Installation Views: Floating Worlds, Artists Archives of the Western Reserve Gallery, 3 Concurrent Inaugural Exhibitions of Archived Women Artists
cleveland.com Review “Trio of strong solo shows at AAWR Gallery demolishes standard notions of ‘Cleveland art’”
Published: Jun. 06, 2024
By Steven Litt, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — It could be time to give up the notion that there’s a specific identity to art produced in Cleveland or Northeast Ohio. A trio of strong solo exhibitions on view through June 29 at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (AAWR) makes the point clear.
The AAWR exhibitions focus on works by Baila Litton, Jean Kondo Weigl, and the late Arabella Proffer, three artists active in Northeast Ohio over the past two decades.
Their work has little to do with the region or each other. Instead, their side-by-side shows argue for a sense of Northeast Ohio as an affordable haven in which accomplished artists can pursue their careers while maintaining diverse aesthetic dialogues and commercial possibilities inside and outside the region.
All three artists have had meaningful interactions within Northeast Ohio’s arts ecology, which includes academic institutions that offer opportunities to study or teach. But they’ve also studied, worked and shown their work in other places. In the internet age, an artist can be based anywhere and interact with the world.
Read full article HERE
Painting by Deb Campana
FAVA Online Class Fall 2024 →
Register here
Online Acrylic Painting
Instructor: Jean Kondo Weigl
Ages 18+
October 15 - November 26
Tuesdays 5:00-6:30pm
$205 /$187 for FAVA members
This class will address various aspects of the painting process: drawing, color theory, technique and composition. Meetings will be based on weekly studio assignments and will include instruction, demonstrations, discussions of historical and contemporary examples and sharing student work, Participants will produce small paintings in acrylic on paper or canvas and do their work at home. We will look at various sources and subjects, and consider a range of treatments from naturalistic to abstract. All levels of experience and individual direction are welcome.
Students will be responsible to provide materials:
-Soft body acrylic paints (2 oz. size; Liquitex brand recommended) in the following required colors: Cadmium Red medium; quinacridone magenta; cadmium yellow med.;
cadmium yellow light; pthalocyanine blue (green shade); ultramarine blue (red shade); titanium white; mars black.
-Disposable palette paper (optional)
-9x12 inch pad of watercolor or acrylic paper
-1 stretched cotton canvas, at least 9x12 in.
-Synthetic bristle brushes - 1 round sz.5 and 1 flat sz.4
-9x12 inch pad of Bristol paper (optional)
-Color Wheel (several versions are available; any version will do)
Atelier Kondo Weigl An Artist and Her Students →
Saturday, October 26 reception Noon-2:00 PM through Sunday, December 1, 2024
FAVA south gallery
39 South Main Street, Oberlin, OH
favagallery.org
440/774-7158
Atelier Kondo Weigl
An Artist and Her Students
Jean Kondo Weigl
Leslie Bowen
Deborah Campana
Colleen Lavelle
Carrie Schwimmer
Cornelia Maude Spelman
Jennifer Spencer
From March 2020 to July 2021, FAVA closed its doors due to the covid pandemic and began mounting exhibitions and offering classes and activities that could be accessed remotely. One of the online classes that FAVA offered, Jean Weigl’s Color Theory and Design, focused on the properties of color and the exploration of color relationships and interactions through executing a series of non-representational / abstract paintings in acrylic paint. The Online Acrylic Painting Class was introduced when a number of participants in the Color Theory and Design class expressed an interest in taking a painting class wherein they could incorporate representational subjects and expand their technical skills in drawing and painting in general. When the shutdown ended, the Acrylic Painting class continued to be offered as an online class, with as few as four and as many as seven participants, yet with a steady core of participants who continue to grow individually as artists and as a group of committed, supportive peers. Join us for an in-person showing of their work in our South Gallery!
3 Concurrent Inaugural Exhibitions of Archived Women Artists →
Transference & Translation, Baila Litton; Flaunt, Arabella Proffer; Floating Worlds, Jean Kondo Weigl
Opening Receptions for all three: Thursday May 16, 5:30 – 8:00pm
The Artists Archives is excited to start our summer exhibitions off with the arresting paintings and mixed media works of three new Archived women Artists in our newly renovated galleries. Floating Worlds, Jean Kondo Weigl; Transference & Translation, Baila Litton; and Flaunt, Arabella Proffer, will all grace our gallery walls May 16 – June 29. Each of these accomplished artists presents a unique body of strong, narrative work presented simultaneously in three solo exhibitions.
Arabella Proffer, who is now in the final stages of cancer and under Hospice care, returned to painting in oils in 2024. While each artist’s work displays surrealist tendencies, Proffer’s lush, candy colored Superfine Tableau paintings move well into the realm of Pop Surrealism. She describes this series as, “…a self-indulgent escape from my own decay, transcendental painting with a nod to Dutch Golden Age still lives…” We are excited to present this new work of Superfine Tableaus as well as assorted works from her Biomorphic series, and Portraits both as paintings and digital NFTs in Flaunt.
Litton and Weigl each use personal, and social commentary to take on issues of immigration, and the melding of cultural identities in their work. In Floating Worlds Weigl, who is a third generation Japanese American, balances formal and pictorial elements in the depiction of narratives that combine memory, imagination, allegory, authenticity, and truth. “…the paintings portray scenes from the floating world of the traveler – entertainer…. appearing in the form of human and animal figures, characters represent immigrants and fugitives, and the contrast between civilization and the natural order.”
Each series of works shown in Transference & Translation forces us in some way to confront ourselves, as we confront the other. The world of immigrants, displaced people, and the “everyman” play distinct roles in Biala Litton’s work. Litton’s work combines the elements of painting, drawing and collage into skin-like layers bringing surface and depth into each work. Her Stories portraits work on the premise of people making appraisals of other people, particularly those who are different from us in race, age, and gender, based on appearance only. She pulls each of the women’s experiences, history, and personality, up onto the surface of their skin for us to recognize and acknowledge. Litton also uses the collage medium advantageously in the Displaced Project series, “… to reflect the “order and disorder of events that occur throughout life.” In the Everyman works, “Each image is made up of numerous ethnicities, genders, and age demographics. These materials allow exploration of the multiple meanings of race and ethnicity. My goal is to symbolize the identities we all share.”
The Artists Archives of the Western Reserve Interview on Instagram →
Jean Kondo Weigl, Untitled, 1974, Gouache collage, Art Rental Collection Fund RC 1974.3.