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Tony Luensman.
Angel Swing - A.M., 2009. Lithograph on Arches paper,30x22in, Ed. of 13. Photo Courtesy of Clay Street Press.
Despite (or perhaps because of) coming of age alongside the Internet and a new genre of cyber dystopian films about our growing dependency on machines and the dark implications of technological evolution, I've been unable to shake skepticism about the aesthetics surrounding recycled electronics in art. Stripped down, media and technology employed in art makes perfect conceptual sense: as art reflects wisely on its own present, it is necessary to take the changing landscape of society into account. Twittering, blackberries, global positioning systems and ongoing developments for artificial intelligence used in anything from space missions to toys show us a world much altered from a century ago or even a decade ago. But often the material electronic art is built from seems to be its one-dimensional meaning: the novelty of art made out of electronics. But in Tony Luensman's recent exhibition Abrade at Clay Street Press in Over-the Rhine (October 30 - December 12), deconstructed electronics, white neon lights and dramatic installations were perfectly integrated into a display of recent prints made with the Press.
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An Accidental Darkness
by Jerry Stein
This is the last in a series of three interviews offered in a three-month period that explore the challenges of a trio of Cincinnati artists in various transitions in their careers.
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John Dalzell.
Wet Streetscape, 2009. Dry Pastel on paper, 17x22.5in.
ÆQAI staff photo.
John Dalzell's 20-year career as an artist didn't start at the drawing board. It began in front of a typewriter—a typewriter that had gone silent.
Dalzell, an artist who shows in a gallery at the Pendleton Art Center, Over-the-Rhine, and draws out of a studio located in his elegant Fourth Street apartment, downtown, specializes in fog-shrouded pastel landscapes.
The native Cincinnati artist, whose family has been in Cincinnati since 1860, also draws probing portraits of the elderly. These pictures are the only ones among his works to reflect concerns about social-political issues.
There also are abstracts that bring uneasy interpretations. Yet, Dalzell, who has a sunny disposition, disclaims any conscious motivation to be disturbing.
For years, Dalzell made his living as a writer. After college, he worked for Procter & Gamble for 12 years, became the founding editor of Cincinnati Magazine in 1968 and later had extensive clients as a free-lance writer.
When his wife, Susan Lehman, an Episcopal priest, was called in 1986 to be chaplain at Sweet Briar College, located just north of Lynchburg, VA., Dalzell saw a chance to break with business. He wanted to write fiction.
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Two Short Reviews
by David Jarred
[Editor's Note: We learned from our end-of-year survey that many of our readers were not aware of the ADUMBRATIONES news and reviews section of the site, featuring short, under-200 word reviews of creative productions. Their brevity imposes a challenge on the writer to be succinct yet comprehensive. In order to highlight this section, we are importing David Jarred's review of Jennifer Meanley's exhibition at Manifest Gallery. For consistency of authorship, we have included his earlier review of the exhibition 'Idea' at Semantics Gallery.
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Jennifer Meanley.
And in the End The Monster Ate Them Both, 2009. Oil on canvas, , 72x108in. Photo Courtesy of Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center
The Paintings of Jennifer Meanley have an intuitive clarity that immediately sucks you in, leaving you not immediately sure why.
In the painting And in the End, The Monster Ate Them Both (2009) one sees a ghastly canine carcass laying on a table with a group of humans gathered around it in an exotically urban setting. The grouping of the dead and living in this work blurs the demarcation between life and death. This morbidity is echoed in tree branches that are half-barren and half-lush with vegetation.
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Certain Intimacies Revealed
Tony Luensman. Angel Swing - A.M., 2009. Lithograph on Arches paper,30x22in, Ed. of 13. Photo Courtesy of Clay Street Press.
