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.

Jerzy @ 1305!

Jerzy Barankiewicz
new clay works

Opening Final Friday, April 29th join us @ 1305 for a reception with the artist from 6- 11 pm.
Can't make it to the opening?- the gallery will start new regular hours Thursdays and Fridays, 12-4 & Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5.

Jerzy Barankiewicz is a San Diego via Poland transplant to Cincinnati, having moved to the Queen City 7 years ago to work as the Director of Clinical Research at the Molecular Research Center Inc., of Cincinnati.

Although he started making ceramic work 40 years ago in Poland, his career as a scientist put a halt to his artistic ventures. It was after moving here to our city that Dr. Barankiewicz started working in clay again.

His work is greatly influenced both by his own collection of clay sculpture and native crafts from around the world, and by what seems to be a natural interest in folk art. Much of his work reflects an interest in folk art made in the midwest in the 19th and 20th centuries by European immigrants and their descendants. In other bodies of Jerzy's work his interest in Native American pottery and symbolism is readily at hand.

Somehow despite what would seem to be an intensely busy and focused career, Jerzy, or Jurek as he is often called, finds time to be a prolific and visionary clay artist. He is a joy to be around, both charismatic and accented, and my only complaint would be that he has simply too much good work to choose from! It is a real pleasure to have Jerzy Barankiewicz and his amazing clay work in the gallery for the 6th anniversary of openings at 1305 Gallery.

Zep Up with Michael Stillion!

Opening Final Friday October 29th, a reception with the artist 6-11 pm is: Zep Up: New Work by Michael Stillion.

In Zep Up Michael Stillion brings a new show of evolution, deconstruction, crude love, and creation to the fall season at 1305. This time 3 years ago Michael was installing his first show at the gallery: Man-Made. We begged him to come back after his recent residency in the Southwest and regional exhibitions! Stillions new work is delightfully disconcerting, fixed and wavering, lovely but disturbing, and all things that 1305 Gallery looks for in an artist's work.

Within his paintings and paper collages there is an immediate sense that objects hold no fixed place, that they are in a constant state of coming together and falling apart. Beyond that the subjects go straight from birth-to adulthood- to decomposition- and even to taxidermy, sometimes all in one piece. It's a surreality that Stillion's delightful application of paint permits the viewer to enter at will.

There is a balance in the paintings between his loose, free, and expressive use of the media and the tighly rendered and controlled objects that struggle to make up some undefinable yet wholly present construct. They are playful and inviting, while encasing an ever present sense of gravity, humanity, animal scent, and magic. Many of these elements are new to Michael's paintings since his last show here, demonstrating how prolific painting and experience have molded his work since 2007.

Stillion's work transports you to an invented but remembered place, something both otherworldly and extremely familiar. You want to touch them but you're also afraid you might get too close. Come see.

Hours & Dates:
Tuesday- Saturday: 11-4 (or by appt.)
October 29th- November 20th, 2010

twenty three @ 1305

Opening Final Friday, September 24th with an reception from 6-11 pm is: twenty three, painting, photography and installation by Chad Sines.

Calling Cincinnati home now, and formerly from Newark, Ohio, Sines reflects upon our city's struggle to understand itself through different media in the first show of our fall/winter season @ 1305.

Twenty three is an exhibition about identity in an urban community. Diaspora in inner cities and culture clashes is not only felt but seen. Portraits of our city are drawn out line by line over time on the sides of buildings, strung across busy streets, and echo within the hallowed halls of vacant buildings.

The lack of understanding between people in the same block, same street, and same culture creates feelings of adversity- adversity perpetuated often by class divisions. The feeling of a need to rescue something that might not need rescuing victimizes the city. Who are the perpetrators then if the city is the victim?

Progress is often defined solely by commercial investment, property value, and demographics. Moving the "problem" out of the city. Displacing people- buildings that housed 50 people housing less than 10. Thinking that a city is something other than a collection of people, that the parts are interchangeable.

Respect for oneself and where one came from must coexist with respect for other individuals in a community. Taking ownership of who you are and where you live while respecting who you share that space with and who occupied it before you is difficult. A city that feels sorry for itself and feels as though it needs redemption is one that is not looking honestly into its past, present, or future. How can art help social change in this way? What does the human condition in our cities look like? How do we make our mark in the world?

If you're a bit lost on the subject you need to come see this show. Chad Sines' exhibition twenty three is one person's attempt to ask these questions in a way that will translate visually.

The artist will also offer prints for sale to benefit at-risk youth in the city of Cincinnati.

Camille Cier Update

On Friday August 6th and on that day only, the French photographer Camille Cier will present her last work on abandoned houses named “ABANDON”.
After her work on the poem of Henri Michaud “Le Grand Combat” which was almost abstract, Camille is coming back to the documentary form to illustrate the empty and abandoned places and the past life that these places are still carrying.
After 3 years in Cincinnati and her work shown in galleries (1305 Gallery and Marx Gallerie) and in shops (MICA, Nvision or Elgin Retro), Camille Cier will leave the city at the end of August for a year travelling around the world. Before leaving, Camille will show her very last work that she did in abandoned houses of the Smoky Mountains.
This will be a one-day show only in an empty place on Vine street (1216 Vine street, next door to the Senate restaurant). It’s Friday from 5 to 10pm.

Paradise: Paintings and Collaborations by Bill Ross

Opening Final Friday, July 30th, is Paradise: Paintings and Collaborations by Bill Ross




Bill Ross is a social-worker and artist who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1999, while supporting people with developmental disabilities in the area, he began to come across artists with disabilities creating incredible works. Raymond Thunder-Sky was the first artist he worked with, and this initial meeting led to Ross and Keith Banner co-founding Visionaries & Voices, a studio for artists with disabilities, in 2003. In 2009, he and Banner developed Thunder-Sky, Inc., a non-profit arts organization and gallery dedicated to archiving the works and maintaining the legacy of Raymond Thunder-Sky, as well as offering a chance to exhibit to unconventional artists in the area.


Paradise surveys works from the last decade. Ross’s paintings in “Paradise” depict a candy-colored universe that is both seductively sweet and jarringly violent. In each of his works, Ross uses storybook visual cues (cute but demented animals and creatures populating a Day-Glo forest with cupcake-covered hills beneath an orange-pop sky) to undermine the phoniness of fairy-tales, while somehow maintaining the innocence and humor. In 2004, Ross began a series of collaborations with a variety of artists labeled with developmental disabilities (many of whom attend V&V), including Dale Jackson, Becky Iker, Michael Weber, Kevin White and the late Donald Henry. These collaborative works (usually paintings) are about dislocating notions of who is an artist and what art can be and do, and feature Ross’s signature phosphorescent style merged with the signature styles and obsessions of each of the collaborators.


The exhibition runs through August 21st, including a reception with the artist Final Friday, July 30th from 6-11 pm.


Don't miss it: Gallery hours Tues-Sat: 11-3, Second Sundays 12-5, Final Fridays 6-11

John Blanco @ 1305

Friendly Fire and Chad Cully

Opening Final Friday, March 26th, is Friendly Fire. This exhibition features new sculptural glass work by local artist and educator Chad Cully.
Friendly Fire continues through May 22nd, with regular gallery hours Tuesday- Saturday: 11-3 for the run of the show. 1305 Gallery will host a catered reception with the artist and his work for the opening, March 26th, from 6-11 pm, and then again on April 30th from 6-11 pm.



Friendly Fire:
Not unlike much of society, Chad Cully has been observing the recent cultural obsession with our impending doom as a civilization. Between fears of global warming, more natural disasters, 2012's hearkening, and the ever lurking alien attack, people have been corralled into a frenzy awaiting 'the end of the world.'

Nestled somewhere between apocalyptic satire and a childlike interpretation of our ultimate demise sits Cully's new body of work. In Friendly Fire the artist furnace works, sculpts, blows, and fuses soda lime glass into aliens, bunnies, rocket ships, a UFO, and even a mutant/robotic penguin and pig. They are characters in a humorous interpretation of our last days on earth.
One beautifully sculpted glass alien is both evil and quirky in his posture, for he seeks to kill the cute vessel-like bunnies who are ultimately representations of the innocent.
Massive glass rocket ships with fused representations of earthly things attached to their hulls are the arks which will carry the bunnies and bits of life and culture off to space to find a new home. One is perched on a welded steel base which helps the piece to so perfectly remind us of the cartoonish representations of rockets from our childhood.
Robotic oracles and a mutant pig and penguin seem to hover on the edge of the sinister, but they must somehow be trusted to free the bunnies from being devoured by the aliens!

Come act out the apocalypse with these beautifully intriguing and insanely well made glass characters and invent your own ending to the story!

Michael Stillion update!

Michael Stillion is showing his work currently at Linda Warren's Project Space in Chicago. If you're up there in the neighborhood please check out his new work and let us know how happy you are to see him showing in such a great space!
We hope to have Michael show here at 1305 again soon, as anyone who saw his exhibition here or knows his work can agree!
Check out the gallery's site at:

http://lindawarrengallery.com/index2.shtml

Go Michael!

"Winged": @ 1305

Opening Final Friday, February 26th is Winged, new work by local artist Kelly Frigard.

The exhibition opens with a catered reception hosted by 1305 Gallery and the Artist on February 26th from 6-11 pm. The show runs through March 21st, with gallery hours Tuesday- Saturday: 11-3, or by appointment.

Winged, Kelly Frigard's second exhibition of new work at 1305 Gallery features pieces showcasing her masterful use of fiber and ceramic media to create delicate and whimsical forms. In her February 2006 exhibition, Wish, Frigard combined hand dyed and felted wool with hand embroidery to create wall-mounted scenes and figures that were both melancholy and warm. The resulting exhibit proved ideal for a winter show.

Now in February of this year, Frigard continues to work in traditional methods of hand felting and hand embroidery, also employing her training in ceramic sculpture and prepared animal skins and furs. These media mix to create soft, fragile, idyllic forms that are at once pulled from nature and taught between our world and that of the natural and unstained. It is a delight to once again showcase her talent in the gallery, bringing a little corner of warmth to our frozen city.

Please join us on Final Friday for the opening of Kelly Frigard's exhibition Winged, and that of 1305 Gallery's 2010 exhibition year.

Remember: There's always plenty of Good Food, Good Friends, and Great Art when you come to Final Fridays at 1305!

Yuletide Surprises Everyday @ 1305!

Confluence stays up 'til November 14th!

Come by the gallery this Final Friday for another chance to meet Rich and see his work! Costumes are welcome as it will be one ghoulish night in OTR!