileged to show my work alongside his,” states Chinov, who lives in Kettering. “I find inspiration in his ability to intersect the individual with historical. The historical rooted in reverence and knowledge of tradition, perseverance of the values and the depth of his medium.”
Chinov earned a master of fine arts degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and well as a master of fine arts and bachelor of arts degrees from National Academy of the Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. He won a Critic’s Choice Award at the Dallas Contemporary Art Center, and has earned fellowships in the Jentel Artists program in Wyoming, the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico, and Culture House Babayan in Turkey.
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