2012 W2S SERIES

Linda Ding, Dinner for Two, 2009, dinner ware, chairs, steel, glass, 50 x 2.3 x 2 ft.
Image courtesy of artist.

Linda Ding uses sculpture and installation to examine and reveal the behavioral structure found in interior spaces, specifically doorways, doors, stairwells, and corridors.  Through the artist's work, the dual function of such interior spaces comes to the forefront as the interaction of the body/ bodies in these physical spaces is emphasized. Linda Ding uses her installations to create and heighten the physical and emotional conditions amongst two people in social situations. In the context of interior spaces, abstraction and symbolic forms are used to refer to the human. To extract the production of social space, Ding draws from the notions of intimacy and privacy to examine how interaction is a response to physical and emotional closeness.

about the artist
Linda Ding, a graduate of The Cleveland Institute of Art (2010), is currently working in Cincinnati, OH. She recently exhibited in Art in an Instant, curated by Julia Pressman, at the Thompson Gallery, The Cambridge School of Weston (MA) and in the Student Independent Exhibition, curated by Christa Donner, Dario Robleto, and Pascual Sisto, at the Reinberger Gallery (Cleveland, OH).   

Scott Stibich, Demajestify, 2008, mixed media, 42 x 40 x 64 in. Image courtesy of the artist	Lauren Yeager, Sundial Parking Lot, 2008, still image from 40 second stop motion video,  Image courtesy of artist.

Stibich | Yeager Collaboration Statement
We propose a collaborative series of sculptural devices that recreate perceptual experiences such as viewing a solar eclipse, sky diving, and sensory deprivation. These experiences are rare or unattainable for most people due to the specific circumstances they require. We will take note of the basic physics required to create the experiences we are mimicking and then recreate these circumstances using common, everyday objects. We will maintain the recognizable forms of these found objects with the intention that the concrete, familiar nature of the materials we choose will dissolve the "smoke and mirrors" associated with the original circumstances and their effects. We hope that the work will create impressive, immersive, sensorial effects while remaining familiar and highly tangible. Through this work, we want to empower people to actively imagine and create extraordinary experiences. Many of the works will be interactive for the viewers, while some will simply imply function.

about the artist | Scott Stibich
Scott Stibich is a graduate of The Cleveland Institute of Art (2010) and the current technical assistant for the sculpture department at The Cleveland Institute of Art. HIs work was chosen by jurors Gregory Amenoff, Chair of the Visual Arts Division of Columbia University's School of the Arts, and Paola Morsiani, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, for the 4th and 5th iterations of the annual exhibition After the Pedestal at The Sculpture Center. He has exhibited nationally, with a recent exhibition Beacon at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI. Stibich has received the first place award from Cleveland Public Art in Bike Station, a public art competition (2009), and received the Bernice and David E. Davis '48 Scholarship in Sculpture from the Cleveland Institute of Art two consecutive years (2008, 2009). ,

Stibich investigates the artificiality of everyday life and "the reality of space." Through the use of mediated image, Stibich explores and exploits the phenomenon of constructed spaces. In particular, he examines the possibilities of one's interaction with a constructed space as a virtual environment. A virtual environment hampers the mind's ability to orientate the body's actual location in space. As a result, one is open to conceive the world as it is and allows one to view the world as one wants. Stibich uses his work as a means to undermine what is consider factual and start to dissect "the reality of space."

About the artist | Lauren Yeager
A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art (2009), Lauren Yeager actively exhibits throughout Cleveland. Exhibitions in 2010 include Creatively Close at Forum Artspace, OUTERSPACE: The American Odyssey, part of Pop Up City, and Detour at SPACES. Recently, Lauren Yeager gave a lecture at the Cleveland Institute of Art titled Understanding Circumstance.
 
Through her installations, Lauren Yeager investigates the immediate environments that are places of shared, common experiences. A concern addressed by Lauren Yeager in her work is the visual information encountered, such as parking lots, air vents, and light fixtures, which have a homogeneous quality. These places and their visual information are often seen as mundane and pushed into the background of our attentions. The ways in which the presence of this visual information orders and limits us as well as how it potentially impacts imagination through accumulation is explored in Lauren Yeager's work.  The goal is for the ordinary surroundings to be inverted and seen for their potential to be extraordinary. To empower others to act upon the shared environments in a manner that critically perpetuates its transformation is the aim.

Cozette Phillips, Bear Skin Rug, 2010, vintage velvet, ancient bronze, white bronze, resin, 72 x 66 x 18 in, Image courtesy of artist.

Trophies of the hunter, part of the repertoire of small escapes, part of the canon of suburbia, exist immortal on living room walls. Their animated poses suggest life yet the glass eyes that shine blankly in artificial lamplight say otherwise. Empty bear skins stretched out neatly on warm floors, antlers screwed into plaques, mounted squarely on thousands of wallpaper patterns, are the remnants of animals that are elevated to the status of trophy yet reduced to mere decoration. My field of exploration is the domestic landscape, the Upholsterer as Taxidermist, the Hunter as Interior Decorator, and the spectacle of collection. My work is made in an attempt to generate a discourse in which viewers are able to consider their relationship, not only to animals, but also to the history of their collection, presentation, preservation, and subjugation.

about the artist
Cozette Phillips, now living and working in Wichita Falls, TX, received her BFA from The Columbus College of Art and Design (Columbus, OH), in 1998, and her MFA, with a concentration in metals, from State University of New York at New Paltz (NY) in 2010. She was an artist in residence at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder (Trondhiem, Norway) in 2011 and at The School for American Crafts at The Rochester Institute of Technology (NY) in 2010 and 2011 and intern with Doug and Mike Starn at the Starn Studio in Beacon, NY, in 2010. Among her numerous awards are a LIAEP Grant from the Kansas City Artists Coalition and the Best Of for the International Juried Sculpture Exhibition at the Rogue Space Gallery (New York, NY), both in 2011. Her work has been exhibited in Ohio, Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri, most recently in a national juried exhibition, New Blood, at the Phoenix Gallery (New York, 2011).

Elizabeth Emery, collection (detail), 2008, porcelain, wire, plaster, found objects, 3.5 x 9 x 8 in, Image courtesy of artist.

Emery creates abstract, mixed-media sculptures that gently undermine the everyday and the familiar.  Her pieces, carefully combined collections of ceramics and various disparate materials, address aesthetic issues of formal abstraction and serve as a "slice of the subconscious" to stimulate the viewer to attribute meaning to them from personal memories and beliefs.  Her interest in traditional painted still lifes has led to delicate combinations of material and form to create juxtapositions of a moment captured in time. Much of the work also plays with the notions of reality and falsification of materials in sculpture.  

about the artist
Elizabeth Emery, who now lives in Cleveland, has an upcoming solo exhibition (re)threads at 171 Cedar Arts Center (Corning, NY, 2012) and had the solo exhibition homescape at Arts Collinwood Gallery (Cleveland, OH, 2011). Her works were chosen by jurors Paola Morsiani, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Astria Suparak, Carnegie Mellon University's Miller Gallery Director, for the 5th and 6th iterations of the annual exhibition After the Pedestal at The Sculpture Center. Her sculptures have been shown extensively in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Baltimore, Olean, NY, Westfield, NY, and Baltimore and internationally in China and Korea.

Emery received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania (1986) and BFA (2005) and MFA (2008) from The School of Art and Design in Alfred, NY. The artist has been awarded a residency at the Jentel Artist Residency Program ( Banner, WY, 2010), a Special Opportunities Grant, NY Foundation for the Arts, Lisa Elwell Ceramic Artists Endowed Encouragement Award (2005), and Kiki Smith Scholarship at the Haystack Mountain School of Craft, (Maine, 2004). In Cleveland, she currently is an adjunct faculty member for Cuyahoga Community College (Cleveland), sculpture teacher for the Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland's after-school programs, and ceramics teacher at Clayworks Coop and the Interim Coordinator for Zygote Press. She has curated exhibitions in Cleveland and Wellsville, NY.

Sarah Paul, Little Miss Cleveland & the Flaming Sunset #3, 2010, glass, metal, wood, single chanel video, mono sound, 16 x 16 x 30 ft, 35 minute video/ sound, Image courtesy of artist.

Sarah Paul's Little Miss Cleveland & the Flaming Sunset is an ongoing project chronicling the exploits of an outrageous beauty queen and her fascination with post-post-industrial Cleveland and Lake Erie. This experimental narrative was spawned by Paul's attraction to the smokestacks of the ArcelorMittal Steel Mill, which dominate the Cleveland skyline as seen from her apartment, and which she has been documenting since 2009.  Little Miss Cleveland will periodically perform with the installation at the gallery and stage public social interventions throughout the city's common spaces.  This work sprawls across artistic disciplines, attracting a diverse audience and engaging all of their senses in an exploration of the sultry, hazy territory generated by the integration public performance and formal gallery display.

about the artist
Sarah Paul has been teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art since 2007 in the Technology Integrated Media Environment (T.I.M.E.) and now holds the title of Assistant Professor. She has been creating live performances since 2006. Her most recent performances were a 2010 commission by the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA Cleveland) and SPACES (Cleveland),The Unsung Torsos: An Experimental Opera in 13 Parts at MOCA Cleveland, and Little Miss Cleveland & the Flaming Sunset #4, Beyond/In Western New York 2010: Alternating Currents at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, curated by Holly Hughes. Her work can be seen in fall 2011 at The University Gallery, Center for the Arts, University of Buffalo, in the Visual Studies Alumni Invitational Exhibition.

The artist received her BS in Mathematics at the University of New York at Albany (2004) and her MFA in Visual Studies from the University of New York at Buffalo (2007).

Lauren Herzak- Bauman, Amass, 2008, porcelain, 60 x 10 x 16 in. Image courtesy of artist.

Lauren Herzak-Bauman employs the materiality of clay, both raw and fired, to "link shifting states of emotion, documenting and communication a struggle through materiality." Her use of performance embodies the full process of creation from beginning to end. When her work is placed in the context of urban detritus and abandoned buildings, the clay becomes "a metaphor for presence and absence, death and loss." By permitting raw emotion and gesture to emerge through the material, Herzak-Bauman touches upon the preservation of time and subsistence.
 
about the artist
Herzak-Bauman, from Parma, OH, is currently working as an adjunct teacher at The University of Wisconsin in River Falls, WI, and teaching artist at the Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, MN. She received her BFA from Bowling Green State University in 2004 and her MFA from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 2009. She has shown for the last five years at galleries in Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona, among other places. Her work has been published in Art Forum "Critics' Picks," Metro Magazine for "The Austerity Cookbook," and in Cleveland Scene Magazine for "Speaking Volumes." Among her awards is a 2011 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Sarah Ann Baker:  a month ago a year from now
THE PLATFORM
By invitation of Lauren Herzak-Bauman

Sarah Ann Baker received her BFA from University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN and is currently working as a Laser Technician at University of Minnesota Art Department. Her work has been included in several exhibitions in Minnesota. She explores the realm of the familiar and alters it by combining materials in unconventional ways. These new orientations of materials within their abstracted architectural forms help to create a new and unusual experience.

angel food and eight pound density
2009
drywall, linoleum, lumber, cement, and carpet padding
36 x 30 x 20 and 8 x 11 x 16 in.
Image courtesy of artist

For more information call 216.229.6527 or go to info@sculpturecenter.org.

The Sculpture Center is a not-for-profit arts institution dedicated to the advancement of the careers of emerging Ohio sculptors and the preservation of Ohio outdoor sculpture as a means to provide support for artists and to effect the enrichment, education, enjoyment, and visual enhancement of the Cleveland community and greater region.

The Sculpture Center receives generous support from The Callahan Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, The John P. Murphy Foundation, the Bernice and David E. Davis Art Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, studioTECHNE|architects, the Leonard Krieger Fund of The Cleveland Foundation, Sculpture Center board members, and many individual donors to Friends of The Sculpture Center. Additional generous public funding comes from the citizens of Cuyahoga Country and the state of Ohio through:

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