DILLON BECK is a contemporary artist, muralist, and designer based out of Columbus, Ohio. His work has always found its footing somewhere in the realm between analog and digital; between the real and the impossible. With a keen eye for detail and a vibrant imagination, Dillon creates mixed-media works that transport viewers to ethereal worlds - a place you’ve never been that somehow feels oddly familiar.

He utilizes a variety of media to create his work, focusing on the duality between modern and traditional mediums. The process begins with detailed measurements and renderings, meticulously taping and spraying each layer. Dillon places significant importance on the use of artist-grade spray paint, harnessing its intense pigmentation, ability to create hyper-smooth gradients, and its capacity to take on the texture of the surface beneath it.

His artistic pieces regularly explore the concepts of space and time, incorporating elements like stairs, passages, and doorways. The intention behind his artwork is to allow viewers to feel as though they can enter his paintings and explore the worlds within. Typically, figures are avoided to keep the worlds he creates mysterious and steeped in fantasy. However, you may find an occasional figure or silhouette present - the suggestion of figures was employed to create scale and make the worlds more accessible, as opposed to the deliberate lack of figures to evoke a sense of vastness and chaos.

ACCOLADES

★ GCAC x Columbus Museum of Art Visual Arts Fellow (2023)

☆ Ohio Arts Council (OAC) Individual Excellence Awardee (2023)

Martin J. Beck is a sculptor, designer, composer, and all-around visionary. He's has decades of experience leading multidisciplinary creative firms, creating unique customer experiences, and making innovative and eye catching works of art.

Always a contrarian, with a quick wit and keen intelligence, Martin has been one of the top leaders in the design industry since the early 1970's, driving and leading some of the top design firms both nationally and internationally. From his time at the helm of Fitch, to his impact founding Big Red Rooster and turning it into a global design powerhouse, he's always had a focus on creating unique experiences - a skill evident in his new body of sculptural work.

Martin grew up in New York. After high school he went on to graduate at the top of his class from Pratt Institute in New York. At the time, there was not a sculpture degree at Pratt, so he ended with a degree in Industrial Design - where he graduated first in his class and won the first Walter Darwin Teaque award for industrial design graduates. After graduating from Pratt, he hopped around agencies in New York City before taking on high level roles at places like Richardson/Smith, Fitch Worldwide, and Lighthouse Global Network.

He then founded Big Red Rooster with partner Aaron Spiess, a multidimensional brand experience firm based in Columbus, OH. While CEO of Big Red Rooster he led ground breaking campaigns for many leading international brands. After the acquisition of Big Red Rooster by Jones, Lang, Lasalle (JLL), he decided it was time to start focusing on making impactful art in his workshop, not in the boardroom.

After retiring in 2017, his passion for sculpture reemerged and he hasn't slowed down since. Martin imbues his pieces with a strength, brightness and a touch of whimsy that is reflective of the artist he has always been. He makes wild sculptural works that are designed to be poignant in any environment using his eye for optical illusions and a lifetime of design experience. Sharp angles, intentional reflections, and cascading color combinations are his signature, and are just as evident in his sculptures as they are in his larger than life personality.

Natalie Lanese’s work is recognized for its punchy color palette and layered patterns. She makes paintings, installations, and collages, which The Village Voice described as “enigmatic narratives heightened by keen color clashes and jazzy textures.” Ms. Lanese has exhibited her work at MOCA Tucson, the Akron Art Museum, and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA, and has installed permanent public artworks in San Diego, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Cleveland, OH. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings. She has attended residencies at Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, Otis College of Art + Design, and Sim Residency in Reykjavik, and is the recipient of the Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award and the Arts Commission’s Merit Award.

Ms. Lanese received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a Master of Arts degree at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art. She lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.

My work explores states of change between order and chaos reflecting the visual experience of the constant fluctuations within our urban and geographic environment. Painting and installation art are modes for communicating my sensitivity to environmental factors—these practices provide me with platforms to explore ideas related to climate change and sustainable building. My installations address these issues by constructing abstractions of natural forces frozen in the midst of chaotic events; juxtaposing architecture and nature colliding while simultaneously presenting ideas for rebuilding. Paintings are a meditation on movement, color, permutation, and gesture; boundary coordinates operating between space and color.

My paintings explore ideas of Fold, Gesture and Movement. These are approached in two ongoing series; Solid Movement and Folding Gesture. Solid Movement is an investigation into gesture and its ability to encapsulate time and psyche, fuse internal and external, and record conceptual state changes in solidified form. Folding Gesture explores changes in spatial order that appear fractured or fragmented. These states can remain calm or reconfigure coherence in the painting. I am interested in the connection between a fold as it relates to architecture or design and gesture as it relates to aspects of drawing and 20th-century painting. This series struggles to define beauty, exploring abstraction as incident and artifact of the process in which paint is applied, exposing interior and exterior spaces that may not coexist. There is a constant struggle between surface and ground; between paint and the boundaries within the painting. This series of work attempts to unify my sculptural endeavors with my interests in painting.

Installations built encompass three-dimensional landscapes frozen amid a chaotic event. This “event” is reminiscent of a landscape that has been caught in a fictitious disaster. By incorporating drawing and painting with objects and found materials, ignites play between the structure of the gallery and the theatrics of the painterly gesture and their united associations. This sense of theater is a formal extension of the shadows cast by gallery lights, the configuration of the wall, and ceiling, and the intrinsic architectural nature of the given space.

Overall, my work explores space; both physically and psychologically. This refers to “Space” as it is applied to a two-dimensional surface, or a three-dimensional location.

Melissa Vogley Woods (she/her) born and living in the Midwest in Columbus, Ohio, USA

Melissa Vogley Woods is a multidisciplinary visual artist, teacher, and artist-curator born and residing in Columbus, Ohio. Vogley Woods is a multi-generational caregiver of 30+ years. Her practice is aligned with her life as a way to delve into the intricacies of care within relationships with a specific focus on barriers and how we bridge them. Her metaphorical work spans between public art, social practice, and intimate exploration of the object.

Recent recognition she has received includes a National USA Fellowship nomination, two Ohio Art Council Individual Artist Grants, and A Greater Columbus Arts Council Individual Artist grant, and she has exhibitions locally, nationally, and internationally in such institutions as the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus Museum of Art, Museum of Sisters Aslamazyan in Armenia, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. She attended Mass MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, and Wassaic Projects Residencies and her work has been written about in the Brooklyn Rail among others.

Vogley Woods is a dedicated arts organizer, recent curatorial projects include "Lobby," a series of three-person exhibitions held in a Planned Parenthood surgical center, and "Room to Let" series held in donated houses that exhibited seventy artists over three years of programming.