The artists were chosen through a juried panel of local art professionals and a representative from the Kettering Arts Council. The process is facilitated by Gallery Coordinator Laura Truitt, who hangs the show with the artists.
First time visitors may be surprised to discover a contemporary art gallery tucked away in a quiet Kettering neighborhood.
The staff at Rosewood is approachable and happy to answer questions about the art and the center’s extensive programming.
Ghislaine and Lando Fremaux-Valdez
Installation day was as intense as the art itself, said Truitt of hanging the monumental drawings by married couple Ghislaine and Lando Fremaux-Valdez. The latter had arrived from Texas to help, when a wind storm blew through the area and knocked out power to Rosewood.
Truitt and Fremaux-Valdez found themselves in the dark, using flashlights to hang the large-scale watercolor papers. It was a bit nerve-racking considering the delicacy of the medium — dry chalk pastels have the tendency to smudge and wipe away, and even with coats of sealant they should be handled with care.
Luckily the exhibit was hung successfully, and though the work makes a big impression, it was intentionally hung in the further room of the gallery space.
Visitors will notice a content warning sign before entering the gallery. Some may find the subject matter of “In the Farthest Reaches” sensitive, as the artworks depict realistic nudity and anatomical viscera.
Truitt explained the artists’ intent with how the work is encountered.
“Lando said, which I thought was a very nice phrase, that consent is part of the work. It was important that we hung it so that it wasn’t in anybody’s face.”
Nudity is part of art history and has always been around in visual language, but our culture isn’t always used to seeing it as such.
This isn’t shock art, though. The work implores to be studied more deeply, whether for appreciation of the technique, or to explore the subject matter on a deeper level. You’ll want to take your time.
“Our bodies are keepers of secrets because they operate largely outside the reaches of consciousness and vision,” says the artist statement.
“In our work, we examine embodiment through the triple lens of medicine, religious mythology, and our love for each other.”
The couple engage in a unique process to create their art. The drawings follow conversations about their own relationship and the legacy of figurative art. They make each piece collaboratively, drawing “shoulder to shoulder”. They layer their compositions with three media — first “building the bones” with charcoal, then the “mass” with gouache, and lastly the “skin” with chalk pastel.
For those wondering, gouache is a type of water-based, quick drying paint that can render sharp edges and opaque areas of color. It functions quite differently than charcoal and chalk pastel, which are dusty and achieve depth through layers of blending.
The affect is painterly and dream-like, but rooted in realism.
Though the intimacy of the work may be what makes the first impression, there are thematic layers, with allusions to art history and religion. The two are historically intertwined. From the Middle Ages through the end of the 17th century, religion, particularly Christianity, was at the center of most Western art. Much art of the time was commissioned by the Church or by patrons who wanted scenes depicted from the Bible.
“Washing Feet / Hair Bath” is a clear reference to Mary Magdalen washing the feet of Jesus, for example.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
The composition and arrangement of figures in “Bathquake” is reminiscent of depictions of The Last Supper, the most well-known version painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in the 1490s.
The work is “a re-envisioning of a painting in art history”, said Truitt.
These stories are reimagined with the artists as the models.
Two paintings depict Lando Fremaux-Valdez receiving colectomy surgery, the removal of all or part of the large intestine. These works may startle some, not just because of the depiction of the body, but because of the vulnerability of the unconscious figure.
Truitt said the artists often create props to observe from while they draw.
“They filled water balloons to make the images to work from. These are sort of pretend organs.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
They also sewed the costume that the female figure is wearing in “Drape (transfusion)”. The folds of blue fabric depicted in this piece as well as in “Bathquake” are similar to imagery found in Renaissance painting. Blue fabric, particularly blue silk, was considered a status symbol due to the rarity of the pigment, and often used to represent the divine (the color blue being reminiscent of the heavens), especially in depictions of the Virgin Mary.
In turns the female figure in these works, modeled on Ghislaine Fremaux-Valdez, though sensual, are depicted with reverence and recall the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene.
Represented in the work are different experiences the body can go through, whether through real life or in relation to the biblical stories we’ve heard over and over throughout time.
There are also nods to Modern Art, including the movements Cubism and Fauvism.
“Constrictor”, which shows the female figure in a bath contorted in layers of different positions while a boa constrictor twists around her body, is about sciatica, a shooting pain that travels through the nerve endings from the spine through the leg. There are various causes, which include endometriosis and pregnancy, both female conditions.
The picture is about discomfort but the colors are soft and Impressionistic.
“This one makes me think about Bonnard who did all those paintings of his wife in the bathtub. They said Degas is one of their heroes,” said Truitt.
“Washing Feet / Hair Bath”, in addition to its biblical inspiration, also recalls Matisse’s painting, “Red Room”, an important rendition of the artist’s studio.
“Bathquake”, along with its nod to Renaissance art, incorporates a Cubist influence in the angular floorboards, rendered in a detailed woodgrain, that seem to push up and apart through a seismic shift.
An interesting moment happens in this piece. The entire composition is executed with masterful attention to detail, but then there is the smudged-out hand of the dominant male figure. At first it seems to be a mistake that the artists embraced, but with the thought put into so much of the work, it seems that it was an intentional decision.
The artists let their guard down in multiple ways, with physical and emotional vulnerability at the core of the subject matter. A “mistake” left visible shows that these chalk pastel artworks, though inspired by real life and the human story, are fantastical and open to interpretation.
Yiyun Chen
Credit: Yiyun Chen
Credit: Yiyun Chen
Born and raised in Guangdong, China, Yiyun Chen is a photographer, artist, and educator currently based in Cleveland, Ohio who moved to America at the age of 20.
His quiet photographs of natural settings, with their white-washed, muted palette, are a respite from the intensity of the next room’s bold color and subject matter.
Yiyun’s work comes out of a daily practice of walking and photographing unfamiliar places, harking back to his early days in America.
“My photographic works are a collection of emotions, symbolizing a person’s life in a place without the primary language, culture, and habits that are familiar to them. I stay in the same location and take the same yet different picture. This becomes a metaphor of memory from the past and the longing for what is yet to come, a contextualization of being disconnected from history,” said the artist.
He cites boredom as an inspiration, specifically, “boredom as a function of attention”, as described by Susan Sontag in “As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964–1980”.
“Sontag points out that ‘most of the interesting art of our time is boring’. I was drawn to this concept of boredom and attention in photography, using it to create a romantic and poetic communication of my inner meditations. I become most aware of subtle feelings when I am in a state of extreme boredom,” said Yiyun.
It is interesting to note that the viewer will encounter these peaceful photographs before entering the second room of the gallery to see the work of the Fremaux-Valdez’s. It allows a moment to pause, reflect, and collect yourself before the thematic transition.
The only downside of these impressive solo shows is that they are up for just a month at a time, so rush to see it in the remaining weeks. Up next in the gallery is the 31st Annual Juried Landscape Competition, “The View”, featuring 60 artworks of Ohio-based artists.
MORE DETAILS
What: Yiyun Chen, Whispers in the Breeze; and Ghislaine and Lando Fremaux-Valdez, In the Farthest Reaches
When: Through May 24, 2025. Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday
More info: Closing reception and artist talks: 1-3 p.m. May 24
Cost: Free
Where: Kettering Health Art Gallery at Rosewood Arts Center, 2655 Olson Drive, Kettering
Online: playkettering.org/gallery
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