Gifts
from the Gifted
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| Born From Stardust, by Oxana Dallas |
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| Boston Bricks II, by Diane Belfiglio |
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| Gauss, by David Kuntzman |
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| An Imperfect Art, by Patricia Zinsmeister Parker |
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| School Shootings School Bus Cape, by Judi Krew |
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| The Rider, by William M. Bogdan |
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| Grey Matter, by Steve Ehret |
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| Birch Bramble, by Catherine M. Cindia |
By
Tom Wachunas
EXHIBIT: Stark County Artists Exhibition / THROUGH JANUARY 26, 2020 / at The
Massillon Museum, 121 Lincoln Way East, in downtown Massillon, Ohio /
http://www.massillonmuseum.org/ 330.833.4061
As the end of
2019 draws near, I’m sincerely grateful. Thank you, Massillon Museum, for
continuing the tradition of this important annual juried exhibit – a gift to
anyone who savors contemporary art. Thank you, participating artists (a total
of 47 individuals out of 79 who entered) for your marvelous giftedness. I feel
honored, indeed humbled, to be in your company. Really. The fruits of your
creative labors have made this year’s Stark County Artists Exhibition truly the
strongest I’ve seen in many years, remarkably rich in formal and conceptual
diversity.
And to all of
you ARTWACH readers, give yourselves the gift of viewing the work by these
artists: Seth Adam, John B. Alexander, Diane Belfiglio, Todd Bergert, William
M. Bogdan, Peter Castillo, Catherine M. Cindia, Therese Cook, Oxana Dallas (Best in Show), David L. Dingwell, Laura
Donnelly, Steve Ehret (Second Place),
Megan Farrabee, Kathleen Gray Farthing, Gerald Fox, Sharon Frank Mazgaj (Honorable Mention), Robert Gallik, Coty
J. Giannelli (Honorable Mention),
Jared Hartmann, Charity Hockenberry, Judith Girscht Huber, Judi Krew (Honorable Mention), David Kuntzman, Sam Lilenfield, Timothy Londeree,
Priscilla Sally Lytle (Honorable
Mention), Nicole Malcolm, Robyn Martins, Tom Migge, Michelle Mulligan,
Clare Murray Adams, Benjamin R. Myers, Tina Myers, Robert Nicoll, Patricia
Zinsmeister Parker, Mark V. Pitocco, Anna Rather, Jacob Redmon, Erika
Katherine, Israel Robinson, Priscilla Roggenkamp, Hilda Sikora, Sari Sponhour,
Rosemary Stephen, Alex Strader (Third
Place), Tom Wachunas (Honorable
Mention) and Pat Mather Waltz.
My gratitude
is made all the more sweet by the award of an Honorable Mention for my piece,
“Deus ex Machina #3.” Here’s a link to some pictures and a few brief thoughts
on the work, if you’re interested:
Additionally,
I’m thankful for not being one of the jurors asked to assess levels of
excellence and assign awards. In an
exhibit of such high caliber as this one, it’s an unreasonably challenging ask,
if not a futile, perhaps even silly one. As it is, the jurors (Ken Emerick,
former Artist Programs and Percent for Art Director at the Ohio Arts Council;
Sarah J. Rogers, Director at the Kent State University Museum; and Stephen
Tomasko, Akron artist and photographer) who assembled this superb collection
saw fit to distinguish “Born From Stardust,” a textile work by Oxana Dallas,
with the Best in Show award. There’s much to commend this beautifully
sparkling, cosmic night vision of a statuesque woman encircled by people in
postures of allegiance or adoration, or maybe supplication. The tactile
intricacy of the weaving technique alone is hypnotic.
Diane
Belfiglio’s brighter, more earthbound oil pastel on paper, “Boston Bricks II,”
is equally hypnotic, and no less beautiful, no less fascinating in its
technical acuity. The gently bristling surface of overlaid chromatic textures
is infused with sunlight, with the elegant simplicity of the brick pattern
seemingly imprinted by subtly translucent crossings of dark shadows.
Speaking of
elegant structure, David Kuntzman’s acrylic “Gauss” is a meticulously composed
symphony of geometric abstraction. The overlapped grids in bright, pulsing
colors create a spatial dynamic that breathes.
A grid motif
is also apparent in the mixed media painting by Patricia Zinsmeister Parker,
“An Imperfect Art.” Here, though, the pictorial structure is not a neatly
delineated scheme, but rather a raw, visceral arrival – a gestural rumination that
emerged through time. Parker makes art that wags a wry finger in your face and
rattles your expectation of “finished” aesthetic protocol. Her work is
seriously engaged in the mindful play of pure markmaking and often brings to
mind the sassy kid who refuses to color inside the lines.
On a more
somber and cautionary note, two works: “School Shootings School Bus Cape,” by
Judi Krew, and “The Rider,” by William M. Bogdan. Krew’s piece is a compelling,
thoughtfully constructed remembrance of a tragic reality in American society,
as she explains with heartbreaking statistics in the chalkboard panels mounted
on a music stand next to the yellow-caped mannequin: “…Since 1840, there have
been 471 recorded incidents of a gun being used at an institution of education
to wound or kill another person or one’s self…” Even more arresting, she writes,
“…Unfortunately, this is a work in progress…”
Bogdan’s stark
woodcut print is an apocalyptic montage of sorts. His expressionism isn’t
rendered with refined precision so much as scratched, clawed, pounded into
being. No picture of noble intent or victory here. The horses’ hooves are like
anvils. Those helicopters in the sky are like hovering, fattened vultures. That
ghostly figure at the lower right is appropriated from Nick Ut’s shocking 1972
photo of a naked young Vietnamese girl, terribly burned and fleeing her village
after it was bombed with napalm. But this is more than a jarring remembrance of
that,…of then. Like Krew’s sobering notes on a work in progress, Bogdan’s
print is a potent connection to a horrific still
now, and with it, a haunting reminder that nothing changes if nothing
changes.
Let’s shift
gears for a moment into some surreal shenanigans, some unfettered fun. With a
punctilious polychromatic palette, Steve Ehret masterfully manipulated “Grey
Matter” – a spectacular, slick oil painting on panel (Second Place award) –
into a fantastically fastidious panoply of protoplasmic phantasm. A mind-morphing
loony landscape.
If you
consider this exhibit as an essay on the state of Stark County visual arts, Catherine
M. Cindia’s encaustic (beeswax) painting, “Birch Bramble” is yet another of
many exclamation points. It’s a sylvan scene that’s so dimensional, so
sumptuously tactile, that it could be fairly called a relief sculpture.
But wait, there’s more, much more. The most
meaningful award you can bestow on any of the artists here is your presence.
Your time, your intentional looking, your willingness to come and actually see. They’ve earned it.
Merry
Christmas.
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