Studio Update with Alex Conrad

Today we're checking out some of Alex's new projects and getting a peek into his studio!

Alex has been working this Spring experimenting with scale and materials. While working predominantly as a painter, he doesn't shy away from sculpture and collage, and these elements tend to bleed into his paintings. His work veers into the 3D through his application of materials as well as hanging and display preferences, showing a thoughtfulness not only for painterliness but also for his substrates and additive elements. He is inspired by everyday materials and interactions as well his chosen mediums. His most often used materials include oil paint, gouache, markers, charcoal and resin.

Molly Jo Burke joins FLC

Molly's thoughts on her work:

I observe details and the repetition that occurs in our environment. My artwork focuses on magnifying these observations. I am not specifically geared toward one media, although I am attracted to materials that have a certain amount of transparency, and change states from fluid to solid. 

I live and work in Columbus, Ohio, I have an MFA from The Ohio State University in Glass (2009) and I am an assistant professor and the assistant director for graduate studies at Columbus College of Art & Design. My work is represented in Columbus by Sherrie Gallerie.

 For more of Molly's work, check out her website here.  

Crystal Tursich @ N.Y. Photo Curator

Crystal Tursich recently won Second Place in N.Y. Photo Curator's Global Photography Awards for her piece, "Things We've Saved."

Words from curator, Susan Spiritus:

Crystal Tursich’s photograph, “Things We've Saved” has a bare emptiness to it, but it brought me back time and again. Although we only see a small part of a room, we are left to question things about the house. Have they moved out or are they moving in? I chose to believe the former. It appears empty – the people have moved out – or moved on and its starkness was evident to me. Was the photographer the child who played with the bear? Is the photographer the daughter whose parent sat in that chair? While the photo does not give us many answers it is one I returned to several times to think about – but still did not get my questions answered. It left me thinking that the journey began years ago in this house with a child whose favorite toy was the stuffed Pooh bear and the books were his/her favorites that were read on a daily basis…. by whom? I think it was the grandparent’s home for many years and the grandchild made frequent visits. It was probably the ‘favorite’ chair and was used everyday and each time stories were read. Surely a photograph of this arrangement is a way to remember the past – the journey.

Nick Stull joins FLC

Nick Stull is a multi-media painter whose recent work explores our relationship to the sea. Stull’s depiction of water subverts its general seduction, conveying urgency and confinement, rather than an open expanse. Formally, Stull condenses space by manipulating of picture planes. Horizon lines are placed abruptly and unnaturally in the paintings, confusing and compacting fore and backgrounds into a shallow plane.

Stull works many styles into single works of art, including neon oil paint, aerosol gradients, graphic pen & ink patterning, and painterly realism.

Nick received his BFA from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2008. He currently works as Exhibit Designer at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and was a previous owner of 83 gallery and gallery director of Mac Worthington Gallery. He is a busy artist, simultaneously producing large-scale murals, portrait commissions, graphic design, and the experimental paintings exhibited in this show. When he has spare time, he hops in the nearest body of water and swims laps for inspiration.

To see more of Nick's work, check out his website here.

Crystal Tursich @ Image Ohio

Two of Crystal's pieces from her In Silence project are exhibited in ImageOHIO19 at The Shot Tower Gallery at Fort Hayes. ImageOhio is a exhibition of the best recent photo, video and digital art produced in Ohio. The exhibition runs from January 22nd-February 22nd with an artist panel on Friday, February 22nd from 1-2pm.

To see more of Crystal's work, check out her website.

Catie Beach Joins FLC

Catie Beach is a printmaker and illustrator who explores visual overstimulation through drawing and abstraction. Rooted in observational drawing, her works record naturally occurring collections and instances of entanglement found in urban green spaces.

Beach’s work is influenced by her stint in botanical illustration, a field which uses highly detailed rendering to prompt viewers to look both intently and beyond the means of the naked eye. Through this intensified vantage her work asks viewers to meditate on the complexity of ecological systems.

Her current body of work catalogs a specific site along the Olentangy river. Her process begins with on-site exploration: hiking through the woods, wading past the shoreline, and collecting specimens. She makes photo documentation of these interactions and observations, which are then woven together, layered, and rearranged in photoshop after the fact. These images then become reference for her abstracted drawings, etchings, and lithographs.

Beach graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2016, earning a BFA with concentrations in printmaking and painting. She hopes to grow her body of work manifold in 2019!

Nic Skowron @ 934 Gallery

FLC member Nic Skowron recently showed a new body of work at 934 Gallery in Columbus Ohio. Below is his synopsis of this new work.

Is art about landscape relevant in an age when one can travel anywhere in the world with ease (physically or virtually)?

The tradition of landscape painting, admittedly, seems redundant in 2018 if done with reverence and tradition. These mixed media works (created for the exhibition Dimensional Analogue at 934 Gallery in July 2018) are a glimpse into my understanding of landscape in the age of human intervention. Overgrown highway berms, half built structures, piles of garbage, chain link fences that no longer protect or keep out, things that we observe in everyday life that are unremarkable; these things inform my work and make up my contemporary landscape. The environments created in the work exist somewhere between representation and abstraction; objects are recognizable at first to the real world, but are found interacting with abstract mark making that can be both aggressive and subdued.

For more images of Dimensional Analogue, please visit his website.