A PLACE TO EXPERIENCE, CREATE, AND APPRECIATE ART.

The Mansfield Art Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

  Elizabeth T. Black & Foundation Gallery

The 77 Annual May Show 

May 8 – June 5

The 77th Annual May Show is a juried exhibition open to ALL Ohio artists.  This year’s juror is painter & sculptor Paul Fletcher.  Works in all mediums are on display.

77th Annual May Show Award Winners

Fred “Fritz” Culler Award for Best of Show: $1000 | Michael W. High – Reliquary of Fate, Ceramic

4 Mechanics Bank Awards of Excellence: $250 each | Matthew Godsil- Invasion, Oil | Judith Greavu – Springs Strata III, Bronze & Kiln Cast Glass | David Groff – Lost in White | David Sapp – (Body of Work) Untitled 21, 19, Untitled 21, 21, Untitled 20, 33, Untitled 21, 35, Graphite

Margaret Twitchell Swank Award for Painting: $250 | L. Whitney Bond – Exaisia, Oil

Sid Yellen Award for Photography: $250 | James Pilbeam – Raven, Photgraphy

Susan B. Smith Award for Fiber: $250 | MP Marion – Glacial Valleys, Hand Made Paper

Thomas Gene Zaugg Award for Watercolor: $250 | Jack Hickson – Natural Curiosity, Watercolor

Whitten Studios Award for Ceramics: $250 | Michael Swiderski – (Body of Work) Large Teapot, Square Tentacle Bowl & Round Tentacle Bowl, Ceramics

Award of Innovation: $250 | Abby Hostettler – Fire Lotus, Jewelry

Honorable Mentions: Eleanor Barton – 4:00, Oil | Mark Calloway – Millennium Male, Charcoal | Bradford Gray – Piaggio Verde, Acrylic Paint | Mary Holobaugh – Edge of the Lake, Oil | Aaron N. Rebel – Guitar with Stand, Metal | T.R. Steiner – Inside Out, Soda Fired Stoneware | Matt Stemple – Broken Hearts Brings Fresh Starts, Acrylic on Wood

Sponsored by:

The Spotlight Gallery

Lucas Hargis | Mixed Meta4 

April 16 – May 22

A mixed metaphor is a mashup of two common phrases, clichés or idioms: “Don’t count your chickens in one basket.” “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” “You opened that can of worms, now lie in it.”

For the first time ever, a single species can consciously affect the worldwide climate. Humans decide the fate of all life on Earth. The scope & scale of what we are capable of, well, I can’t seem to get that out of my system.

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;”
from The World is Too Much With Us, William Wordsworth

I use more than my fair share of clean water. I eat genetically-modified corn & such. My chickens are boneless & skinless & I sometimes forget where the meat comes from. I produce waste of all kinds that doesn’t simply evaporate once I’m done with it. I do my part to screw the world up. I’m trying, in small ways, in conscious ways, to educate myself & to do better, to be a good steward.

As best as I can understand why I’ve made these particular works for this show, I keep returning to one phrase: alive, beautiful & strange. I feel it describes all of nature, life, humankind included.

Sponsored by:

 June 26 – August 7

John Mellencamp | Paintings & Assemblages

Opening Reception | Sunday, June 26

The voice of the heartland, John Mellencamp, brings his mixed-media exhibition Paintings & Assemblages to The Mansfield Art Center. A Grammy Award winner and member of The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Mellencamp is also an accomplished painter, collector, and activist. Paintings & Assemblages documents America’s heart and soul, exposing unsettling, but beautiful truths with an attitude of defiance, and narrative sensibility.

As his musical career flourished, Mellencamp began to paint earnestly in the 1980’s. His affinity for portraiture, influenced by the works of Otto Dix and Max Beckmann, shares a kinship with German Expressionism of the early twentieth century. Like his music, Mellencamp’s paintings are carefully composed through the structural requirements of harmony, rhythm, and order. His large-scale oil portraits and mixed-media pieces examine subjects that speak to the viewer with a voice as powerful as his songs.

                                    He has exhibited his work in galleries and museums across the United States including: The Butler Institute of American Art- Youngstown, OH; The Tennessee State Museum- Nashville, TN; The Museum of Art- Deland, FL; ACA Galleries- NY; and The Morris Museum of Art- Augusta, GA.