April 26, 2021
Hop at Home for the Short North Arts District May Virtual Gallery Hop! Columbus’ favorite day of the month to celebrate art will continue virtually primarily via the @ShortNorthArtsDistrict Instagram Story, as well as on the Short North Arts District Facebook Page. The May Virtual Gallery Hop will feature nine brand new exhibitions, many of which will also be on view to the public in-person.
Select art galleries and other businesses will also be open to the public, with many offering private appointments in addition to virtual options. Specific details on how to shop and explore Short North Arts District galleries during this time can be found at Art By Appointment. You can also view public art throughout the area via the Short North Arts District Art Trail.
Gallery Exhibitions
Brandt-Roberts Galleries latest exhibition explores the importance of color in The Secret Lives of Color. The gallery chose 16 colors featured in a book of the same title by London-based author Kassia St. Clair. Each color was then assigned to an artist with a set of parameters. They could incorporate as much or as little of the story behind their color that they wished, but in their work, the color had to comprise a majority of the canvas or be the focal point of the work. The exhibition is on view April 30 through May 30, with an Artists Open House on Friday, April 30 and Saturday, May 1 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. A virtual exhibition will also be available at brandtrobertsgalleries.com/exhibitions.
Margaret Lewis will exhibit her body of work, Woolpaint, for the first time at Emergent Art & Craft. Lewis combines rug hooking with painting and collage in these bold, colorful, textural pieces.
Hammond Harkins Galleries presents Masterworks from artist Aminah Robinson, which will be on view through May 29. MacArthur Award recipient Aminah Robinson was recently featured in The New York Times in “Overlooked,” a series about remarkable people whose deaths the newspaper initially overlooked. Regarding the artist’s chronicling of Black Life, Kwame Opam states, “[Robinson] believed that life for her people in America was an act of near-superhuman perseverance, and she was determined to capture that history in every medium she could.”
Masterworks offers a breadth of work illustrating this range. In addition to early drawings on view for the first time will be two special mixed-media works: Aminah’s Blackberry Patch, a multi-part folio dedicated to her son Sydney, and the Presidential RagGonNon dedicated to former President Barack Obama. Alongside Aminah’s work will be works by Don “DonCee” Coulter, the first recipient of the Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Fellowship, which is administered by the Greater Columbus Arts Council.
To schedule an appointment or learn more about Lindsay Gallery, call (614) 291.1973 or email lindsaygallery@hotmail.com.
Marcia Evans Gallery’s May exhibition will showcase three male artists, two of which have never shown at the Gallery before. Returning artist Zak Burgess has been with the gallery for several years, and will be displaying his old, mysterious homes with pallet knives and oil paint on canvas. New artist Zachary Dean Jones works with raw materials from his land in Athens to create abstracts. Lastly, Joe Kavalec, also new to the Short North Arts District and gallery, will put his music aside to display his photorealism paintings of various city scenes in Ohio.
(Not) Sheep Gallery presents The Problem We All Live With, an exhibition based on a Norman Rockwell painting about school desegregation. The show will primarily focus on racism, but will also present work about environmental issues and politics.
There are visual moments from everyday life that often escape one’s consciousness. The way in which the color planes of sky and sea meet at a distant, indecipherable point on the horizon; the layering of color patches that mask graffiti tags on the side of a building; a cadence of rubber tire marks built up on the highway median. It is overlooked moments like these that inform the paintings of Jeffrey Cortland Jones and his exhibition, Landscape Replica (Long Walks and Blue Eyes) calling for one to take a slower, closer look.
Upon first glance, Jones’ paintings appear to be composed of layered blocks of white and grays with the occasional splash of color. Their clean presentation, sheets of acrylic floating away from the wall, further enforce a tendency to be perceived as minimal and stoic. Given further examination, however, the works reward viewers with so much more: surfaces that fluctuate between matte and glossy, layers that have been painted, sanded, buffed and scraped, and whites that reveal themselves to be anything but white. Landscape Replica (Long Walks and Blue Eyes) will remain on view through May 30.
Sean Christopher Gallery presents Old School 4, an annual group exhibition featuring recent artworks by select 1970s and 1980s CCAD students and alumni. The show will open with an in-person reception on Saturday, May 1, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. (safety protocol compliance required). The virtual exhibition can also be viewed during Virtual Gallery Hop starting at 1 p.m. Participating artists include Nancy Bommer, Kevin Buckland, Pertain Gillespie Buckland, Jean Holmgren, Beverly West Leach, Stephan Montague and Laurinda Stockwell.
Sharon Weiss Gallery presents a Salon Show of favorite gallery artists through May 29, including Paul Emory, Carlos Chang, Stacy Leeman and Jane Flewellen.
Sherrie Gallerie presents By The Numbers, a new series of works by Christian Faur based on portraits of well-known mathematicians of the 1900s. Faur created these works by using a “fused encaustic” method built on the artist’s experience working with hand cast crayons. By The Numbers will remain on view through June 20.
Studios on High Gallery presents These Are Not for You, from artist Ben Sostrom, an innovative sculptural collection designed for artistic collaboration with non-human participants – deer, carpenter bees, squirrels, song birds, small hibernating rodents, insects. The wood and paper sculptures provide shelter, protection, food and play for a variety of local wildlife species, and through this interaction, each piece is reshaped by its users over time.
Prior to the show opening, select works will be installed outdoors and videotaped to capture wildlife interactions. The videos will play alongside the sculptures throughout the show. In “Metta: Salt Lick,” deer are drawn in by the salt spheres. As they lick them, the spheres dissolve, changing their size and shape over time, while the sculpture’s arms, on which the spheres are mounted, spin away playfully.
The Wexner Center for the Arts presents Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment. Foregrounding contemporary artists’ engagement with social issues and shaping institutions, Climate Changing raises critical questions as we face the entwined crises of systemic racism and a global health pandemic. What role do art and culture play in revealing legacies of oppression and violence? How might artists help imagine a different future? How can all of us, collectively, create a real climate for change?
The artists in Climate Changing deal with a range of matters such as mass incarceration; global warming; labor, debt and economic inequality; colonization; racism; education and democracy; and ableism. By presenting projects that span multiple themes and frameworks, the exhibition emphasizes the power of intersectionality and interdependence, and encourages a collective reimagining of our social environment. To learn more, visit: wexarts.org.
Other May 1 Activities
Brothers Drake Meadery will feature the work of Isabel Francis Bongue, a multimedia visual artist who graduated in 2013 from Ohio University. She is a printmaker and muralist who has worked in the United States and Colombia. She takes her inspiration from the strange blend of the different cultures she was raised in, from the natural world and the landscapes that have defined her experiences, and in the intersection between rationality and our more visceral subconscious. She enjoys playing with the human figure, dark humor and fantasy in a search for dreamy, delusional meaning. Her work can be found at www.isabelbongue.com or @la.mona.isa on Instagram.
Join Prologue Bookshop for their next Sidewalk Sale! They’ll have books and puzzles at discounts from 20% to 75% off — or more! Join them from 11:00am to 3:00pm.
GALLERY HOP SPONSORS
Gallery Hop is made possible with support from our sponsors:
Those interested in visiting the Short North Arts District in person can make their visit Short North Safe. Masks are currently required for entry into any Short North Arts District business. Local businesses are also taking additional safety precautions, such as offering private appointments, limiting capacity, increasing routine cleaning, encouraging clients to social distance and sanitize, and more. Select local retailers, restaurants, cafes, and other Short North Arts District businesses are also open to the public for shopping, carry-out and dine-in services, and more.
Additionally, enjoy a discount on contact-free parking via the ParkColumbus app with a complimentary validation code. For more parking and transit information, visit the Parking & Transit page or download the Parking & Transit Guide.
For more information on how to support local Short North Arts District galleries, retailers, and restaurants during COVID-19, visit ShortNorth.org/SupportSNAD