An outside view of the installation in progress. Photo by Natalie Lanese

PANORAMA, an installation by Natalie Lanese, combines collage and pop patterns to set up narratives that address, oftentimes humorously, the more serious realities of American culture. Lanese’s massive scale patterns transform into a geometric landscape in which the collaged elements create conceptual spaces and confront ideas of image vs. reality, depth, and depthlessness.

On Friday night, August 23, from 6-8 p.m., join us for the opening of “PANORAMA,” an eye-popping installation of pulsating stripes and pastries. Meet the artist, Natalie Lanese, and experience the CVA Gallery as you’ve never seen it before.

Natalie was kind enough to tell us a bit about her art, her work process, and her inspirations.

For folks who haven’t had the benefit of watching this installation unfold over the past few weeks, what is your process for developing and creating an installation like this? How long does it take to create? Do you have help?

I usually have a general idea of the shape of the piece before I begin, but I do all of the decision-making in the gallery. Since these installations are site-specific, I have to respond to the space and design the work in the gallery. The dark gray walls in the CVA Gallery required that I paint the area white before adding color. Then I draw the pattern on the wall and start painting. For this piece, painting took almost 2 full weeks. I had the help of some very generous students in the second week. The final few days are spent working on the collage: printing, cutting out the shapes, and adhering them to the wall.

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This image by Barry Whittaker will be on display at Transcending Text, the multimedia exhibition at Walter Terhune Gallery

Join us for the exhibition Transcending Text, which brings together four artists who explore the disconnection between text, language and meaning. The exhibition will be shown at Walter E. Terhune Gallery at Owens Community College. Our closing reception will be held on Friday, August 30 from 5-7 p.m. The Terhune Gallery is located on the campus of Owens Community College, at 30335 Oregon Road, Perrysburg, OH 43551.

Exhibitors Include:

Barbara WF Miner

Barbara WF Miner’s encaustic paintings use shape and repetition to reference abstract symbols: letters, characters, cuneiforms and hieroglyphs.  When a letter or a pictograph is separated from the rest of the communication system, it becomes unintelligible and is cast adrift from concrete meaning like a discarded implement.  It is then critical for the viewer to create content and investigate the actual painting surfaces and structure for deeper resonance and substance.

Barbara Miner currently holds the position of Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Art, at the University of Toledo, in Toledo, OH.  Her mixed media and installation works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in over 50 exhibitions.  She has participated in numerous national and international artist’s residencies.  She has received both internal and external grants in support of her research and art practice.

Barry Whittaker

Barry Whittaker’s work explores the challenge in communication, especially when there is technology involved. He says, “It’s the equivalent of deconstructing all one’s thoughts in a food processor and handing the pieces to one person who will deliver them to another person, who will reassemble them for the intended recipient of the message. The hope is that he will get the idea of what is being said, but it is likely that important parts will be missing.”

Barry Whittaker is a multi-media artist who explores myth, language, and miscommunication through a variety of technology and collaboration-based projects. A native Texan, he received a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Whittaker has taught in the U.S., France, and Japan and continues to exhibit artwork internationally. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Toledo.

Holly Hey

Holly Hey’s “MOM MOM” are two moving image loops (16mm and digital video) that contemplate the construction of the word “mother.”

Holly Hey is an “undependent” filmmaker and an experimental weaver of media who strives to undermine conventional methods for telling stories via the moving image. She is currently an associate professor of film and video production within the Department of Theatre and Film at The University of Toledo. She holds a MFA in filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in photography from Ohio University. Her films and videos have shown at the Autumn Lights Festival -Los Angeles, the Mix Festival -New York, the Onion City Film Festival -Chicago, the Denver International Film Festival, the Athens International Film and Video Festival, the Vancouver Queer Film and Video Festival, among other venues.

Lee Fearnside

Lee Fearnside’s installation examines censorship by using books from the American Library Association’s challenged book list that the artist has read. Her use of media examines systems that underlie our culture including issues of gentrification, the politics of history, and the body.

She earned her Masters of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design and is now an Assistant Professor of Art at Tiffin University. She has exhibited in national and regional juried shows, and her videos have screened at Film Festivals in Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon and Toronto, and on Rhode Island PBS.

For additional information about Transcending Text, email Lee Fearnside.

An upcoming exhibition of prints at the Wolfe Gallery at Maumee Valley Country Day School, titled 2013 Impression Printmaking Exhibition will feature the work of college art students and their professors. The University of Toledo will be represented by works from Associate Professor of Art Arturo Rodriguez, BFA student Eric Broz, and recent BFA graduates Lisa Franko, David Folck, Kevin Leiter and Hannah Lehmann.

Other participants in the show include selected students and faculty from Bowling Green State University, Columbus College of Art & Design and Florida State University. The exhibition is directed and curated by Joseph Van Kerkhove, Adjunct Instructor of Art at Tiffin University.

The show will be on display from August 19 through October 11. A reception with the artists will be held in Wolfe Gallery on Friday, August 30, from 6-8 p.m. The gallery is located at Maumee Valley Country Day School, at 1715 S. Reynolds Road, Toledo, Ohio, 43614. For more information, contact Van Kerkhove at vankerkhovejm@tiffin.edu or LouAnn Glover at lglover@mvcds.org

Breakfast with Curtis by Laura Colella will be screened at UT’s CPA on the evening of September 13, 2013

The Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Toledo presents filmmaker Laura Colella and a pre-release screening of her award-winning independent film BREAKFAST WITH CURTIS. The screening is free and open to the public and will occur on Friday, September 13, 2013 at 7:30 p.m. in the Center Theatre of the Center for Performing Arts. The Center for Performing Arts is located on UT’s Main Campus at 1910 West Rocket Drive.

BREAKFAST WITH CURTIS centers on the new friendship between troubled teen Curtis and an eccentric bookseller who lives next door. An incident five years ago left bad blood between their neighboring households, but when Curtis gets mixed up with the freewheeling bohemians next door, it shakes up the neighborhood, bringing a season of change for all.

BREAKFAST WITH CURTIS is Colella’s third narrative feature as Writer/Director/Editor. The film premiered at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival, and has been touring the festival circuit since, earning several awards and excellent reviews:

At the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards, the film was nominated for a Cassavetes Award and won the Jameson FIND Distribution Award. Learn more about the film at its website.

Colella, who has been honored as a Sundance Institute Fellow, will also present a workshop for UT Theatre and Film students during her visit to Toledo.

About Laura Colella

Colella began making films as an undergraduate at Harvard, and was a Sundance Fellow with her second feature STAY UNTIL TOMORROW (2004). She teaches film production and directing at the Rhode Island School of Design and screenwriting at Brown University, and serves as founding faculty chair of Film at Vermont College of Fine Arts. This summer, Colella has been shooting behind-the-scenes footage on Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film INHERENT VICE. Learn more about Laura Colella.

Selected Reviews

“Free-floating and bucolic… Colella’s tale of a lad’s seminal summer will win hearts and minds.” – Variety

“Funny, heartwarming… This deceptively simple story is beautifully executed and packs a big emotional wallop… a poignant coming of age story.” – MSN Movies

“Uber-charming… Colella has captured her own Never Never Land (albeit a somewhat more adult version) that is sure to make you want to pay a visit.” –TwitchFilm.com

“Wonderfully subtle throughout with such a light editorial touch that it is never obvious and never preachy… Breakfast with Curtis is gentle and beautiful but with a lot to say.” – Geist.com

An installation by Natalie Lanese, whose “PANORAMA” will be on display in the CVA Gallery through September 28.

PANORAMA, an installation by Natalie Lanese, combines collage and pop patterns to set up narratives that address, oftentimes humorously, the more serious realities of American culture.  Lanese’s massive scale patterns transform into a geometric landscape in which the collaged elements create conceptual spaces and confront ideas of image vs. reality, depth, and depthlessness.

PANORAMA will be on display at the Center for Visual Arts Gallery. The opening reception will be held on Friday, August 23 from 6-8 p.m. at the Center for Visual Arts Gallery. The installation will remain on display through September.

Natalie Lanese has recently exhibited at Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA, Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA, and Scope International Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland.  Lanese is Assistant Professor of Art and Gallery Director at Siena Heights University in Adrian, MI and resides in Toledo, Ohio.

The Center for Visual Arts is located at 620 Grove Place in Toledo, adjacent to the Toledo Museum of Art. For more information, contact CVA Gallery Director Ben Pond.

UT student works on display in “Gross Anatomy” at Imagination Station

“More Eyeballs,” “Section of the Neck,” and “Relax” are a few of the 11 works of art by University of Toledo students currently on display at the Imagination Station. Using the book Gray’s Anatomy as inspiration, students in Arturo Rodriguez’s Lithography class and Ben Pond’s Anatomy class collaborated on a large bound book project called Gross Anatomy. Students used lithography as the basis for their initial drawing and then embellished the pages with additional drawing media. Two copies of the large book were created and another series of prints was made for display. One book was donated to the library at the UT Medical Center, and the other to the Toledo Museum of Art library, where it is currently on view. The project was made during fall semester, 2012.

Works on display at the Imagination Station were created by Alyssa Brown, Stacey Cruzado, Sarah Emch, David Folck, Lisa Franko & Wes Rucker, Dylan Gallagher, Katie Heft, Dingzhong Hu, Josh Klein, and Shirley Mei.

This exhibition, like Grossology, runs through September 2. For more information about admission and hours of operation, visit the Imagination Station website at www.imaginationstationtoledo.org