This year’s guest juror is Liz Maugans, director of YARDS Projects and curator of the Dalad Collection at Worthington Yards in Cleveland’s Warehouse District.
After the gallery received over 300 entries, Maugans condensed the selection down to 56 works.
“It was great to see so many artists relishing the landscape genre of the region’s abundance and capturing that refreshing pulse inspired by the streams, cityscapes and forests in paint, print and mixed media,” said Maugans, who teaches in the Arts and Design School at Cleveland State University and has organized exhibitions for over 40 years.
All of the artists represented are Ohio-based, including several Dayton-area locals.
“Many submissions that were selected slowed me down and provided me with a temporary respite. Many allowed me to escape into a rabbit hole while others provided a healing balm that was restorative in these wild times,” said Maugans.
She also selected the winners of awards totaling $1,100.
Additionally, visitors are welcome to vote on the People’s Choice Award, with a ballot box at the back of the gallery. Three $100 awards will be presented by the Joan W. McCoy Memorial Art Fund at the conclusion of the exhibition during the artists’ reception on July 19. Both the reception and exhibit are free and open to the public.
Considering environments
Gallery Coordinator Laura Truitt, who hangs all Rosewood exhibits, noticed themes emerge as she laid out the selected work.
“There were lots of environments,” she said.
By her observation, these included textures and found objects, mystical and magical scenes, trees, rainstorms, color and decaying buildings. She displayed the work accordingly. Even with over 50 artworks, the walls are not overwhelmed or cluttered.
Expanding on these curatorial groupings is an “Environments Scavenger Hunt” which visitors can pick up in the gallery. Summer camps are in full swing at Rosewood and come through the space regularly to participate.
Here are some highlights.
Mystical & Mysterious
Two oil paintings by Tim Lancaster stand out on a wall that Truitt describes as having a “mystical or mysterious” feel. The monochromatic color palette of Lancaster’s paintings (one warm, one cool) and paint application (smoothly textured with various levels of opacity) add an ethereal quality to the depiction of a river and treescape. They conjure a sense of the gloaming hour, quiet and uncanny.
Credit: Hannah Kasper
Credit: Hannah Kasper
Trees
“Night wood” by Amy Ivanoff is a vessel made of midrange porcelain, a type of clay that offers a wide range of color options, allowing for creative freedom in decorating. More than a vase, its surface is both painterly and textural and conjures a storybook-like setting.
Credit: Hannah Kasper
Credit: Hannah Kasper
It is placed thoughtfully on a pedestal as a foreground object to Ryan Kerr’s oil painting, “Day One on the Long Trail,” hanging in the background. Kerr recently graduated from Miami University with a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting.
A lovely small work of a stream on a wooded bank is almost hidden on a corner wall in the back gallery. “October Brilliance II” by Charlene Fox is painted in oil and mounted on foam core to achieve an application not unlike Lancaster’s aforementioned work. The scene is delicately observed.
Decaying Buildings
Two exhibits back, Rosewood showed the work of painter Morgan Craig, whose imagery of factories, cars and abandoned interiors were a relevant sight in post-industrial Dayton. One wall of “The View” seems a call back to those depictions of crumbling Rust Belt buildings, including a mixed media work by Sharon Stolzenberger called “Disintegrating Memories Rt. 247,” and a ceramic piece by Tod Porembka tiled “Ruins in a Dish 1 Blue.”
The scavenger hunt strikes a positive note on these abandoned structures, saying they “create cover for wildlife” and become enhanced habitats.
Textures and Found Objects
There are plenty of interesting works in the show that are not in the painting genre. Perhaps the most unique is local artist Shannon Gallion’s “Lariat,” a three-dimensional object made of broken glass bottles found along a riverbank. The title refers to a type of necklace with a similar form to the artwork, though these jagged edges are unwearable.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
There is a rich wave of artists from Dayton working with found materials, including Bing Davis, Tyler Macko, and Ashley Speelman. Part of the aesthetic is a “something from nothing” attitude of growing up in post-Industrial Dayton. Gallion’s “Lariat” adds relatable significance with the specificity of sourcing her material from a local waterway.
HOW TO GO
What: 31st annual “The View” exhibition
Where: Rosewood Arts Center, 2655 Olson Dr., Kettering
When: Continues through July 19
More info: 937-296-0294 or playkettering.org/gallery
Reception: 1-3 p.m. Saturday, July 19
This exhibit is free and open to the public.
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