Opening Reception for Three New Shows

Tom Bartel, Stacey Johnson Hardy, Ryan Myers – We are excited to bring together for the first time these three artists who use ceramics to create figurative sculptures that are evocative, curious, humorous, at times bizarre, but always expertly crafted. Ryan Myers Inspired by ancient works of the Aztecs and Incas as well as cartoons and superheroes, Ryan Myers creates vessels and sculptures informed by the human figure. Though most of his work does not have a specific intended function, many of his pieces are functional or semi functional. The figure has been a potent symbol and charged subject since antiquity, and continues to be an appropriate vehicle to pose life’s most challenging questions. Creating depictions of ourselves can be attributed to a primal need to ensure we survive or to simply tell important stories about what it means to be human. Tom Bartel Tom Bartel is a ceramic sculptor who maintains a studio in Athens, Ohio where he serves as Professor and Ceramics Chairperson at Ohio University. His works are constructed to refer to both the body and also charged, stylized, surrogates for the body such as dolls, toys, and figurines. The human condition is used as a seed to investigate the concepts of disguise, identity, fertility and mortality. Stacey Johnson Hardy Stacey Johnson Hardy is a visual artist working primarily in clay. Her work is influenced by life in the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast, places rich in a myriad of cultures. Her figurative work embraces this gumbo of flamboyance, color, soulfulness, and storytelling. Hardy primarily works in red, gritty clay, which she discovered in her youth, dug from the earth. Working with this particular medium is both familiar and purposeful, serving as a beautiful surface upon which to build layers of color. She has an interest in diverse figure study without gender or race, and often thinks of pieces as self portraits. Gestural figures are adorned with layered, painterly surfaces filled with mark making, in essence creating an evolving cartography honoring constellations, plant and ocean life, and destinations. 3rd Annual Painting Invitational This exhibit includes the work of esteemed and established artists alongside impressive emerging talent, each with a distinctive point of view. Alicia Czechowski, Letha Kelsey, Jana Marie Cariddi, Trina May Smith, Sandra Peterson, David Raleigh, Ariana Vaeth, and Sara Willadsen. In no. 5: Reckoning by Candace Compton Pappas 
Michigan based artist, Candace Compton Pappas creates evocative sculptures and installations that grapple with our place within and relation to our environment. Much of her work incorporates natural elements from the land around her home— stumps, branches, and vines combine with overtly fabricated objects such as house forms, tables, and pedestals. This work is a kind of reckoning - an examination of how we see ourselves in an uncertain future, in which our salvation comes in the depth, form, and power of the connection we establish with all that surrounds us. The act of reckoning is an act of understanding where we’ve come from and where we stand. 

Event Links

Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2506808-0

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