Mount St. Joseph and Hiram have New Exhibitions

Exhibition Opening at the Flats Gallery

The Flats Gallery: a College of Mount St. Joseph Urban Arts Partnership, at 3028 Price Avenue in Price Hill is pleased to announce the opening of New Work (January 21 – March 1, 2014).  Walk into the curious worlds of Cincinnati fine artists Cynthia Gregory and Christian Schmit, as they create magical spaces of miniatures and mysteries.  The Gallery/Closing Reception is scheduled for Saturday, March 1 from 2-4pm.

Cynthia Gregory and Christian Schmit were colleagues in UC’s graduate fine arts program and have continued with collaborations since completing their MFA’s.  Existing familiarity with their work enabled them to mount engaging local exhibitions that complimented their use of realistic, illustrative styles, and the similar use of traditional (graphite, ink, gouache) and non-traditional (salvaged wood, insulation foam, cereal box cardboard) media as building materials.  Gregory points out, “Common themes to both of our art include implied narrative told through juxtaposed , enigmatic yet everyday objects, and an exploration toward how these objects act as metaphoric ‘containers’ for memory, experience, and unspoken mysteries rooted in human experience.”  Exhibited art works include 2D drawings, 3D sculptures and site-specific installations that have expanded on their MFA themes, Schmit’s A Memory Rocket and Gregory’s The Poet’s Table. 

Cynthia Gregory holds a B.A. in English from NKU, a B.F.A. in Fine Arts from the College on Mount St. Joseph, an M.L.S. in Library Science from IU, and most recently an MFA from UC in 2012.  Her writing has been published in The Alleghany Review, Poetry Motel, Forklift Ohio, College & Research Libraries News, and Reference Quarterly, and her artwork has been shown in national and international galleries including the Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati), the Carnegie Arts Center (Covington) and Budapest’s Raday Kepeshaz Gallery.  Last year she was awarded a 2013 artist residency and grant from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Nebraska.

Gregory adds, “The work I have assembled in this exhibit involves object-based drawings and sculptures that consider the abstract qualities of experience, history, memory, time, and containment.  I choose subject matter that reflects the ephemeral yet tactile world of the everyday—a safety pin, a scrap of paper, a stone. In my juxtaposing of these bits of information, I am interested in the metaphoric qualities these objects create and how they can build implied narratives and meaning when composed on the page and in space.”

Christian Schmit received his undergraduate B.F.A. from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and more recently his M.F.A. from UC in 2011.  He is currently an adjunct professor at The Art Academy with similar adjunct positions at UC over the past several years.  He has also taught at Baker Hunt Arts Center (Covington), at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center (Cincinnati), the Carnegie Arts Center (Covington).  He has lead workshops at The Cincinnati Art Museum, the CAC, and the Art Academy; guest lectured at CAM, The University of Dayton, UC, the Semantics Gallery (Cincinnati) and the Clifton Cultural Arts Center.  Schmit has had solo exhibitions at UC and UD, the Carnegie Arts Center, and the UnMuseum at the CAC, with exhibition participation in Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and West Virginia. 

Schmit adds, “The pieces in this show concern the secret and obsessive activities of mysterious figures.  In the Cathedral, someone is relentlessly and uninterruptedly scribing text onto scrolls, which are subsequently squirreled away and stowed in the furthest reach of the structure.  In the Conservatory, a miscellany of plants is being cultivated and meticulously researched and documented.  In the Observatory, someone is watching distant occurrences and notating their significance.”  And, he continues, “This work offers the opportunity for new discovery to the returning visitor, as the contents of each piece will change over the course of the exhibition.”

Christian Schmit will be conducting an accompanying hand’s-on workshop at the Flats Gallery on Saturday, February 8, from 2-4pm.  The workshop title is Memory Capture: Exploring the Intensive Now and includes making a small object out of recycled materials that captures a memory.  The workshop is free and open to the public, but is limited to the first 10 arrivals.

Digital images of participating artists’ work available upon request.

Flats Gallery business hours are: Tuesdays from 4-7pm; Fridays 3-6pm; Saturdays 1-5pm.  Admission is free.  The Flats Gallery is closed on major holidays, including the Mount’s Mid-Semester Holiday weekend, Friday, February 21, and Saturday, the 22. 

Tiffin Gallery Hosts MLK Inspired Exhibition

The Diane Kidd Gallery and the Student African-American Brotherhood of Tiffin University will present “I Have a Dream,” an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspirational speech. The opening reception is Thursday, February 6 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The exhibit will end March 6.

In his speech, labeled as one of the most important American speeches in the 20th century, King talked about his dream for equality and justice. This exhibit asks about the legacy of that dream, its implication on society today, the practice of non-violent protest, issues of segregation, diversity, and acceptance, and questions whether King’s dream has been fulfilled.

The exhibit features twelve professional artists and a multi-media installation by the Toledo School for the Arts. Artists include Kamal Al Mansour, John Chang, Brian Cirmo, Françoise Duresse, Daniel Farnum, Ray Ford, Jamie Gardner, Nestor Armando Gil, Ruslana Lev, Lynn Schmidt, Antoine Williams and David Willison.

Their work includes painting, digital images, printmaking, sculpture and photography.

The Toledo School for the Arts installation is a result of collaboration between many students and many programs at that school. Seniors in Advanced Acting wrote and performed two different pieces that have been made into films that will be shown in conjunction with the mural entitled "Struggle" and "I Have a Dream.” The mural was designed and constructed by the Theater Tech Class and the visual imagery will be designed and executed by the theater students and a group of visual arts students who routinely involve themselves with "Visual Art Outreach.” This outreach earns money as part of the student fundraising arm of the Toledo School for the Arts, a charter school. The Visual Arts group is coordinated by Leslie Taylor, the Social Enterprise and Gallery Manager for the school.

This collaborative effort of these groups is also fulfilling a semester arts integration requirement on "multiculturalism."  Each year, Toledo School for the Arts staff is given an arts integration theme per semester.  Arts and academic teachers pair up and collaborate to complete a project together around that particular semester theme.

Attached Image:

Red, White (Black) and Blue by Kamal Al Mansour

Medium:  pastel / digital / mixed media collage on paper

Dimensions:  20 H x 40 W (in)

Date:  Copyright © 2013

ABOUT THE DIANE KIDD GALLERY:

Through the leadership of former first wife Diane Kidd, the original Tiffin University Art Gallery opened in Franks Hall in 1994. Now located in the Hayes Center for the Arts, the gallery has grown to become one of the finest exhibition spaces in the area – a drawing card for art lovers in northwest Ohio and beyond.

For more information about the Diane Kidd Gallery of Art or to schedule a private tour, contact Lee Fearnside, Currator, at fearnsidel@tiffin.edu