Calendar of Exhibitions & Gallery Events
The 74th Annual May show is a juried exhibition featuring artwork in all mediums from artists throughout Ohio. All Ohio Artists are eligible to enter up to 4 pieces of artwork in April, 2019. A detailed prospectus with additional rules and regulations will be made available soon.
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Join us for light hors d’oeuvres & refreshments as we kick off the 74th Annual May Show.
Wadsworth Aikens Jarrell is an African-American painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in Albany, Georgia, and moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he attended the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduation, he became heavily involved in the local art scene and through his early work he explored the working life of blacks in Chicago and found influence in the sights and sounds of jazz music. In the late 1960s he opened WJ Studio and Gallery, where he, along with his wife, Jae, hosted regional artists and musicians.
Mid-1960s Chicago saw a rise in racial violence leading to the examination of race relations and black empowerment by local artists. Jarrell became involved in the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), a group that would serve as a launching pad for the era’s black art movement. In 1967, OBAC artists created the Wall of Respect, a mural in Chicago that depicted African American heroes and is credited with triggering the political mural movement in Chicago and beyond. In 1969, Jarrell co-founded AFRICOBRA: African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists. AFRICOBRA would become internationally acclaimed for their politically themed art and use of “coolade colors” in their paintings.
Jarrell’s career took him to Africa in 1977, where he found inspiration in the Senufo people of Ivory Coast, Mali and Burkina Faso. Upon return to the United States he moved to Georgia and taught at the University of Georgia. In Georgia, he began to use a bricklayer’s trowel on his canvases, creating a textured appearance within his already visually active paintings. The figures often seen in his paintings are abstract and inspired by the masks and sculptures of Nigeria. These Nigerian arts have also inspired Jarrell’s totem sculptures. Living and working in Cleveland, Jarrell continues to explore the contemporary African American experience through his paintings, sculptures, and prints. His work is found in the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, High Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem and the University of Delaware.
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Nancy Crow (born 1943 in Loudonville, Ohio) is an artist whose medium is quilts. She is one of the leading figures in the development of the contemporary quilt movement starting in the 1970s and 1980s and continuing up through the present. Recently, she was the curator of three very important exhibitions that focused on quilts as art. Two of these, COLOR IMPROVISATIONS 1 and COLOR IMPROVISATIONS 2, opened in Germany, the first in 2010 and the other in 2016, and then traveled in both Europe and the USA.
In 1979, Crow began to concentrate seriously on quilt making. Her emphasis from the beginning was on the graphic power of color and line. In her early quilts, she juxtaposed traditional quilt patterns like the Log Cabin block using vibrant color combinations. In the 1990s, Crow developed her own style of free-form cutting that allowed for more spontaneity and personal expression. Her later works were created using her own improvisational asymmetrical ideas. She says of her work:
The purpose of my quilts is to make something beautiful, but, at the same time, my quilts are a means of expression, representing my deepest feelings and my life experiences. In addition, my quilts are all about how I see color and color relationships, how I see shapes, and how I see line and linear movements. They are also about complexity, sadness, and hope. — Nancy Crow
In 1979 Crow co-founded Quilt National, a juried biennial exhibition of contemporary quilts that continues to this day. In 2000, she established a teaching facility on the 100 acre farm where she lives, near Baltimore, Ohio. She is the author of six books.
In 2019 she received the prestigious MASTER OF THE MEDIUM AWARD from the James Renwick Alliance, the support arm of The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Sponsored by:
Join us for the opening receptions for Nancy Crow & Wadsworth Aikens Jarrell. Light refreshments and hors’douvres provided.
Lines & Edges is a collaborative exhibition featuring textile installation artist Sue Cavanaugh, Paintings by Elsie Sanchez, Visual Artist/Photographer Barbara Vogel & and paper artist Leah Wong. These talented artists from Columbus, Ohio will transform our Gallery Space to make it a truly unique experience for all to enjoy.
Cavanaugh works by hand with cloth, cord, dye, paint and occasionally wood and wire. She does this by hand and without assistants. Her work has been seen in national and international exhibits at the Columbus Museum of Art, Oceanside Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art (Ohio), Ross Museum of Art, Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum of Art, Ohio Craft Museum and Zanesville Museum of Art. Awards include Best of Show, Shibori Cut Loose exhibit, Textile Center, Minneapolis; Ruth Lantz Fiber Award; Janet Long Memorial Award for Excellence in Fiber; Ohio Arts Council Professional Award; and the Lynn Goodwin Borgman Award for Surface Design.
In 2012 she was selected by the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Free State of Saxony for an artist residency in Dresden, Germany. She worked in a studio at Geh8 Kunstraum und Ateliers for 80 days culminating in a two-person exhibit with Rotterdam painter Marielle Buitendijk.
Cavanaugh’s work is in collections of the Hilton Columbus Downtown and the Ohio Arts Council and private collections in Ohio, New Mexico, California, New York, Chattanooga, and West Seattle. She is represented by Muse Gallery, Columbus, Ohio, and gráficas gallery, Nantucket, Massachusetts. She lives in downtown Columbus, Ohio, and has a studio in the 400 West Rich artist community.
Elsie was born in Havana, Cuba and migrated to the United States at the age of nine. She currently resides and works in Dublin, Ohio. She earned her MFA and BFA (Summa Cum Laude) in Painting and Drawing from The Ohio State University. Her work is represented in Columbus by Keny Galleries. She has participated in many solo, two-person, juried, and group shows. She also has been part of numerous invitationals, most recently at the Ross Art Museum at the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware Ohio, at the Carnegie Gallery of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, and at the Strathmore Hall Arts Center in Bethesda Maryland. In April 2017 Elsie participated in “Extended Relationships” a three-women show at the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, Ohio. She is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award, and has earned numerous other awards including those from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Ohio Exposition Commission.
In 2015, Elsie returned to Cuba for the first time since leaving the country. There she met with Cuban visual artists and was introduced to their work. She also traced her steps taken as a child: visiting the home she left and exploring the neighborhood where she played.
In her intricate woven, cloth-like abstract paintings, Elsie examines the interaction between the individual and the collective. The density, openness, boldness, and subtlety in her paintings reflect absence, fragility, and resilience.
“My artwork deals deals with themes about family and the passage of time and based in photographic processes.”
Vogel grew up in Granville, Ohio, and resides in Columbus, Ohio. She earned a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from The Ohio State University. She is a member of Spring Street Studios, the Ohio Art League, and C.A.W. (Creative Arts of Women). Sherrie Gallerie in Columbus, Ohio, represents her.
In 2017 Vogel is scheduled for a spring exhibition at the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, Ohio, and a solo show in September at Sherrie Gallerie in Columbus, Ohio.
Born in Qingdao, China, Leah received her BFA in oil painting from the China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou, China and earned her MFA in painting from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. As an undergraduate, she studied with internationally celebrated abstract artist Zao Wou-Ki. She taught at Shanghai Theater Academy in Shanghai before moving to the US in 1993. She currently lives and works in Columbus, Ohio.
The Asian Art Archive in Hong Kong has documented Leah’s involvement in China’s contemporary art movement. Her works are exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries and museums including The Power Station of Art in Shanghai and MoCA Shanghai. Her paintings, paper cutouts and installations are found in many public and private collections.
Leah’s current work has evolved from traditional Chinese paper-cutting. Across different media, Her work explores volume, void, and light and shadow in transformation. The open-ended lines and space create a dialogue between cultures and concepts.
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Join us for the opening reception of Lines & Edges. Light refreshments and hors’douvres provided.
The Ohio Watercolor Society was founded and incorporated in July, 1978, the Ohio Watercolor Society was formed by a group of Ohio artists who were members of the American Watercolor Society or whose works had been accepted into one of the juried exhibitions of AWS, NWS, or Watercolor USA during the period 1971 – 1978. This will be a jurried exhibition of OWS members, with workshops, and more to be determined. Please check back for more information.
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Join us for the opening reception of Ohio Watercolor Socity 2019. Light refreshments and hors’douvres provided.
Preview Party | Holiday Fair 2019
Friday, November 22th | 6pm
$50 per person | Complimentary Cocktail & Hors d’ ouvres
Join us in celebrating the 48th Annual Holiday Fair, an annual fundraiser for the Mansfield Art Center. Guests will have first pick of hand crafted goods & fine art for the Holiday Season. Each guest will receive a complimentary cocktail and enjoy a selection of hors d’ ouvres throughout the evening.
Online Reservations will be made available in November 2019.
The 50th Annual Holiday Fair – Both Galleries
One of kind gifts for the Holidays! Featuring hand made jewelry, ceramics, functional wood work, original paintings, fused & blown glass, wearable fiber art, and much, much more!
Sponsored by:
with Support from Mark & Zoi Romanchuk