SEASON 19
EXHIBITS IN THE GALLERY
September 2022 - August 2023
This exhibition season was financially assisted by individual donations, large and small, from across the U.S.
You can donate here to help keep our nonprofit programming going!
Pre-order the season-documenting hardcover anthology, the Manifest Exhibition Annual (MEA s19). Download to save or print the entire season 19 calendar here. |
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PREVIOUS SEASON 19 EXHIBITS:
| Season 19 Launch! September 30 - October 28, 2022 |
Ticketed Preview (get tickets here) - Annual Fund Benefit: |
main gallery
THE OVERSTORY
Trees are the breath of the world. The memory of our soul. They encapsulate carbon, breathe out oxygen. They give us wood, fruit, nuts, soil, and shade. In their long lineage they embed time, a patient record of the world we step in and out of barely noticed. Likely the original home of our primordial ancestors, trees bore our kin like gentle matriarchs, ultimately enabling humans to achieve everything our species has done, including the destruction of the forests themselves. In a sense, it is in the forest where the battle for the fate of all of life takes place. Therefore it is in wood where one will find the record of the world awaiting. The Overstory called for works of photography and other light-based processes and media, including traditional, digital, and experimental photography, photo-etching/litho/silkscreen, photo collage, light-based/illuminated works, and more—all centered in some way on this overarching theme. Support for this FotoFocus Biennial 2022 exhibition was provided by FotoFocus. For this exhibit 130 artists submitted 567 works from 31 states and 2 countries, Canada and the United States. Eighteen works by the following 12 artists from 11 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Steven Brown John Francis Porter Gifford Sarah Grew Pato Hebert Susan Moldenhauer Robyn Moore Dorothy O'Connor Laurie Beck Peterson Rachel Portesi Areca Roe Tom Trusty
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Laurie Beck Peterson
Areca Roe
Susan Moldenhauer
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drawing room
A MEMORY OF ICE
Kelsey Stephenson is an Edmonton (amiskwacîwâskahikan) based artist working with ideas of place-based memory and identity, and the changes imposed on landscape through human agency over time. Her recent projects encompass installation and multimedia practices, often utilizing printmaking as a jumping off point for her work. She has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions across Canada and in the USA, with recent group exhibitions including The 5th Bangkok Triennial International Print and Drawing Competition, Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Thailand; the 37th Bradley International, at Bradley University (Illinois, USA); and the 2018 Okanagan Print Triennial, in Kelowna, BC. Kelsey holds a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Tennessee, as well as a Bachelors of Design from the University of Alberta. She has taught courses in printmaking at the Alberta University of the Arts (formerly known as Alberta College of Art + Design), and she currently teaches at the University of Alberta as an associate lecturer. Of her work the artist states: "My current work is rooted in photographic and lens-based print practice, examining historical aspects and context of film in archived imagery, and exploring contemporary alternative photographic processes in response. The repeat photography works on paper examine specific locations from the archive that are well known, and had history of long-time tourism promotion from the inception of Banff National Park to today, to express just how much glaciers have changed over the last 100 years... The more recent images I have taken in response play on that aspect of settling, tourism, and land use, but also question how much preservation of wilderness is possible when provincial policies allow oil and gas emissions, or coal exploration in the eastern slopes of the Rockies... Taken as a whole, the fragility of the multiple systems brought within the gallery becomes readily apparent. The silk panels waver and change as you walk by. The translation from real landscape, to photograph, to drawing, to negatives, and ultimately screen-printed imagery loses information at each step. The images remind viewers that our glaciers and water systems are not infinite and that each action is interconnected.” This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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parallel space
DESIRE LINES
Eli Craven is an artist based in Lafayette, Indiana where he is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Purdue University. Craven's research resides in the critical investigation of the image and its relationship to ideologies of sexuality, desire, and death. His work is exhibited nationally and internationally. Most recently at KlompChing Gallery in Brooklyn, New York and in the South Bend Museum of Art's 31st Biennial. His work has also been widely published. Select publications and clients include Philosophie Magazine, The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Gestalten Publishing Berlin, Penguin Randomhouse Barcelona, and The Paris National Opera. Of his work the artist states: "I work conceptually with photographic images by re-evaluating the physical and psychological potential of the picture through sculptural interventions. The works exist somewhere between the image and object, attempting to connect the representation to some form of reality. I am interested in the ubiquitous and mundane imagery of family portraiture, self-help books, and instructional guides, which, upon close inspection, allude to a range of human fears and emotions. The research begins with the acts of looking and collecting then progresses to a critical investigation of the image and its relationship to ideologies of sexuality, desire, and death.” This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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central gallery
REASSEMBLED
Robin Assner-Alvey (b.1978, Massachusetts) is an artist working with photography, video, and installation. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut (2000) and her Master of Fine Arts from the Ohio State University (2002). Her work examines corporality and asks viewers to consider the experience of living in their own skin. She experiments with various photographic processes to push the boundaries of what a photograph can be as well as to question what it means to be a woman. Robin's work has been exhibited in various solo and group shows throughout the United States. She is currently Professor of Art in the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Art at Webster University in St. Louis, MO, where she has taught all levels of photography and video since 2003. Of her work the artist states: "As a forty-four year-old plus size woman and artist living through a pandemic while trying to raise two young children, I feel an irresistible need to photograph myself. I use my own body in a frank and honest manner to reflect on maternal ambivalence and the toll that motherhood can have on a person. At the end of long days, when I am both physically and mentally exhausted and have nothing else to give, I stand in front of the camera to document what is left of myself. There are many scars that come with being a mother, both emotional and physical. I explore this through the disjointed way that the photographs of the body are assembled. In the final images, my body appears dismembered, not in proper proportion, and has an underwater feel as if the person in the image is drowning and hanging on by a thread...” This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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north gallery
NO RETURN
Generally, art-making is synonymous with object-making, with the type of artwork describing the thing, rather than what it is about. You are a painter making paintings, a sculptor making sculptures, a photographer making photographs, etc. When you make a thing, you are taught to craft it not just for the sake of excellence, but for the sake of surviving the test of time. There is a world within the world of art, though, that is unconcerned with long-term existence. Food is meant to be eaten quickly, and live music and dance are allowed to evaporate after the gesture of their making is completed. What is contained within the brief life of an artwork? Can’t it be enough to be something wonderful now, even if it may not be in 100 years? Can we let it die and decompose? Do you even need to include return shipping? (It would be nice to not have to think about the future.) NO RETURN is a show for temporary, one-way, and non-archival artwork—works that are not really 'collectible', that aren’t meant to last, maybe not even long enough to return to its maker at the end of the exhibition... or be handed down to a future generation. For this exhibit 23 artists submitted 98 works from 15 states and 3 countries, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Fourteen works by the following 10 artists from 8 states and Canada were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Briana Babani Ethan Brossard Holly Fay Gabriel Feld Todd Frankenfield Beth Grabowski Jessica Greenfield Jameson Mulac Nichole Riley Margi Weir
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Gabriel Feld
Jessica Greenfield (detail)
Briana Babani
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| November 11 - December 9, 2022 | Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: Thursday, Nov. 10, 7-9pm |
main gallery + drawing room
Home Again, Home Again
Lisa Walcott is a Midwest-based artist. She received her MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2010 and has since created and exhibited her work nationally including Land of Tomorrow in Louisville, KY, Sadie Halie Projects in Minneapolis, MN and The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, MI. She has attended residencies at Ox-Bow School of Art, ACRE and Three Walls. Walcott teaches sculpture classes at Hope College in Holland, MI. Her work grapples with and makes light of the perils of daily life using kinetic sculpture, installation, drawing, and photography. Of her work the artist states: "This body of work engages the current situation, daily cycles, everyday objects, and tasks from home. Inspiration is often derived from domestic spaces, a space that can be hauntingly dull as well as safe and protective. I look for comparisons, rely on the uncanny, and pull from daydreams to create sculptures that are relatable, but different. Humor and empathy meet in a piece like Tight Spots in which seven small dish towel sculptures toil away, head down working endlessly in an absurd yet relatable performance. The overtone is humorous, the undertone is the heavy monotony of tasks from home or the churning of an anxious mind. It is impossible to tell what is being accomplished, but they continue nonetheless.” This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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parallel space
ARCH. It has been said that architecture may be the ultimate form of art. After all, it is both expressive, informative, and serves as a refuge from the elements. What happens when it becomes the content of other architecture—of the gallery itself? ARCH. was a theme last presented at Manifest in 2011, over a decade ago. As a deliberate parallel to our Fourth Wall exhibition of works that challenge the 'frame', ARCH. invited artists, architects, designers, and other makers to share works that in some way explore or feature made space. For this exhibit we set out to assemble a diverse array of works unified in its consideration of the concept of made space, but intriguing due to the ways in which different artists address the subject, and for what is revealed about how humans alter and address space as a medium of life. For this exhibit 53 artists submitted 200 works from 21 states, Washington D.C., and 3 countries, including Romania, Sweden, and the United States. Ten works by the following 8 artists from 6 states and Washington D.C. were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Alejandro Borges Sally Canzoneri Leah Gose Wade Kramm Craig McCormick Anshul Roy Robert Saldarriaga Amy Yoshitsu
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Alejandro Borges
Amy Yoshitsu
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central gallery
FOURTH WALL The job of the picture plane is to establish the boundaries of an artwork. Its visual acreage is protected and reinforced by frames, pedestals, vitrines, walls—even the space of a gallery itself. These spaces are places of opportunity, and their boundaries mark the difference between experiencing art and living in the rest of the world. A boundary shuts out the noise. It lets you know what the rules are. The boundaries of an artwork are intended to vanish, ignored in favor of its content. The truth is, though, that boundaries are not truly invisible, and they are not non-reactive. The context of a work, the framework of art, the place that it is displayed, these are all part of the experience of the art. It is their ordinariness that lets them fade into the background. What happens, then, when the “normal” framework changes? When it is re-formed? When the fourth wall breaks as the art and artist make clear their awareness of the medium? FOURTH WALL called for artwork that challenges its borders, its framework, its format, the physical and conceptual space it inhabits—for works that question and create deliberate relationships with their contexts. For this exhibit 44 artists submitted 126 works from 24 states and 4 countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United States. Ten works by the following 9 artists from 7 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Eric Charlton Erin Dvorak Clark Caroline Hatfield Del Rey Loven Dave Petengill Jay Shepard Hanna Sosin Nathan Stromberg Lee Williams
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Dave Petengill
Nathan Stromberg
Caroline Hatfield
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north gallery
BALANCE Considered one of the seven principles of visual organization, Balance is a fundamental concept in art. In theory, balance is achieved when the parts of the whole are arranged so that they either hold still, or flow without losing control—through either static or dynamic balance. Typically balance is a formal, visual factor—part of the physics of a work of art. (Such physical parallels as center of gravity, centrifugal and centripetal force, and kinetic and potential energy can easily be applied to visual art regarding balance, not to mention movement, another related principle.) But in reality, both visual and conceptual forces are aspects of balance. We know how the visual looks and feels, almost intuitively, but what does conceptual balance look like? In practice, balance is a hard thing to achieve, especially if you pursue greater compositional dynamism, challenging your formats and rhythms. Training your sense of balance requires study, trials, and practice—and a lot of falling. You take it for granted when you have it. But when you don't, you notice. There are so many ways to fall. There are also many arrangements that hold together, that support a work’s unity, that resonate and stay alight—arrangements that contribute to the overall content of the work, and the experience it offers. BALANCE called for works about compositional experiments, proofs, challenges the artists overcame or were overwhelmed by, of precarious equilibrium, impossible stability, and the role such concepts play in making compelling meaning through the visual. For this exhibit 74 artists submitted 229 works from 25 states and 2 countries, including Germany and the United States. Thirteen works by the following 12 artists from 10 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Carol Boram-Hays Bob Bruch Cole Carothers Scott Eakin Ivan Fortushniak Milan Jilka Matthew Kluber Gary Lapow Marcus Michels Ron Richmond John Troy Denis Wogan
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Carol Boram-Hays
Ron Richmond
Matthew Kluber
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| December 16 - January 13, 2023 |
Ticketed Preview (Get Tickets Here!) |
main gallery + drawing room
IMPRINT 2022 Like photography, printmaking is a genre of art making that is underscored by its processes. Some artists are steadfast traditionalists, anchoring themselves in age-old technical methods. Others push the boundaries of the discipline, exploring just what constitutes ‘printmaking’. For this exhibit Manifest takes a fresh look at the media last featured in season 14. IMPRINT called to artists around the world to submit works of printmaking, and shares a range of methods and results currently being achieved within the bounds of the discipline. For this exhibit 131 artists submitted 523 works from 41 states, Washington D.C., and 3 countries, Canada, France, and the United States. Twenty Eight works by the following 23 artists from 14 states and France were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Keegan Adams Andrew Au Stephanie Berrie Keith Buswell Gino Castellanos Jacob Crook Rick Finn Craig Fisher Laura Fisher Beth Grabowski Yuji Hiratsuka Catherine Kramer Kathy McGhee Monika Meler Daniella Napolitano Andrew Polk Carol Prusa Benjamin Shamback Nomi Silverman Michael Weigman Erin Wohletz Connie Wolfe
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Catherine Kramer
Benjamin Shamback
Nomi Silverman
Stephanie Berrie
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parallel space
BOOK CLUB A story is an account. Stories carry human history. They predict our future. For this exhibit 70 artists submitted 212 works from 24 states and 3 countries, India, Korea, and the United States. Eleven works by the following 7 artists/collaboratives from 7 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Sarah Bryant, Katie Baldwin, Denise Bookwalter, Macy Chadwick, and Tricia Treacy (in collaboration) Keith DuQuette Beth Grabowski Jessica Greenfield Peggy Johnston Robin Miller Erin Vigneau-Dimick
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Keith DuQuette
Beth Grabowski
Peggy Johnston
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central gallery
ONE 13
Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann Memory Palace Of her work the artist states: "I examine landscape painting, environment, and cultural estrangement by building luxuriant, cinematically scaled paper paintings and installations. These combine romantic, utopian and immersive sensibilities from both Chinese and Western landscape painting with a lexicon drawn from a personal mythology informed by my identity as a biracial, second generation Asian American: ribbons, baubles, bats, peaches, sperm, piles of flowers repeated so many times as to appear biomorphic and alien, but bursting with incongruous efflorescence. These pieces have two primary concerns: the exploration of landscape in a world where "landscape" is defined through an ever-widening field of digital, graphic, and visual forms, and the insertion of personal world building—a world of fragmentation, hybridity, and incongruity—into that history."
Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann received her BA from Brown University and MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She creates large scale paintings and paper installations that examine mythology, identity, and land-scape. Mann is the recipient of the Sustainable Arts Foundation grant, a Fulbright grant, the AIR Gallery and Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Fellowships, and the Mayor’s Award and Hamiltonian Fellowship in Washington, DC. Her work has been shown internationally, including the Kreeger Museum, Academy Art Museum, Walters Art Muse-um, American University Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Rawls Museum, the US consulate in Dubai, UAE, and the US embassy in Yaounde, Cameroon.
ABOUT THE $5,000 MANIFEST PRIZE We respect the creative principle of reduction (the blind jury process) as it is employed to achieve an essential conclusive statement for each exhibit we produce. This is what has led to the high caliber of each Manifest exhibit, and to the gallery's notable following. We believe competition inspires excellence. Therefore we determined over a decade ago to launch the Manifest Prize in order to push the process to the ultimate limit—from among many to select just ONE work. Manifest's jury process for the 13th Annual Manifest Prize included multiple levels of jury review of 860 works of all shapes, sizes, and media made by 195 artists from 38 states, Washington D.C., and 5 countries, including Canada, Finland, Ireland, Japan, and the United States. The jury consisted of a total of 12 different volunteer jurors from across the U.S. Each level of the process resulted in fewer works passing on to the next, until a winner was reached. The size and physical nature of the works considered was not a factor in the jury scoring and selection. It should be noted that the winner and finalists, 11 works, represent roughly the top scoring 1% of the jury pool. The winner represents the top one-tenth of 1% of the jury pool. The winning work will be presented in Manifest's Central Gallery from December 16, 2022 through January 13, 2023. It will be accompanied by excerpts from juror statements and the artist's statement. The Finalists: The Artists of the Ten Runner-up / Finalist Works will also be featured in the season-documenting Manifest Exhibition Annual publication (MEAs19). These are works by Ric Ambrose (Richmond, California), Patricia Bellan-Gillen (Burgettstown, Pennsylvania), Steven Carrelli (Chicago, Illinois), Hiroshi Hayakawa (Columbus, Ohio), Jennifer Holt (Decatur, Illinois), and Patrick Wilson (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
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north gallery
13th Annual TAPPED The relationship between artists and their current or former instructors can be a powerful one. Even when this bond is left unstated, we carry our professors' voices forward in time as we mature as artists and people. We eventually realize that the instruction given by our teachers during our relatively brief careers as students continues to expand within us. We realize that the learning they inspired (or insisted upon) is a chain-reaction process that develops across our lifetime. All of us who have been students carry forward our teachers' legacy in one form or another. And those who are, or have been teachers, bear witness to the potency of studenthood. Out of respect for this artist-teacher bond, and in honor of teachers working hard to help artists tap into a higher mind relative to art and life, Manifest is proud to present TAPPED, an annual exhibit that presents paired works of art by current or former artist/teacher pairs. For this exhibit 70 artists submitted 212 works from 23 states and 2 countries, England and the United States. Fourteen works by the following 14 artists from 8 states and England were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. The artists are listed in pairings to illustrate their teacher/student relationship (past or present). Works on view will include paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs. The exhibition layout is planned so that each pair of artists' works will be shown side-by-side or in close proximity. Visitors will be able to enjoy the variety of types of works while also considering the nature of influence between professor and student. It is worth noting also that at least two of the artists in the 'former student' category are now themselves working as a professor.
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| January 27 - February 24, 2023 | Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit |
THE FIVE THEMES PROJECT — For this fourth exhibit period of our 19th season Manifest has created a very special set of exhibitions for the fourth annual Five Themes Project—offering five concurrent interrelated shows. This iteration of the project explores the spectrum of intimate places and spaces through which we experience the passage of life. |
main gallery
BED (Part of the Season 19 Five Themes Project) This is one of the most private, and perhaps the safest and most intimate of spaces. This is the place where you let your guard down enough to sleep, where you become a dreamer. Beds welcome us into the world, support our healing, and carry us through the narrow gate at the end of a lifetime. The bed is where most of us spend a full third of our life, unravelling the toils of each day's work, compacting the form of our bodies into its welcoming surface day after day. BED is an exhibit about this sanctuary of humanity. For this exhibit 49 artists submitted 167 works from 23 states and Israel. Eighteen works by the following 10 artists from 7 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Rachael Bailey Dena Eber Molly Evans Donald Furst Richard Gilles Robert Knight Jennifer Meanley Jessie Shinn Katayoun Stewart Duat Vu
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Molly Evans
Jessie Shinn
Richard Gilles
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drawing room
TABLE
A table holds meals, and dirty dishes. They fill rooms like centerpieces, and then sit quietly off to the side. They are a place to gather and play, eat, talk. They stand steadfastly beside our beds holding pills and lamps and tissues and books and glasses. They wear cloths, or gather water stains. They host clutter, and collect graffiti, carved initials, and gum. We arrange things on them, and make plans. A table is a surface where things are placed, lessons are learned, and adventures planned. TABLE is an exhibit about this ubiquitous object and surface, and the things that happen there. For this exhibit 27 artists submitted 76 works from 18 states and the countries of Canada and Israel. Twelve works by the following 8 artists from 8 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Brooks Cashbaugh Diane Fitch Antonio Gonzalez-Garcia Christie Goodfellow Carl Grauer Joseph Holsapple Jordan Kornreich Hernan Miranda |
Antonio Gonzalez-Garcia
Hernan Miranda
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parallel space
WINDOW (Part of the Season 19 Five Themes Project) Windows are, above all, a place for observation. The world preforms outside its fixed frame, and we watch it, hear it, and catch the pieces that pass through. Windows open your home to sunlight while keeping out the rain. They permit breezes to pass through and cool the air, bringing smells of trees and foods and car exhaust, sounds of people and ambulances and birds. Sometimes they let in the birds. They are, however, more than a place for us to look out, more than a one-way lens. Here, seeing means potentially being seen. A public building anticipates this and creates a presentable facade in the form of displays, clean, organized lobbies and warm, inviting electrical light. Looking through a home's window however is at best rude and at worst, predatory. It's tempting, though, to glimpse how others live—a way to study without interacting, detached—to see something secret, or private, not arranged for your gaze. Windows let this gaze in, a gap in the secure barrier between inside and out, public and private. Windows are the negotiated risk we take to let the light in. WINDOW is an exhibit about such visual passages, and the worlds they connect. For this exhibit 51 artists submitted 197 works from 22 states, and Israel. Thirteen works by the following 9 artists from 6 states and Israel were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Sarah Arriagada Maddie Aunger Tovit Basirtman Christian Carson Rick Decorie Richard Gilles Kate Lackman Ken Minami Jessie Shinn
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Richard Gilles
Kate Lackman
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central gallery
STAIRS (Part of the Season 19 Five Themes Project) Stairs are a transitory space in a home, dividing it into distinct spheres; downstairs for company, upstairs for family. Further up, maybe, into an uninsulated attic. Further down into the cold of a cellar. Or, they are the thing (or place?) that guides you from outside to inside, up to your hallway, your doorway, preparing you to enter your home. Or, to the beach or up the mountain, to the subway or classroom. They can be grand, ornate, theatrical. They can be strategically hidden, in corners and behind doors. How much time is spent on stairs? What kind of time is spent there? What does each step mean on the way up, or down? How many are there? A stairway is intended to lead you somewhere—but what about when they become a barrier instead? Stairs are not a room, but they are a space. What inhabits a stairwell? What accumulates on them? What lives beneath? STAIRS is an exhibit about such transportive structures, and the idea of moving upwards or downwards through spaces and places. For this exhibit 23 artists submitted 62 works from 15 states. Twelve works by the following 6 artists from 6 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Michael Banning Mark Eisendrath John Ferry Donald Furst Leslie Gleim Francis Huffman
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Donald Furst
Leslie Gleim
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north gallery
MIRROR
(Part of the Season 19 Five Themes Project) Your mirror is the first window of the day. The one across from your bed, the one on the inside of your door, the one in the bathroom. There is another by the stairs where you can check your hair on your way outside, one inside the compact in your purse and one above the piano. There is one with a very fine frame in the hallway, one high on the wall of the living room, expanding the space to twice its size. There is one on the side of your toaster, one dimly reflecting your ankles as you walk past the glass of your bookcase. A few in your camera, in your phone, and at least three in your car. Two, facing each other as you check the back of your hair, reflecting one in the other, shaping a tunnel of infinity in your own home. A mirror reflects light, it reflects space, it reflects you. Sometimes a mirror is magic, delivering messages from another world. MIRROR is an exhibit about such reflective devices and their effects. For this exhibit 50 artists submitted 155 works from 22 states, Washington D.C., and the countries of Israel and Canada. Ten works by the following 6 artists from 5 states and Israel were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Grace Athena Flott Grace Fries Justin Spillers Rob Tarbell Adrian Waggoner Shira Bar Yaakov
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Grace Flott
Rob Tarbell
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| March 10 - April 7, 2023 | Ticketed Preview
Annual Fund Benefit: |
main gallery + drawing room
OHIO, KENTUCKY, INDIANA
In 19 seasons Manifest's projects have included works by artists representing 50 states and 48 countries. Beginning in our tenth season, we launched an ongoing series of exhibits focusing on works by artists in our three-state region. Eight years ago we added projects that also focused on other definable regions outside our own. These Regional Showcases were offered to complement the very wide geographical makeup of most Manifest exhibits with a closer look at art being made here in our own backyard, as well as provide a platform from which we could examine the trends, qualities, and idiosyncrasies of contemporary art within specific geographical areas and compare them to our own. As is the case every season, this exhibit had no specific requirement for type, media, or style of work to be submitted. This was an open call. Submissions ranged widely from traditional to very conceptual, abstract, and experimental work. Jury selections were made based on the overall quality of the works submitted. For this exhibit 167 artists submitted 686 works from Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Twenty works by the following 14 artists from our three-state region were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Lauren Anderson Brochevski (Amai Rawls Jr.) Eli Craven Noah DiRuzza Ron Isaacs Ellen Lyon Antonio McAfee Lisa Merida-Paytes Priscilla Roggenkamp Marc Ross Lisa River Schenkelberg Hedieh Sharifzadeh Stephen Tornero Sarah Zimmerman
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Lauren Anderson
Lisa River Schenkelberg
Eli Craven
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parallel space + central gallery
Robert Pulley* & Dana Saulnier In considering proposals submitted for this exhibition period Manifest's team realized it had a special opportunity to craft another rare two-person show featuring two bodies of compatible, contrasting, yet highly unique works by two noteworthy veteran artists working in our region. We are grateful that Robert Pulley and Dana Saulnier accepted our invitation to join forces in this two-gallery presentation of their work.
QUIET FORM Robert Pulley was born in Wabash, Indiana in 1948. He grew up at the edge of town and the richness of the natural world became his muse. He received a BA degree in art education from Ball State University followed by an MA degree in sculpture and ceramics in 1978. His early career included a year of teaching art, an artist residency, starting and running a functional pottery in Southern Indiana, and making raku pottery at a log cabin for two years. After graduate school he, his wife and young daughter moved to Columbus, Indiana where he set up a studio and taught art in the public schools. In 1983 they purchased an old farm house with 2.3 acres. There, they turned an outbuilding into a studio, planted gardens, trees and sculptures and raised their children. 38 years later, they live at the same address. The lawn has become a sculpture garden, the trees they planted are up to 80' tall, and their children are grown. Robert has shown professionally for 50 years. His sculptures are in many private and public collections, including several museums.
Of his work Pulley states: In 2020 I decided to challenge myself to work smaller, with less color and more attention to detail. The change to smaller scale meant paying attention to marks and surfaces in a new way, The resulting work occupies space in a more intimate way."
**Note that concurrent with this show, Pulley's large scale ceramic work comprises Manifest's first ever outdoor sculpture exhibition at our new campus at 3464 Central Parkway as an extension of this intimate gallery exhibit. An artist's reception for Five Monoliths will be held during a building-wide spring open house on March 18 from 5-9pm (with an artist's walkabout at 6:30pm weather permitting). More info. Pulley also has a major display of large sculptures on view at the Krohn Conservatory in nearby Eden Park through June 18, 2023. A guide to Five Monoliths at M1:
IMAGES UNSAID
Saulnier's painting practice is historically self conscious, aligning with and differing from traditions of the figure in landscape. Occasionally he writes about art making. Saulnier received the BFA degree in Painting from the University of Cincinnati and the MFA degree in Painting from Cornell University. Professor Saulnier teaches Painting, Drawing, and Theory, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he currently serves as Graduate Director for the MFA program in Studio Art. Saulnier has exhibited his art in over one hundred exhibitions and more than thirty solo exhibitions, mostly in the United States, but also in Europe. Dana Saulnier is represented by First Street Gallery in New York and Cynthia Byrnes Contempory Art in Connecticut. His work can be viewed at www.danasaulnier.com.
Of his work Saulnier states: These visceral paintings evolve a genealogy of the figure in landscape. Transitions between figure and ground are continually investigated but remain uncertain and permeable. Bodies in these works exist as haptic events. Yet these forms have mass and weight; they demonstrate a grounded carnal presence. Truncated forms achieve temporary integrity, a kind of circumspect vitality and position. My paintings evolve from sets of drawings and studies in oil. When making exploratory works, I often respond to subtle intuitive sensations that I cannot quite understand. I am taken in, following some potential event of becoming visible. Pursuing an emotional connection to my seeing I discover formal configurations. At the same time, the paintings also fill up with unsettled seeing. Any viewpoint I may establish continuously decays and multiple arrays of sensation refuse to settle. Tensions between visibility and invisibility are thoroughly woven into the work and structure how the viewer receives the image. This fullness of seeing and not seeing—this is the painting—it is always cycling states of fugitive sense. Painting is frequently thought historically, and viewers of the work often comment upon the dialogue with historical paintings. This is both understandable and troublesome. I think it is inadequate to see these paintings only as vehicles for appropriations, memorials, or documentary projects. For me, finding our historical being as an emotional condition is the most important goal. Living emotionally is a continuous condition of our being. Figure-landscape, landscape-figure, always, always in tension, always new. I want to make images where active perception delays habits of categorical thinking. I hope the paintings directly speak to the viewers body and create generative aesthetic experiences. Though I love the way visual art calls forth interpretive responses, I try to make work that resists analysis while being absolutely specific in form. Painting lives best, meaning more deeply, when it devours theory.
This exhibition was assembled from two that were among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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Robert Pulley
Robert Pulley
Dana Saulnier
Dana Saulnier |
north gallery
CAST | molded
Cast objects are born into a family in ways other art objects are not. A cast object is formed inside of a parent mold, and then released to exist in a world with its identical siblings. As long as the mold survives there exists an opportunity for replication, for iteration. There are of course, instances of only-children. Sometimes the mold is broken in the process of releasing its objects. Maybe, in this case, the mold is like a cocoon. Aside from the possibilities molds provide for production and re-production, the process is also often a collaboration between dissimilar materials. Clay, wax, polymers, papers, woods, metals, and plasters are fed with new substance. New materials take the shape of the void—the negative space itself—within a mold where they cure/mature/harden until they can sustain their own form independent from the supporting scaffold of the body that formed it. Cast objects take on the shape and character of their container, of a tool-form that has, like printmaking has done for two dimensional images, greatly amplified creative options for artists, designers, and architects in their pursuit of three-dimensional expression for thousands of years. Such objects inevitably are reflections of the form of an original emptiness which they both inherit and transcend. CAST/molded an exhibition of works made using casting methods, molds, stamps, forms, or similar processes. The competitively juried exhibition was open to a very wide range of applications of these processes, and any work of art or design that employs a form of casting, molding, stamping, or other form-based manipulation of materials to create primarily three-dimensional work. For this exhibit 153 artists submitted 529 works from 35 states, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and 4 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, and the United States. Sixteen works by the following 13 artists from 9 states and Puerto Rico were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Kailee Bosch Marissa Childers Tandem Concreto Joshua Doster Samantha England Rowen Foster John Greig Jr. Pierce Haley Shane Harris CJ Niehaus Steve Novick Mary Rhein
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Shane Harris
Pierce Haley
Mary Rhein
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| April 21 - May 19, 2023 | Ticketed Preview - (GET TICKETS HERE): Thursday, April 20, 7-9pm |
main gallery + drawing room
DRAWN 2023 Manifest was founded in-part to stand for the importance of drawing as a process, skill, and discipline, and as a continuing viable product of the creative fine art and design fields. Since its inception our nonprofit organization has continued to incorporate drawing-based programming, including education (Drawing Center), publications (INDA), and gallery exhibits into the broader spectrum of its projects. The artists who formed Manifest in 2004 knew that despite their diverging career paths (architecture, art history, painting, industrial design, photography) they were brought together by their connection to drawing and their mutually intense but multi-faceted pursuit of this fundamental discipline. In honor of the original spirit of the founding ideals of Manifest, the gallery launched DRAWN a decade ago as an annual exhibition. DRAWN seeks to survey and present the broad scope of drawing being made today. This gallery exhibit is completely separate from but nevertheless complements, and sometimes shares work in common with, the now triennial INDA publication project. DRAWN called for artists to submit works of drawing in any media relevant to the practice (including non-traditional approaches), any style, and any genre (fine art, illustration, design, conceptual, realism, etc.). For this exhibit 174 artists submitted 621 works from 37 states and 7 countries including Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Italy, Spain, the United States, and Vietnam. Thirty-six works by the following 22 artists from 17 states and Vietnam were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Jonathan Bolton Thinh Dinh Mary Farrell Olivia Froelich Hiroshi Hayakawa Cynthia Hellyer Heinz Benjamin LaDieu Anne Lindberg Jo Margolis Andrew Mastriani Chelsie Murfee Carlton Nell Jeremy Plunkett Minna Resnick Luisa Ruiz Doug Russell Zac Rybacki Kylee Snow Tyler Streeter Wendy Wagner Derek Wilkinson JenMarie Zeleznak
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Mary Farrell
Doug Russell
Derek Wilkinson
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parallel space
CHIMERA "Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos." – Mary Shelley A chimera is a hybrid of disparate parts. Creating a hybrid means being a kind of facilitator, moderating the union of different materials, ideas, or practices. These discrete portions do not dissolve fully into one another, but rather they maintain their integrity while also becoming a whole and new being. This separate-yet-whole quality is what makes a hybrid fascinating. The uncanniness of a hybrid union can elicit wonder, fear, disgust—it is also representative of equilibrium, innovation, and newness. A cyborg is a hybrid, so is a calico cat, an organ transplant, and an electric vehicle. Great monsters are hybrids, as are fruits, languages, and mixed-use communities. Referring to a new idea as a “hybrid” is often the first way we define it: this-meets-that-meets-this equals the new kind of thing. Understanding the parts help us understand the whole, and hopefully when all goes well the whole ends up being greater than the sum of its originally unrelated parts. What kind of balance must a hybrid creation strike within itself? What kind of work goes into bringing disparate parts together? And how does this show up in visual art of today? CHIMERA is a show of works where multiple unrelated elements are combined into one form, practice, or idea to generate a new and compelling whole. For this exhibit 92 artists submitted 343 works from 28 states and 4 countries including Canada, England, France, and the United States. Fourteen works by the following 8 artists from 8 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Matthew Bailey Daniel Cassity Dan Hernandez Kaitlin Kahn Jennifer Levatino Stephanie Morissette Tini Pinto Doug Stapleton
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Kaitlin Kahn
Dan Hernandez
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central gallery
HISTORY AND LEGEND
Patricia Bellan-Gillen was born in Beaver Falls, PA and lives and works in rural Washington County, Pennsylvania adjacent to the West Virginia border. She is retired from Carnegie Mellon University after 29 years as a professor in the School of Art where she held the Dorothy L. Stubnitz Endowed Chair. The university honored her with the Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching in 2000. Bellan-Gillen's paintings, prints and drawings have been the focus of over 50 solo exhibitions in venues in Washington DC, Nashville, TN, Houston, TX, Atlanta, GA, Las Cruces, NM, Albany, NY, Bloomington, IL Portland, OR, Grand Rapids, MI, Wellington, NZ and Wimbledon/London, UK. Most recently, her exhibition, Words and Other Weapons was held at the McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown, OH. Her work has been included in numerous group shows in museums, commercial galleries, university galleries, and alternative spaces. Venues have included: Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, Chelsea Museum of Art, New York, NY, The Art Museum at FIU, Miami, FL, Frans Masreel Centrum, Belgium, University Art Museum, Laramie, WY, Tacoma Museum of Art, Tacoma, WA and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan. Solo exhibitions of Bellan-Gillen's work are scheduled for spring 2024 at Nicole Longnecker Gallery, Houston, TX and fall 2024 at the Peidmont Art Center, Martinsville, VA. Bellan-Gillen is an alumnus of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania where she received a B.S. in Art Education in 1973 and a B.F.A. in Printmaking in 1975. EUP named her a Distinguished Alumnus in 1993. She did post-graduate work at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and received an M.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon in 1979. She has been active in the Pittsburgh art scene since 1977 as an exhibitor, educator and mentor. In 1995, she was the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Pittsburgh Artist of the Year. She is represented by Tinney Contemporary, Nashville, TN, Zynka Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA and Nicole Longnecker Gallery, Houston, TX. Of her work the artist states, in part: "Somewhere in my brain, personal narrative mixes with fairytales. Historical events intertwine with the imagined and a veil of nostalgia blurs the border between fact and fiction. Sacred imagery moves about in the temporal lobe with iconic characters from childrens' stories and recent news flashes picked from the Internet join the sagas of black and white television. My mixed media drawings and collages use these bits and pieces of visual history—the stones and bones of memory—to suggest a narrative and to engage the viewer's associative responses. Words are powerful. The sounds and meanings of words move me. A line from an old song moaning on a car radio and the strange sound of the word cartouche served as catalysts for this body of work. 'Who will tell your story?' The lyric offered a quiet reminder of the power and importance of words. 'Who tells our story? Who writes our history?'” This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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north gallery
MULTI-FIGURE A thought, a shape, a living being. All of these are connected to the term figure. With this in mind, what is a multi-figural work? While examples may well include the long lineage of images and objects consisting of numerous characters arrayed in composition—from Lascaux to Guernica and beyond—can it also exist as something more than the classical depiction of multiple living beings? In what compositional forms can these figures present themselves? What is the role of multi-figural work in our history, past and present? MULTI-FIGURE invited artists to share how multiple figures can be realized, recognized, and interact—from the common notion of more than one person, to those which stretch the bounds of the concept. For this exhibit 119 artists submitted 411 works from 34 states and 4 countries including Brazil, Canada, Slovakia, and the United States. Thirteen works by the following 9 artists from 9 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Miguel Carter-Fisher Michael Loren Diaz Maeghan Landa Randolph Melick Francois Robert Denise Stewart-Sanabria Riley Waite Chenoa Warner Derek Wilkinson
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Maeghan Landa
Riley Waite
Randolph Melick
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| June 2-30, 2023 |
Ticketed Preview: Thursday, June 1, 7-9pm |
main gallery
RITES OF PASSAGE
Initiated in 2005, The Rites of Passage exhibits were developed to support student excellence by offering a public venue for the display of advanced creative research, to promote young artists as they transition into their professional careers, and to bring the positive creative energies of national institutions together in one place. With this nineteenth annual installment of the Rites series, Manifest offers a $500 best of show prize to reward excellence at this early career level, as well as a non-monetary Director's Choice Award. The Rites call for submissions was open to students graduating or expecting to graduate in 2022, 2023, or 2024 (undergraduate juniors, seniors, and those who graduated last year). For this exhibit 60 artists representing 42 academic institutions in 25 states submitted 188 works for consideration. Thirteen works by the following 8 artists from 7 states representing 8 different academic institutions are featured in the 19th annual Rites of Passage exhibit.* Artists are listed with their academic status as of the dates of their entry into this competition. Why is this important? The nine early exhibit catalogs for Rites, and now the award-winning Manifest Exhibition Annuals, have over time become a compelling document framing a view into the state of art in academia, and quite possibly the launching place for future notable artists of the world. Featuring works by: Preston Anderson Amanda Arruda Kylee Isom Louisa Lorenz Natalie Morales Nina Samuels Libby Scutt Sam Stoddard
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Natalie Morales
Kylee Isom
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drawing room
MAR 2022/23 Thresholds The year-long Manifest Artist Residency was launched in 2012 with the goal to provide artists with a combination of free studio space, supportive resources such as teaching opportunities and free access to life drawing and other programs at the Manifest Drawing Center, the compelling creative culture that permeates all Manifest programs, and routine engagement with the visiting public during each of our nine exhibit periods each season. To cement their year of development each artist receives another benefit of the program–a MAR Showcase solo exhibition. This solo exhibit features works made by our 2022/23 Artist in Residence, Hanna Sosin. (Hanna was previously 2021/2022 Scholar in Residence as well). This marks the culmination of Hanna's residency at Manifest which officially concludes in June. The exhibit serves as a celebration of her achievements and adoption into the growing list of Manifest residency alumni.
Hanna Sosin is an artist and art instructor currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She holds a Biochemistry BA from Earlham College (2015) and will be pursuing her Studio Art MFA at Northern Illinois University starting Fall 2023. Hanna's drawings and paintings sew together the edges of biology, fantasy, and humor into unexpected narratives and worlds. With her art, Hanna attempts to glimpse beyond her own world and into others where exploration is a caring act. Her award winning works have been displayed both in group and solo shows throughout Michigan and Ohio. She was Manifest's Scholar in Residence in 2021-22 and Artist in Residence for the 2022-23 season.
Of her work the artist states: This sense of adventure is built by combining my improvisational animist daydreams with honed technical skill. Improvisation allows for joy to seep into my work. I start only with a few guiding intentions (inspirational imagery, a few lines drawn by a friend, limited palettes, and/or a response to a previous piece) and then I play until the work is finished. This can be successful only because I believe in the worlds I create. That they are living breathing worlds. That I have only captured just the barest of glimpses of. They have stories and movement beyond what I could ever imagine. And are greater than the sum of their parts."
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parallel space
MAGNITUDE SEVEN An exhibit of works from across the U.S. and England, each no larger than about 7" in size. Almost two decades ago, in 2005, we launched the Magnitude Seven project with the idea that small works would be easier and more practical for artists to send to Manifest in Cincinnati from anywhere in the world. This proved true, and right off it was this exhibit that lead to Manifest earning a reputation as 'the neighborhood gallery for the world.' Inevitably MAG 7 is a wild and varied mix of works, including an extreme range of media, styles, and artist intents. The exhibit always gains unity from the common scale, so even disparate works seem to engage in playful and tolerant conversation across the gallery or side by side. We have found that having a gallery full of hand-sized works is a joyful experience of small things well made, a menagerie of creativity, and a poignant reminder that bigger is not always better. We are happy to offer this nineteenth annual exhibit of works no larger than seven inches in any dimension! For this exhibit 101 artists submitted 352 works from 28 states, Washington D.C., and 4 countries, including England, Germany, Norway, and the United States. Twenty-seven works by the following 15 artists from 9 states and England were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Rob Anderson Marsha Balian Laurie Cohen Amanda Colon Cori Crumrine Richard Dickson Patty Flauto Cat Gambel Jody Graff Kay Kojima Carole Kunstadt Dominic Lippillo V Mann Benjamin Salesse James Wade
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Amanda Colon
Cori Crumrine
Patty Flauto
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central gallery
MAR 2022/23 Apparent Motion The year-long Manifest Artist Residency was launched in 2012 with the goal to provide artists with a combination of free studio space, supportive resources such as teaching opportunities and free access to life drawing and other programs at the Manifest Drawing Center, the compelling creative culture that permeates all Manifest programs, and routine engagement with the visiting public during each of our nine exhibit periods each season. To cement their year of development each artist receives another benefit of the program–a MAR Showcase solo exhibition. This solo exhibit features works made by our 2022/23 Artist in Residence, Anna Kipervaser. This marks the culmination of Anna's residency at Manifest which officially concludes in June. The exhibit serves as a celebration of her achievements and adoption into the growing list of Manifest residency alumni.
Anna Kipervaser is a Ukrainian-born artist whose practice engages with a range of topics including human and animal bodies, ethnicity, religion, colonialism, and environmental conservation. Her engagement with these topics is informed by a commitment to formal experimentation, DIY and alternative processes, spanning disciplines including experimental and documentary moving image works in both 16mm film and digital video. Her work screens at festivals internationally, including at Prismatic Ground, Process Experimental Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Crossroads Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Light Field, Antimatter, Fracto, Imagine Science Film Festival, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Indie Grits Film Festival, Muestra Internacional Documental de Bogota, among others. Anna's work also screens in classrooms, galleries, museums, microcinemas, basements, and schoolhouses! Her films are distributed by CFMDC, Alchemiya, and Canyon Cinema. She is also a painter, printmaker, educator, curator of exhibitions, and programmer of screenings.
Of her work the artist states:
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(detail)
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north gallery
FUTURE FORM Time is a vast landscape experienced in the sliver of a moment. Any thinking beyond the moment involves casting our mind into the future or the past, remembering what has happened or envisioning the shape of things to come. How do we visualize this? How do we map it? Does cutting time into eras, years, seconds let us understand time’s expanse, its topography? How big is time? Applying the definition of geography to a geography of time might read, “The study of the features of time and its effects on human activity, and human activity's effect on time.” Can humans, then, affect time? Can we pollute it? What does the use of time as a natural resource produce? Does it exist outside of our use? Outside of our perception? Is there a kind of time we can’t touch? That can’t touch us? FUTURE FORM called to artists around the world for works of visual art that explore or answer these questions and more—art about the idea of time, its passage, how we measure it, and the mystery of the 4th dimension. For this exhibit 51 artists submitted 177 works from 21 states and 5 countries, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, and the United States. Sixteen works by the following 12 artists from 8 states and Germany were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Adam Crowley Jacob Docksey Sharon Draghi Jeffrey Hansen Sam Horowitz RD Mitchell Andrei Mocanu Michael Pfirrman Lisa River Schenkelberg Ben Steele Nicholas Warndorf Chris Young
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Adam Crowley
Nicholas Warndorf
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| July 14 - August 11, 2023 |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: Thursday, July 13, 7-9pm |
main gallery
MASTER PIECES Building upon the philosophy of the Rites of Passage exhibits for undergrads, each year Manifest offers a similar opportunity to current and recent graduate students for exhibiting at Manifest. This seventeenth installment of the Master Pieces project continues to reveal the intensity and professionalism of students working towards their terminal academic degree in the field of visual arts. As do our annual Rites of Passage and TAPPED exhibits, Master Pieces reflects our organization's commitment to surveying, documenting, and presenting the state of arts in academia on an ongoing basis. We believe this is important to artists, the public, students, and teachers. Often the most exceptional work comes out of graduate students' immersion in their culture of study and intellectual pursuit. Manifest’s goal, therefore, has been to select and document works that in the truest sense of the word are contemporary masterpieces—works that represent the standard of quality that the artist is expected to maintain throughout his or her professional career as a Master. The exhibit catalogs for the earliest Master Pieces exhibits, and now the award-winning Manifest Exhibition Annual, will serve as a visual documentation of these artists’ own benchmarks for years to come. For this 17th annual exhibit 68 artists representing 49 academic institutions submitted 226 works from 22 states and Canada. Ten works by the following 7 artists from 7 states representing 7 different academic institutions were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Featuring works by: Gino Castellanos Grace Doyle Ellery Ekleberry Lisa Geertsen Emily Legleitner Marissa Strickland Shiyu Zhang
Artists are listed with their academic status as of the dates of their entry into this competition.
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Gino Castellanos
Ellery Ekleberry
Shiyu Zhang
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drawing room
UP HIGH + DOWN LOW
In the era of the salon, the coveted place for display was at eye level, where the viewer could regard an artwork with no stooping or straining. Eye level is the standard place to hang an artwork, and yet there is a vast amount of gallery space above and below this that we have an opportunity to engage.
Occasionally we opt to conduct a playful experiment in our galleries in collaboration with artists who have responded to our invitation, testing ideas in real time, and observing the results. Displayed together in one gallery these sibling shows called for works engaging with the ceiling, the wall above our heads, or anywhere above the gallery-standard 60” eye level for Up High, and below 60” or anywhere in the space below our eye level for Down Low. In this way we divided the gallery in half horizontally between upper and lower. For this experimental pairing of two exhibits in one space 33 artists submitted 81 works from 21 states. Six works by the following 6 artists from 6 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting work by:
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Green A Studios
Stefanie Zito
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parallel space
The Hollows Are Now The Home Adrian Hatfield makes work examining the visual language strategies of science, pop culture and fine art history in conveying unfathomably huge subject matter. Recently, his focused has narrowed to address the overwhelming reality of our unfolding environmental catastrophe. His works are included in the public collections of The University of Michigan, The South Bend Museum of Art, Northern Arizona University Art Museum, and The University of Iceland in Reykjavik, Iceland. Solo exhibition venues include Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, The South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend IN, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL, and Biggin Gallery, Auburn University. Two-person and small group exhibitions venues include The Butchers Daughter, New York, NY, Jeffrey Leder Gallery, New York, NY and Jack the Pelican Presents, New York, NY. Publications include The Manifest Press International Painting Annual, Fresh Paint Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine and Essayd. Of his work the artist states, in part: "My research is fueled by anxiety about our current environmental crisis, and it reflects an attempt to understand these events through the lens of geologic time while simultaneously criticizing our present-day response to them. While society is understandably dismayed at the prospects of rising oceans, shrinking agricultural production, increased natural disasters and mass extinction, it is also true that the processes of life and evolution will continue with or without us. New ecosystems will emerge and new species will thrive. There is hope in the realization that the natural world is bigger than us. The intention is for my paintings to convey those experiences in tension: dread, splendor, joy, terror, wonder and the absurdity of human inaction. Their iconography samples and recombines elements from art history, illustration and satire, with a goal of existing somewhere between a requiem, a science fiction fever dream, and a call-to-arms.'” This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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central gallery
PATHWAYS
Stephanie Garmey creates imagery inspired by her collection of natural objects and materials and taxidermy animals. Her meditations on nature use a variety of media approaches: constructions and installations, book arts, painting, cut paper, embroidery, encaustics, wood, glass, drawing, and light. Garmey has received individual artist’s grants from the Maryland State Arts Council in Crafts and Painting and the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture in Painting. She has attended residencies at Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program in Rochefort - en - Terre, Brittany, France and Vermont Studio Center in painting. She will be an Atelier Artist in Residence in Spring 2024 at the Westcove Estate in Ireland. Important painting and installation exhibitions include numerous solo shows in the Mid-Atlantic region. These include “Pathways” at Hillyer Gallery (2020) in Washington, DC; “Indigo Dream” at the Delaware Contemporary (2017) in Wilmington, Delaware; “Edge of the Forest” at Vis Arts (2015) Rockville, MD, “Wetlands” (2013) at the Maryland Institute College of Art; “Forest Floor” (2011) at Stevenson University, Baltimore,MD; and “Swamp and Gardens” (2002) at Loyola College, Baltimore, MD. An upcoming solo show will be in the Fall of 2024 at Manor Mill in Monkton, MD. Garmey teaches in the Drawing and General Fine Arts Departments at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Current classes taught are Mixed Media Book Arts, Nature Drawing, and Paper Cuts 2D to 3D. Stephanie Garmey received her MFA degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art - Hoffberger School of Painting where she studied with Grace Hartigan.
Of her work the artist states: "Animals have an instinctual flow within the balance of their particular ecosystems. Each has their own remarkable intelligence and skills, bound in the instinctual knowledge that is the book needed to teach future animal generations. Recent animal tableaus have included an abstraction of a book form that contains pieces of this instinctual and experiential creature knowledge. The books, placed within the animal environments contain suggestions of migratory maps, daily paths, flora, fauna, and relics from their habitats. I strive to give each animal a presence of intelligence and dignity in their way of life. All of these animals are impacted by human lack of deference to the delicate balance of nature. We know that the animal pathways, created over thousands of years and generations, are at risk globally. These portraits of animals in their environments are meant to remind us of our own ancient origins and the positive and fruitful acknowledgment of animal power and coexistence that is at the roots of human culture.” This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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north gallery
SKY The sky is an aspirational place. Its distance from us likely has something to do with that everything in it is out of reach. We spend most of our lives looking into it while trapped firmly on the ground. Our time in the sky exists in the brief moments we can separate ourselves from the earth and fully immerse ourselves into the void. The strange thing about our perceived distance is that the sky does not sit, untouchable, on the other side of a barrier. The sky is intimately pressed against us, traveling down into our lungs, holding us together with 15 pounds of pressure per square inch. In this sense, the sky is our mold. our form. We are intimate with the sky, while simultaneously feeling so far away from everything inside of it. The sky is naturally divided into layers: places where life can exist, where weather is formed, where satellites travel at high speed. It is divided into airspace, fraught boundaries that determine safety and sovereignty. The sky is beautiful. It is full of stars, and clouds, birds, planes, kites, microbes, dust motes, noise, light, and so much more. It is very cold. The sky burns meteors to ash and presents them as shooting stars. The sky has an end and shields us from the true void of space even as it frames it as starscape, like the cornea of a giant blue eye. How does something finite feel so infinite? SKY is an exhibit of works about the sky, the things that travel through it, the phenomena in it, and how we try touch it. For this exhibit 118 artists submitted 416 works from 33 states and 4 countries, Canada, Dominican Republic, Germany, and the United States. Thirteen works by the following 10 artists from 7 states and Germany were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Katlyn Brumfield Tracy Fish John Hampshire Bryan E Hutchison Renee McGinnis Andrei Mocanu Jay Shepard Sophia Sherar Linda Stillman Joseph Tigert
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John Hampshire
Sophia Sherar
Linda Stillman
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| August 18 - September 15, 2023 SEASON 19 FINALÉ! |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: Thursday, August 17, 7-9pm |
main gallery
PLASTIC It is difficult to think of a medium that is as useful as plastic while also being so fraught. Plastic is a modern material. It lacks the gravitas of stone and oil paint, but it makes so much more possible. Plastics are lightweight. Acrylics are water-soluble. Pragmatically, they are affordable. Aesthetically they are brilliant, moldable, stretchable. They can be engraved, cut, shaped by the artist who also knows that plastic is haunting their water, their soil and air, their bloodstream. Nearly everything we use is made from plastic. Acrylic. Nylon. Polymer clay. Rayon. Silicone. Polycarbonate. Vinyl. Teflon. PVC. Celluloid. We build things we truly need with them, and many things we want. We mass-produce plastic. It can be beautiful. And it is useful. And it leaches. PLASTIC is an exhibition of works featuring plastic as subject matter, works primarily made from any type of plastic, or art about its heavy presence in our lives. For this exhibit, 56 artists submitted 191 works from 28 states and 4 countries, Australia, Latvia, Malaysia, and the United States. Eleven works by the following 9 artists from 8 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Featuring works by: Michael Aurbach Amanda Besl Margaret Craig Shelley Gilchrist Christine Lorenz Daniel Miller Erik Jon Olson Stacy Bloom Rexrode David Schnuckel
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Michael Aurbach
Stacy Bloom Rexrode
Daniel Miller
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drawing room
PRIVATE SPACE Can you keep a secret? We are encouraged to share so much of ourselves now, beyond the normal work of cultivating levels of intimacy through communion with friends, family, workmates, and neighbors. Artists are used to this, to a point. We make a work of art, which acts not only as a piece of self-expression, but necessarily as a meeting place for viewers to experience and be affected by what we made, by who they saw it with. The act of making art is highly personal, highly intimate, but its second life requires that it be shared, made public. That it be shown. In this case, we control what we share and how much we abstract or obscure. And yet, beyond our work, we and the rest of the world are asked to give more. We post pictures, publicly celebrate birthdays, wear our political stances in identifiable and categorizable ways. This is only what we give voluntarily, not the information gleaned from our simple participation in society. Yet we share in the process of making ourselves, our lives, into data. Does this openness make you happier? Safer? More successful? Do you feel connected? It takes effort now to keep secrets, and to carve out a place to be unobserved. PRIVATE SPACE is an exhibit of works about this effort—about secrets, surveillance, solitude, and the tension between openness and over-exposure. For this exhibit, 31 artists submitted 105 works from 21 states and 2 countries, Germany and the United States. A blind jury process selected ten works by the following 8 artists from 7 states for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting work by:
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Julia Paul
Kevin Maginnis
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parallel space
Octopus's Garden John Lee is Associate Professor of Painting at William & Mary. He is a graduate of the certificate program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Pennsylvania, holds a BFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and received his MFA from Indiana University in Bloomington. John is an oil painter who works directly from life with an interest in color, light, space, and weight. He has worked in traditional genres such as still-life and self-portraiture, but his primary subject matter is the light of interior spaces. John has shown at various venues nationally, but primarily in the northeast region, including a 2019 solo show at First Street Gallery in New York. He is a past member of the Zeuxis Still Life Association and has shown with the Midwest Paint Group. Recently, John was awarded an invitational summer show at the Bowery Gallery in NYC, for June 2024. Of his work the artist states, in part:
The paintings are about a particular feeling for light, space, and color. The work is begun with excitement for light in the studio, a strong sunny day filtered through the skylight and the green trees outside the windows. The color in the painting aims to be expressive of strong fauvist-like colors that I sense as I look, yet the colors are mixed down so to hopefully express both the colors and the weighted planes of the room and the objects. It is my desire that a viewer would spend time with the work to experience the color which has been muted and suppressed. I want a weighted Fauvism with the work. A convincing feeling of gravity and space creates a convincing feeling of compression in the paintings. The gravity and compression attempt to justify the impressionistic blush of color and light. The title of this show, 'Octopus's Garden', was taken from my painting with the same name, which was inspired by a documentary film titled 'My Octopus Teacher.’"
This exhibition was selected from among 182 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 19th season.
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central gallery + north gallery
15th Annual NUDE
Manifest exhibits many kinds of works, from conceptual and experimental art to traditional. We think it's essential to have such a range in our repertoire. It is something that Manifest is known for. Every year our annual projects allow us to track how artists around the world address a consistent theme, subject, or media over time, or will enable us to document the state of art in a particular stratum of professional creative activity and to study and preserve our findings in a meaningful way through our exhibit publications and website. NUDE is one such project. The human body is a popular subject for many reasons, the most obvious being that it is us. Throughout history (and pre-history), the representation of the human form has been charged with tremendous energy. Whether it be a religious edict that one should not depict the human form—a taboo, or the glorious opposite—a revelation of mastery over form in crafting sensuous and life-like physical human beauty, the art of the body has nevertheless moved us through time. Through all the permutations art has experienced across history, work of the body persists. We use the human nude to master skill, understand ourselves, and push social and psychological buttons for the sake of expression (sensual, delicate, political, aggressive, and so on). We intend for Manifest's ongoing annual NUDE project, now in its 15th year, to explore how our collective body is used today in art to achieve these goals and more. This year we are happy to present Manifest's 15th annual NUDE, an international competitive exhibit exploring the uncovered human form in current art. For this exhibit, 159 artists submitted 642 works from 37 states, Washington D.C., and six countries, including Canada, the Czech Republic, England, France, Malaysia, and the United States. A blind jury process selected twenty-one works by the following 14 artists from 8 states and Canada for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Featuring works by: Kate Brockman Peter Bustin Daniel Dallmann Dennis Gordon Luke Jordan Peter M. Krask Theresa Lucey Jamie Luoto Jeff Mathison Natalie Morales Heidi Mortensen Ira Upin Jesse Zuo
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——— END OF SEASON 19 ——— THANK YOU!
Manifest is supported by sustainability funding from
the Ohio Arts Council, and through the generous direct contributions of hundreds of individual supporters and private foundations who care deeply about Manifest's mission for the visual arts. |
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