Introduction

The thirteen Ohio artists represented in this exhibition, each a recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Fellowship Award, work on paper in media including drawing, printmaking, artist books, collage, computer generated art and photography. Combining media in refreshing ways, most of these artists exhibit no particular allegiance to one medium. Many innovatively combine and crossover media as a means of reinforcing their concerns and thematic expression. Kay Koeninger, director of the Dayton Visual Arts Center, writes in the exhibition catalogue: "‘paper' is the medium that unfies the wide-ranging works on view, " while ‘routes' may be thought to describe "the many journeys—both literal and metaphorical"—taken by these artists.

Paper Routes 2000 is curated and organized by Sara Johnson for the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, OH, in collaboration with the Ohio Arts Council's Individual Artist Program. Paper Routes has appeared at the Southern Ohio Museum and at the College of Wooster Ebert Art Center, in Wooster, Ohio. Following the Olin Art Galery venue, the exhibition will be hosted in spring 2001 by The Riffe Center Gallery in Columbus, Ohio.

Kimberly Burleigh refers to her graphic images as "counterfeit" photograms, as they are produced by a three dimensional modeling computer. Burleigh references the photogram (an early experimental photographic process) electronic surveillance technology and the use of technology by terrorists in her work. Employing mixed media print collages, Todd DeVriese employs the ancient Egyptian obelisk "as a flexible form to speak about culture, history and social issues." Exploring the "post-industrial heritage" of toxic waste sites in Ohio, Masumi Hayashi addresses the irony of the pristine image and the contamination they conceal both visually through panoramic photographic collage, and textually by providing the history of the use of sites. Susan Hessler uses the book form to explore literature, typography, papermaking and handbinding; her small books take as their subject metaphorical places, both natural and religious.

With Monteal as her inspiration, Diana Duncan Holmes—collaborating with poet Timothy Riordan— investigates primarily religion and the nautical in her iconic, layered multimedia installation. Montreal 1-5 visually integrates image and text in each section, and the whole is given physical presence--in its use of materials, and in the way it is suspended from the wall and linked in connective sequence. For Charles Kanwischer, his intimate graphite drawings of Ohio locations which recall turn-of-the-century romanticized Pictorialist landscapes, reveal "shifting, multilayered, physical and historical realities." Focusing on microcosmic corners of the natural world, Kate Kern's patterned, repeating drawing process is "raw and direct." Kern's mark-making is bold, and yet her pieces from the series, Attract Year Round Beauty, build upon one another in the subtlety of their varying hues. George Kozmon's large prints focusing on the romanticism of the Grand Tour and the geometry of architectural form, evolve from his interest in the passage of time and the transient nature of things, the form of ruins and physical property of creased and stained paper evident in old prints.

C.V. Mansoor, who speaks of the calming, repetitive activity of drawing with pencil on paper, seeks to keep in delicate balance "that which desires to float away." Kay Koeninger writes that George Mauersberger's large charcoal academic-style self-portraits, remind us of "old drawings of absurd experiments." Wishing to avoid nostalgia, Mauersberger states as his goal is the"visual mutation of the external persona." Combining media that are by definition somewhat at odds--photography and sculpture--Rebekah Modrak is interested in multiple- rather than the one-point perspective of the camera. Evolving this hybrid of two- and three-dimensional media, Modrak seeks clues in her portrait busts to complex psychological states.

P.J. Rogers combines Polaroid views of still life objects arranged in a landscape setting with digital manipulation and the use of a color copier. Thom Shaw uses large scale woodcut and the human figure in a manner reminiscent of the German Expressionists and the artist Sue Coe to evoke sharp social commentary. Moved by issues of the African American community, Shaw's Malcolm X Paradox series explores such urban issues as adolescents with guns and innocent victims of drive-by's.

Featured Artists

All images are installation views from paper routes 2000, Olin Art Gallery, Kenyon College.