Thursday, February 03, 2011

PechaKucha Night Cleveland Vol. 11

PechaKucha Night Cleveland Vol. 11
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Cambridge Room
8.20pm

Join us for PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 11 at the House of Blues in the Cambridge Room. On Friday, February 4th, 2011, at 8:20pm, with your attendance, we will turn the House of Blues into the House of Pechakucha for one night.

10-12 local creatives will present their work, ideas, and obsessions in a series of short presentations on art, fashion, food, architecture, film, furniture, music, and photography. Space will be tight so be sure to come early and enjoy a few beverages prior to being inspired, influenced, confused, provoked, and probably slightly intoxicated by the wonderfully variegated topic mix.

While presentations do not start until 8:20pm, we encourage you to show up at least an hour early to get a good seat as the Cambridge Room gets packed pretty quickly.

DONT FORGET TO INVITE FRIENDS!:) If you are interested in presenting at a future PechaKucha Night, have a venue idea, or just questions in general, please contact us at pkncleveland@gmail.com.
See ya on the 19th!

Cheers,
Mike Christoff & Raseem
Parker
pkncleveland@gmail.com

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Sculpture Center Encore Artist's Presentation - Jennifer Omaitz and Joshua Parker

Encore Presentation - Jennifer Omaitz and Joshua Parker
Friday, Febuary 4th
6-8pm

The best artist's opening I have seen this year is having an encore artist's presentation. If you missed the previous show at the Sculpture Center, this Friday, February 4th Jennifer Omaitz and Joshua Parker will be speaking about their work.

Both projects illustrate a very concise and thorough understanding of space and form, playing with the expectations of experience and confinement while simultaneously questioning a construct based upon the premise of privacy, voyeurism and viewpoint.

If you missed the first show I highly suggest you make the second one.

TSC Logo winter 2011

ARTISTS JOSHUA PARKER AND JENNIFFER OMAITZ WILL BE AT THE SCULPTURE CENTER AGAIN
THIS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4 FROM 6:00 TO 8 PM

IF YOU MISSED THE OPENING OR WOULD LIKE TO SEE THEIR WORK AGAIN, DO DROP BY TO MEET THEM AND HEAR THEM SPEAKING ABOUT THEIR NEW INSTALLATIONS.

JOSHUA PARKER: HUMANS ARE THE ONLY SPECIES ON THE PLANET THAT CREATE TRASH, ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER AND THE WORST PART ABOUT DYING IS THAT YOU CAN ONLY DO IT ONCE - BUT DON'T WORRY, THE WATER'S STILL FINE HERE

Main Gallery

JENNIFFER OMAITZ: SHADOW STRUCTURES

Euclid Avenue Gallery

Parker Main Gallery Installation 2

Joshua Parker and Jenniffer Omaitz initiate the 2011 W2S series as outstanding representatives of the art schools of Northeast Ohio. Parker is a BFA graduate and former teaching assistant from Kent State University. Omaitz is a BFA graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, MFA graduate of Kent State University, and currently adjunct professor at the University of Akron and Youngstown State University.

Parker and Omaitz make art that makes you think about habitation, building stuffs, architecture, engineering, and damage to the contemporary urban landscape and human psyche. Parker's gets you completely inside and thinking hard about getting out; Omaitz's keeps you outside and considering a try to get in. To galvanize your senses, put your animal instincts on high alert, and set your brain to spinning, Parker has built, with reclaimed material and cardboard, a facsimile of a structure filling the entire Main Gallery. He writes, "My goal, and the only real rule that I strictly follow, has always been to create things that I would want to encounter...I want to experience the unknown." Omaitz has created installations, varying fromOmaitz Euclid Gallery Installationroom to ruler size, to provide "ideas of interior and exterior, construction and destruction, physical and psychological landscapes." Meticulously made of a multiplicity of found manufactured materials, objects, and a preponderance of architectural models, the pieces are suspended within the galleries' spaces, hurtling through their walls, and ever expanding through stuttering shadows.

Both artists' works evoke the disasters, uncertainties, perplexities, and ever present paranoia that have most recently overtaken our world, locally to globally.

Images

Upper: Joshua Parker, installation detail, Humans are the only species on the planet that create trash, one good turn deserves another and the worst part about dying is that you can only do it once - but don't worry, the water's still fine here, 2011. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

Lower: Jenniffer Omaitz, installation detail, Shadow Structures, 2011. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

artists' bios

Joshua Parker, of Cuyahoga Falls, OH, was born into a family of artists and musicians and has considered himself a serious artist since the age of eight. Throughout high school he was creating art and writing music, and he self produced bitter frog almanac, a zine, until his 2001 college enrollment. He received his BFA from Kent State University. His work has been exhibited extensively in this area and was twice included in The Sculpture Center's annual juried exhibitions. He plans to attend graduate school in the fall of 2011.

Jennifer Omaitz is a nationally exhibited painter and installation artist. Omaitz received her BFA in Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art (2002) and her MFA in Painting from Kent State University (2009). She has been exhibiting her work in Cleveland and Denver since 2002. Her most recent exhibitions include a site-specific installation commissioned for the 2010 Biennial of the Americas in Denver, Colorado. Trained as a painter, Omaitz blends practices of painting, drawing, and sculpture in her installations. She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Akron and Youngstown State University and also maintains a rich studio practice. Born and raised on Cleveland's East Side, Omaitz currently lives and works in Kent, Ohio.