Images from Sara Pearce's "Sporting" Series

Hello! These new beauties will be in the RolePlay show:

© Sarah Pearce, 2013

Foreplay

mixed-media collage: vintage print, map (U.S. Geological Survey) and illustrations (Woman's World, 1922; Architectural Forum, 1960); ink, watercolor, marker; archival mat board. Framed with conservation glass for UV protection.

17.5" x 8.75"

Helena Always Hooked the Big Ones

mixed-media collage: antique illustration (Peterson's Magazine); vintage prints and map (U.S. Geological Survey); recycled greeting card, wrapping paper and children's book proof; hand-marbled paper; ink, watercolor, marker; archival mat board. Framed with conservation glass for UV protection.

18" x 9"

Leader of The Pack

mixed-media collage: antique illustrations (Peterson's Magazine); vintage prints and map (U.S. Geological Survey); handmade paper; ink, watercolor, marker; archival mat board. Framed with conservation glass for UV protection.

18" x 9"

The Twins Glided Around Hugo in Precise Circles

mixed-media collage:antique illustrations (Peterson's Magazine); vintage print and map (U.S. Geological Survey); recycled catalog cover, children's book proof, and tissue papers; ink, watercolor and acrylic paint, marker; acrylic matte medium image transfers (Popular Educator: Vols. 2 & 3, 1884); archival mat board. Framed with conservation glass for UV protection.

19" x 10" 

Sara Pearce: "RolePlay" @1305

Geoffrey Believed the Maxim That “The Ability to Accessorize Is What Separates Us From the Animals”

mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce, 2012

antique photograph, album page and illustrations (The Delineator; Godey’s Lady’s Book); 

vintage rhinestone button from the collection of Polly Pearce, recycled bead catalog;

ink, marker, watercolor. Framed in an antique frame, with conservation glass for UV protection.

6" x 8.25"

Opening Final Friday, March 29th with a a reception from 6-11 pm that evening is:

RolePlay

new collages by Sara Pearce

Exhibition runs through April 21st, with regular gallery hours Thursday- Sunday: 12-4 pm.

David Always Wore Pearls for Formal Portraits

mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce, 2012

antique photograph, album page and illustration (Delineator,  March 1893); 

recycled bead and jewelry catalogs; ink, marker. Framed in an antique

frame, with conservation glass for UV protection.

6.5" x 9"

It was kismet- Sara Pearce said yes to having a show at 1305 this year! I thought, "how very perfect to have her work here." I have had a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Sara Pearce for years. Her relatively recent foray into creating visual art, making stunning collages from her impressive collection of vintage and antique paper, now gives me the opportunity to write about her. How very daunting!

If you are a patron of the arts in Cincinnati and haven't seen one of Pearce's pieces it's long past time that you did. She has dutifully documented much of her process and her publicity on her website http://www.paperwithapast.com, with links there to her blog which she posts in almost daily, if you need to catch up. A self-described frenetic personality, Pearce is as prolific at creating works of art as she is precise. Perhaps some of the profusion gains inertia from the artist's media: a vast and organized collection principally ofpaper. 

The collages, which she mostly will label as "mixed media," demand long labels to hold not just the clever and often wordy titles, but also to reference the publication or printed document from which each element owes its origin. Often very little of the piece is anything else other than meticulously cut and arranged original paper imagery or text. The artist will lend just a little watercolor, ink, or marker to many of the pieces in this exhibition, as well the occasional vintage rhinestone button. Ever present in the compositions is Ms. Pearce's wit, sensitivity to historic notions and objects, ability to point out our cultural fallacies, and a terrific eye for the fantastic. 

Come see RolePlay for a look into Sara Pearce's  pieces exploring contemporary and historical notions of gender, equality, and the ever-raging battle of the sexes. Check out Sara's website for additional images and info!

Charles Wondered Whether the Sleeves Were a Bit Much

mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce, 2012

antique photograph (photographer: Dana, 14th St. & 6th Ave., New York, NY),

album page and illustration (Delineator, Dec. 1895); ink, watercolor, marker.

Framed in an antique frame, with conservation glass for UV protection.

7.25" x 9.25"

Richard Felt Most Comfortable Cross Dressing in the Privacy of His Study

mixed-media collage by Sara Pearce, 2012

antique photograph, album page and illustrations (The Ladies World, Nov. 1895 & Oct. 1895; 

Delineator, June 1898, July 1899, Aug. 1899 & Sept. 1904); ink, marker, watercolor. 

Framed in an antique frame, with conservation glass for UV protection.

4" x 7"

Nate Weikert @ 1305

Opening Final Friday, February 22nd with a reception from 6-11 pm that evening & running through March 24th, 2013 is:

Nate Weikert

new work

 

Next month's exhibition showcases the talent of local artist and educator Nate Weikert in a collection of oil paintings on canvas or linen, and graphite drawings with gouache on paper. The two types of media both work to articulate a series which uses a neutral, grayscale palette to fragment, simplify, and obscure the subject matter.




In many of the paintings Weikert appropriates portrait-style imagery of individuals from history and culture onto a blurred and diffused surface. The already coded subjects become even more disembodied and cold, reflecting the numb and often oversimplified feelings we tend to draw from serious subject matter once it has been over publicized and marketed by the media.

The drawings combined with gouache are large and dramatic, with a distinct black on white palette. Many of them in the exhibition will hang clean and unframed against the warm wood and carpeted walls, creating a perfect silhouette for the clean, crisp paper and the figures represented thereupon. Deftly rendered lower limbs are portrayed in muscular movements or stances, but are immediately halted by abstract black shapes that appear where the eye expects a torso, arms, and a head. The images are immediately stilled by this juxtaposition, and the viewer gains a pleasant confusion in trying to decipher the origin of the black voided gouache shapes.

Join us Final Friday to mingle, nosh, and meet the artist Nate Weikert. Visit Facebook for updates about this and other exhibitions at 1305 Gallery.

Philip LaVelle @ 1305

Gleaming the Cube

spray paint, inkjet prints, and acrylic medium on panel, 24" x 24"

2011-2012

Philip LaVelle

new work

January 25th- February 17th

 gallery hours: thurs-sun 12-4 & by appointment  

Time Travel is Lonely

spray paint, inkjet Prints,  and acrylic medium on panel, 12" x 24"

2012

Where We Will Be Tomorrow

spray paint, inkjet prints, acrylic medium on panel, 29" x 39"

2011-2012

Philip LaVelle creates mixed media paintings out of a residential studio on Court Street in downtown Cincinnati. His work has an urban, contemporary feel fused with a conceptual shift which mirrors our changing culture, both here in Cincinnati and in 2013 worldwide.
 
The paintings are created with dense layers of spray paint, collage, and clear gloss acrylic medium. They have a visual depth that is both literal and conceptual. He creates landscapes and structures in his work that seem at first tangible but shift continuously before the viewer's eye into more virtual constructs. 
We are reminded of how comfortable society has become with viewing our lives and our world through screens, pixels, projections, and digitally-rendered appropriations. We have become infinitely distanced from our everyday lives, while we experience the feeling of being continuously more networked and connected. 
 
One does not get a sense of judgement on these modalities from Lavelle's work, but rather that he has found a way to use the media and the surfaces in his artwork to interpret and render his experience of this virtual phenomena. It is then made immediate, real, and first hand- but you have to come see the work in person to truly understand what I'm describing! In the mean time you can visit the blog or facebook page for more images- see below.
 

Dated Electronic Music and the Air When You Realize it's Fall

spray paint, inkjet prints, acrylic medium on panel, 11.75" x 10.75"

2012

Eighth Annual Yuletide @ 1305

Attention Everyone:

It is time once again for Holiday fun at 1305 Gallery! Your destination for kitschy, funky, gorgeous, and one-of-a-kind gifts and artwork is open for business at 10 am Friday, November 23rd and stays open 7 days a week right through January 5th!

This year's Artists include:

Cincy Craft Cartel, Rich Fruth, James Webb, Katie Swartz, Saint Lexi, David Wischer, Hark Hark, Lori Larusso, Lily & Jackie Mulberry, and more...

Extended Hours: Monday- Saturday: 11-7, Sundays 12-5!

Lots of great incentives and events throughout the exhibition, including Holidays In The Bag on 11/23/12, Small Business Saturday 11/24/12, Final Fridays on 11/30/12, and 12/28/12, and Final Friday before Christmas 11/21/12. Specials and discounts to be announced throughout the month- look for posts on Facebook and updates on the blog!

Tropism @ 1305

Opening Final Friday, September 28th with a reception from 6-11 pm is:

Tropism: Photographs by Rachel Girard Reisert 

September 28th- November 11th gallery hours thurs- sun: 12-4 pm. and by appointment, as well as select evenings to coincide with FOTOFOCUS events and gallery walks.

 Next month Rachel Girard Reisert graces us with a stunning group of photographs in a series she calls, Tropism. Various sources define the word "tropism" as referring to the movement of a biological organism in response to an outside stimulus. In Reisert's toned cyanotype prints on Arches Platine paper, the most obvious reference to this phenomenon is how a tree and its various parts react to sunlight and to the earth they grow forth from. Branches bend and twist, roots dig and trace, and leaves turn.

 Not so obvious is the reference Reisert's title gives to the printing process, and how it in many ways emulates and compliments the meaning of the word as it refers to plants. Creating the cyanotype is an historical non-silver process. She hand-coats paper with light-sensitive emulsion and exposes it to ultraviolet light in contact with a negative. The process accentuates the transformation inherent in the photograph from point of capture to point of print. Both the image and the subject matter rely upon and are transformed by light.

The bluish tone inherent in the cyanotypes mystifies the organic subject matter, as well as softening and cooling the perspective of the viewer, if only slightly or just enough to detach the images from their subjects. The photographs are relatively large in scale for the gallery's size, framed in groups of three each piece measures 20" x 48." The viewer is drawn in and out of branches that explore and defy the paper's edge, that are soft and then sharp at just the right moment to captivate and confuse. In the end one is left feeling touched and endeared to the plight of the organism, as well as captivated by the quality of the image and the work.

 Tropism #6, 2010

 Tropism #3, 2010

Tropism #1, 2010

Please come join us on Final Friday or during regular gallery hours as the gallery participates in the City-wide photography biennial FOTOFOCUS.

Be Easy ceramics by Katie Swartz August 31st- September 23rd gallery hours Thurs- Sun: 12-4 & by appt. Opening Final Friday, August 31st with a reception from 6-11 pm is Be Easy, an exhibition of new ceramic work by local artist & my dear friend Katie Swartz. Many of you are probably familiar with Katie's work in one way or another, this is her second solo show at 1305 Gallery, and she has participated in our annual Holiday Show, Yuletide, for every one of the last 7 years since the gallery opened. Katie's ceramic pieces in this exhibition feature two-dimensional narratives on three-dimensional surfaces. The characters she references in these pieces come directly from her sketchbooks and are reminiscent in their aesthetic to the stuffed animals Swartz is famous for. However, sometimes these characters can take on more serious, dramatic, or even frightening roles on the ceramic pieces in Be Easy. Stories of heartache, compromise, triumph, and trial are ever present in the collective body of work, though often portrayed as one feeling at a time through one endearing character at a time. It is wonderful to see how Katie has advanced and developed as a ceramic artist over the years I have known her, and her craft now seems effortless and natural. It is truly a pleasure to host another exhibition her work, and just the right thing to get the gallery back up on its toes. Hope to see everyone at the opening this Final Friday or during regular gallery hours!

1305 Reopens August 31st!

I hope the summer is treating you all very well- it's been hot but that's pretty much the name of the game in Cincinnati. 1305 Gallery has been on hiatus for a few months for personal reasons, and being closed has been a necessary but difficult decision. There are too many great artists in this city and so few great spaces for exhibitions. That's why the gallery's doors will reopen Final Friday August 31st for an exhibition of ceramic work by local artist Katie Swartz! The gallery will resume regular hours Thursday through Sunday from 12-4 with the opening of Katie's show. In September/October Rachel Reisert's photography exhibition Tropism will be on display just in time for the massive FOTOFOCUS event taking place here in Cincinnati. No joke- I'm already talking about the holiday show- that's Yuletide 2012- to open at the end of November. 1305 Gallery will be accepting submissions for new artists/crafters for this show when the gallery reopens at the end of August. There might only be a few slots available, as I'm hoping many of the great people who have participated in past Yuletides will be back this year. Look for more detailed info about Katie Swartz's and other upcoming shows online very soon (either in your inbox, the blog, or on facebook)!

Sorch @ 1305

Chris Land is newly mastered out of UC in painting. His work is amoebic, fresh, and living. It's invigorating to get an application for a show from someone you've never heard of and never seen before, yet totally local. Even better when their work is killer, like Land's, and you can keep the gallery in blossom for springtime.
The dreamy magnified landscapes that Chris Land paints are vivid and bright. The imagery is an abstract narrative phrased in thick paint. The pieces seem somewhat recognizable then immediately distant. I see magnified spores and then I think I'm looking at a hill of trees in one piece. Land's work is pleasantly confusing.
Please stop by- this show will be the last one for 1305 before reopening after the summer in Final friday August 31st. We'd love to see you! Regular gallery hours: Thursday- Sunday 12-4. Exhibition continues through April 27th, 2012.

Shawna Khalily: The Pure Lands

January 27th- March 24th

New woodcuts by Louisville-based artist Shawna Khalily

An AAC grad from 1992, Khalily makes a triumphant return to Cincy for this exhibition of her woodcut prints. This show is a MUST SEE and the gallery will host the work through March so everyone has a chance to make it in!

Come this Final Friday to meet Shawna and brush elbows with other fellow enthusiasts of her work- or stop in during regular hours Tuesday through Sunday 12-4, Final Fridays 6-11, or by appt.

1305 Main St. Cincinnati Ohio 45202

513.383.6815/gallery1305@hotmail.com

Brand new work by Ruth Wartman this month:

Opening Final Friday, October 28th: reception 6-11 pm is

Land

new work by Ruth Wartman

The exhibition runs through November 21st, with regular gallery hours Thursday through Sunday from 12pm to 4pm, and by appointment.


Since graduating from the BFA program at the art Academy of Cincinnati in 2007, local artist Ruth Wartman has continued to make art prolifically. Her paintings and drawings are spellbinding and carry a sort of lovely sadness within them.
The new group of paintings and drawings she will be presenting in 1305 have been long-awaited. I first approached Ruth when she was still in school about having a show here, and it's finally come to pass.


Join us this and every Final Friday for food, drinks, artwork, a chat with the artist, and to enjoy our street and neighborhood.

Have a Little Conversation with us this month...

New News:

Opening this Friday, September 30th with a reception that evening from 6-11 pm is Little Conversations, new work by Geri Shields.

Shields' work includes whimsical paintings that reflect both her training as an illustrator and a playful interest in childlike characters in coy and somewhat awkward situations. The work is a light-hearted narrative done with a fast and precise hand; rendering soft faces and little conversations.

Exhibition continues through October 22nd, wiith regular gallery hours Thursday-Sunday: 12-4, or by appointment.

Upcoming:

Also- Don't forget Yuletide '11 is coming up in just a couple of months and we have a few spaces left for creative cuteness or elegant handiwork- whatever your specialty is. Contact Lily with ideas, images, and interest. Deadline for submissions is Halloween! If you're already a participant in Yuletide and just need to sign your contract for this year please respond to this email ASAP to set up a meeting time!


Best & See you all soon!

Images & Objects: new work by Mike Jacobs

The exhibition runs through September 23rd with regular gallery hours Thurs-Sun 12-4 & by Appointment.



I first saw Mike Jacobs work at a gallery in Main Strasse about 6 years ago. The exhibition was comprised of multiple large, geometric, framed panels. The imagery within was flat but bold- reinvented pop iconography layered into brightly colored geometric landcapes. These landscapes themselves were encapsulated within a frame that carefully edged out the irregular shape of Jacob's panels. I was immediately jealous that he wasn't showing in my space, but also desperately wishing I had the money at the time to buy one. Since then I have loved seeing his work evolve and was so very pleased to put him on my 2011 Calendar @ 1305!

Mike Jacob's new work is recognizably of his repetoir, but shows a new method for defining the space in his 2-D pieces. The artist is using line, perspective, and color in a very strict and fundamental way to structure the surfaces. The exhibition also includes new toy sculptures by the artist which reference the characters often used in his paintings.

Future Tense by Jeff Casto

Opening Final Friday, May 27th from 6-11 pm is future tense new mixed media, sculpture, and assemblage by local artist Jeff Casto.
The exhibition will run through July 15th, with gallery hours Thursday thru Sunday: 12-4.

Jeff Casto may be a familiar name to many of you, he has been a prolific visionary in the Cincinnati art scene for many years now. His work shows constant progress with a unique sense of itself. While enjoying Casto's work over time, one may feel as though they were sifting through a personal collection of objects, elements, and sentiments- uniquely catalogued and immortalized by the artist.

I found myself wondering as I marveled at Casto's works in his studio, "where did you get all this stuff." A question that apparently I wasn't the first to ask based on the artist's response. He somewhat shyly but clearly hinted that some of the items that end up juxtaposed in his works are indeed found objects, personally collected from here or there, shops or gutters. What was truly charming in his answer was that many things were given to him by friends and acquaintances who knew his work, or simply knew of his passion for unique, adaptable trinkets. Old lockets with forgotten photos, plastic figures of every denomination, yard ornaments, jar lids, and mysterious pieces to the workings of expired machines are but a few of the inanimate populi in Casto's painted and sculpted pieces.

Jeff Casto's work is far more than a collection of misplaced objects and forms. It is methodical, melodramatic, and consists of a quiet yet lurking genius in its completion. The body of work presented for this exhibition at 1305 breeds fears of the revelation, the rapture, with our skewed imaginings of our future world. There is a din painted over the glossy mechanized universe we imagined in our youth, and the opportunities and objects we once believed the future would hold turn out to be nothing more than bits of plastic, metal, and space dust. Our world as when it used to be spoken of in future tense.