Thu 9/26 @ 6-9PM
Artist Arabella Proffer wasn’t a native Clevelander but she might as well have been. She was such a large and beloved presence in the local art scene she felt like ours, even though she grew up in Michigan and moved here from southern California where she went to art school. She and her husband Ben moved to northeast Ohio about two decades ago where they indulged in their passion for indie music by forming the Elephant Stone Record label together — Arabella loved music s much as she loved art.
Meanwhile Arabella was becoming known for her distinctive portrait style, which it many people’s radars when she did a show of her fictional portraits that blended historical and contemporary style elements. Then, about 15 years ago, she began to visualize and paint vividly colored abstract biomorphic images. Shortly after that, she learned that she had cancer in her leg, and the imaging of her tumor looked like what she was painting.
Arabella lived with cancer for almost 15 years before she passed away in May. (She had been told she was terminal in the spring of 2020 and likely wouldn’t live to see the fall. As she often did, she fooled fate.) She was 45. Her work is archived in Artists Archives of the Western Reserve where a show of her work as an archived artist opened two weeks before she died. She was there.
Her friends will be gathering at 78th Street Studios, where she frequently hung out and first showed her “Biomorphic Garden Party” images (and got much of the inspiration for her 2019 book The Restrooms of Cleveland.)
All are invited to share the celebration of this remarkable woman. Learn more about her here.