Fri 1/10 @ 5-7:30PM
Akron Soul Train, the nonprofit that provides short-term residencies for artists in all disciples to work on a specific project, is launching 2025 with a pair of shows by artists with Caribbean ancestry who use their work to reflect on voyages of different kinds.
Mixed-media sculptor Earl O. James’ Pathways and Passages is based on movement and migration, both voluntary and forced, reflecting on the experience of people moving to unfamiliar places. He uses processes such as metal welding, wood shaping, casting and carving waxes, creating molds for pouring hot metal and glass, and cold-forming cement to suggest how these migrants are shaped by the difficulties they endure. Born in Jamaica and growing up in Rochester, New York, James earned his BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art; he now lives in Cleveland.
Joining his work in Akron Soul Train’s gallery is work by Puerto Rican artist Nico Cacho Flores, titled Oneiric Cartographies, exploring a different sort of journey, the ones between the conscious and unconscious mind and focusing on inner landscapes and how they evolve through dreams. It’s described as a “meditation on the symbolic power of dreams, interpreted as a dialogue between inner landscapes and collective consciousness.” She was educated in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and California and now lives in Kent, Ohio.
The shows open with a free public reception on Friday January 10 and will be on view through Sunday February 15.
191 S Main St, Akron, OH 44308