Exhibits: OSU Urban Arts Space summer exhibitions
The Campus area may be a ghost town in the warmer months, but the Urban Arts Space, OSU's off-campus location for the visual arts, will be buzzing all summer. A total of six exhibitions are on tap through Labor Day, with four getting their official launch this Saturday, including a juried show of work by high school students.
The three adult-generated exhibitions respectively focus on drawing, painting and urban planning, but in their various practices lies a common interest in new ways of seeing. Here's what to expect.
"We Don't Have All Night"
About a year ago, shortly before receiving her MFA, painter Lauren Whearty presented works at Urban Arts Space as part of a show by OSU graduate students. This year, she's back as both a contributing artist and curator for a group exploration of the line between representation and all-out imagination.
"We put together a lot of paintings that play with image and abstraction. It's about them interacting with each other, and what they have in common," Whearty explained.
She and eight other participating artists offer almost-landscapes in unexpected hues and vague portraits in which figures are wrapped in shadow or human digits rise from a choppy sea of color swaths. The compositions intrigue with hints of recognizable imagery, unusual palettes and strongly physical paint application.
In addition to the canvases, the show also invites visitors to peruse a catalog that takes the form of a 'zine.
"Vata"
Process-oriented yet genuinely soulful, the graphite and charcoal drawings of CCAD alum Jill Raymundo elevate the ordinary to the fascinating.
The artist fixes her extraordinary skill and exhaustive attention to detail on subjects ranging from dense clouds to strands of human hair in a shaft of light, to the receipts for a breakfast she ate in Portland, Oregon.
"Progress and Promise"
The nonprofit Neighborhood Design Center presents a varied selection of recent proposals for how to make Columbus a more beautiful place to be. It's a fun view for anyone who'd like to see more recycled wine bottle lighting in Downtown's public spaces, or who thinks it would be wise to let artists take over full building facades for elaborate murals.
OSU Urban Arts Space
Opening receptions 6-8 p.m. Saturday, June 23
50 W. Town St., Downtown
"Vata"
Through July 17
"We Don't Have All Night"
Through Aug. 4
"Progress and Promise"
Through Aug. 11