Wed 3/19 @ 4PM
Fri 3/21 @ 5-8PM
This year, HEDGE Gallery at 78th Street Studios is doing a series of shows pairing artists whose work interacts in interesting ways, each reflecting aspects of the other. Opening this week is a show by two, one a long-time denizen of the local arts scene, the other a more recent transplant.
Longtime Clevelander Rita Montlack’s photo-based collage-like work has been widely seen in this area. Beginning with a photographic image, she adds other materials behind or on top of the image or manipulates it until it becomes something otherworldly. For this show, she explores her recent fascination with artificial intelligence. She says, “The title of my show, AI: Artificial Insanity, addresses the issues of intelligence combined with the question of insanity. I mimic this concept in the contemplation and creation of my work; taking real photographs, then digitally manipulating them until they become surreal. I love taking things out of context and placing them where they don’t belong to make combinations of strange bedfellows.”
Her work will be paired with that of a recent arrival to northeast Ohio, printmaker Meryl Engler, who moved to Akron in 2019 after growing up in California and going to school in Syracuse, NY and Lincoln, Nebraska. Her oversized reduction woodcuts that reflect the interaction of people with the environment, form the basis of her half of the show, titled The Constant Urge to Walk All Night. “Carving and printing are cathartic acts that require the full presence of self,” she says. “I think of my reduction woodcuts almost like watercolor, printing translucent layers of color that mix on paper. The result is physical, subtle, and bold.”
The show opens with a preview reception on Wednesday March 19 and hosts its official opening on Friday March 21 during Third Friday. Both are free and open to the public. The show will be on view through April 26.
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