Thu 9/1 -Fri 10/7
Cleveland artist Dexter Davis’ mixed-media collage/drawings are familiar to anyone who attended shows at the former William Busta Gallery. Visceral and jammed with images, they seem to explode their boundaries. It’s hard to tell if he’s piecing his world together or reveling in blowing it apart.
A Cleveland Institute of Art graduate who works as a security guard at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Davis — who grew up in a rough part of Cleveland’s inner city — has had his ups and downs. Busta has been one of the people encouraging him, scheduling shows and giving him deadlines to produce work.
While he closed his own gallery in Cleveland a year ago, he’s still behind Davis. He curated the show Dexter Davis: A Portrait, which will be the opening exhibit for the new Center for the Visual Arts Gallery. The show will be accompanied by a 90-page catalog written by CWRU art history professor Henry Adams.
A public reception will take place a week after the work goes on view, on Thu 9/8 @ 5-8pm. The reception and the exhibit are free. It runs through Fri 10/7.
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