Fri 1/24 @ 6-8PM
Abattoir Gallery, located in the Hildebrandt Building on Cleveland’s west side, kicks off 2025 with a show that features four artists with international backgrounds who hail from around the country. They’re brought together, according to the gallery’s press release, by the fact that all “use materiality to conjure spiritual forces, primeval imagination, and history in ways that reach beyond fact and science into other realms.”
Julia Callis, who is from Detroit, draws inspiration for her paintings from fairy tales, medieval manuscripts, merry-go-rounds and mythologic to create her fantasy landscapes; her work has previously been shown at Abattoir.
Mexico City’s Claudia Peña Salinas works in sculpture, installation and printmaking as she explores the geological and economic work histories of Mexico, based on her extensive research and inspired by the land art movement of the 60s and 70s. She’ll have a sculpture and a wall piece in this show, created from brass, plexiglass and wool, both based on her search for the original site of the ancient Tlaloc monolith.
Jen P Harris created paintings based on weavings at Praxis Fiber Workshop in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District, with the painting functioning as the loom, with layers that create visual confusion. Harris’ work has also been seen previously at Abattoir. And finally Thiang Uk, an immigrant from Myanmar who now lives in Baltimore, uses his complex personal history to fuel his impasto oil paintings of the natural world.
The show opens with a public reception on Friday January 24.
Cleveland, OH 44113