SEASON 21
EXHIBITIONS
September 2024 - August 2025
On September 26th and 27th Manifest celebrates the opening of our 500th exhibition
produced in our Woodburn Avenue galleries in East Walnut Hills.
This exhibition season is financially assisted by a grant from the Ohio Arts Council, and
by many individual donors across the country and beyond who support Manifest's Annual Fund.
You can donate here to help keep our nonprofit programming growing!
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Download to save or print the entire See Grand Jury Award finalists and winners here. |
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| April 18 - May 16, 2025 |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: |
main gallery + drawing room
DRAWN 2025 Manifest was founded in-part to stand for the importance of drawing as a process, skill, and discipline, and as a continuing viable product of the creative fine art and design fields. Since its inception our nonprofit organization has continued to incorporate drawing-based programming, including education (Drawing Center), publications (INDA), and gallery exhibits into the broader spectrum of its projects. The artists who formed Manifest in 2004 knew that despite their diverging career paths (architecture, art history, painting, industrial design, photography) they were brought together by their connection to drawing and their mutually intense but multi-faceted pursuit of this fundamental discipline. In honor of the original spirit of the founding ideals of Manifest, the gallery launched DRAWN over a decade ago as an annual exhibition. DRAWN seeks to survey and present the broad scope of drawing being made today. This gallery exhibit is completely separate from but nevertheless complements, and sometimes shares work in common with, the award-winning INDA publication project. DRAWN called for artists to submit works of drawing in any media relevant to the practice (including non-traditional approaches), any style, and any genre (fine art, illustration, design, conceptual, realism, etc.). For this exhibit 167 artists submitted 561 works from 40 states, Washington D.C., and 6 countries, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Mexico, and the United States. Twenty-seven works by the following 18 artists from 15 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Tamie Beldue Joe Bennett Shawn Edrington Scott Espeseth Cavan Fleming Hiroshi Hayakawa Sarah Hunter Michael Kareken Deanne Lenehan Catherine Lewis Tim Lowly Isaiah Okongo Athena Parella Elena Peteva Kimberly Raboin Jessie Shinn Greg Thatcher
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Tamie Beldue
Shawn Edrington
Deanne Lenehan
Kimberly Raboin
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parallel space
SLEEP We need to rest. There is no way to avoid the simple fact that despite our desire or need to be awake and working, eventually the need to lie down will overcome us against our will if ignored long enough. When we do sleep, we are better for that rest. There are times in our life where our connection to sleep is acrimonious. We fight it off with caffeine, light, or music until we are shaking and delirious. Toddlers unwilling to nap and miss out on life do this, as do workers staying awake for a shift. Other times we court it desperately, trying to meet it within fleeting windows between work and childcare, swallowing medicines, meditation, and chamomile while playing white noise at a low thrum. When we sleep we get to dream, our brain pulling apart and rearranging the desires and events of our lives into surreal and revealing collages. Even while conscious, the leisure to let our minds wander without a specific task permits great creativity and insight. Dormancy isn't necessarily idleness—for seeds, dormancy is a what allows them to spread and survive, and a fallow field leads to rejuvenation. SLEEP is an exhibit of works about rest, dreaming, and where and when we can lay down our heads. For this exhibit 109 artists submitted 288 works from 31 states, Washington D.C., and 4 countries, including Austria, Germany, Israel, and the United States. Eleven works by the following 9 artists from 8 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Lauren Adams Lisa Bryson Grace Doyle Nancy Gesimondo Julianna Lazio Roddy MacInnes Lydia Nong Constance Scopelitis Erin Titus
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Julianna Lazio
Roddy MacInnes
Lydia Nong
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central gallery
LONGING Katherine Cox is an artist and educator. Her initial interest in the arts was in dance, inspired by a high school dance teacher. During her college years this passion for the arts shifted to the visual arts when she took her first figure drawing class—she was hooked. Cox was born in Connecticut, later moved to Florida and finally settled in southern Ohio. She earned a BFA and MAT from Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, FL. Her work consists of large scale drawings, meticulously executed with graphite and colored pencils. She has a strong affinity for the tactile qualities of paper and often includes handmade papers within her drawings. Cox exhibits her work at Carla Massoni Gallery in Chestertown, MD. She has received several Ohio River Border Initiative grants. She was also awarded two artist residencies, one at The Rensing Center in Pickens, SC and one at The Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL. Her work is included in several collections, including The Health Plan Collection in Wheeling, WV. Cox was involved in museum education for nearly twenty-five years, including the last twenty years at the Huntington Museum of Art. She now works as a full time artist.
Of her work Cox states: The act of laying graphite down onto paper is personal, intimate, and immediate. It is just me, the pencil, and the paper. When I put pencil to paper there is no disguise, no veneer. The clatter of life is distilled into quiet simplicity the moment I begin. My inspiration comes from the natural world. Rocks, sticks, trees, and rope fascinate me not only in their simplicity as objects, but in how they can address the complexities of the human condition. Most recently the expanse of skies, water, and wind has captivated me. I can hold a rock or a stick. I can rub my palm along a tree trunk, I can feel the coarse fibers of rope. These are objects I can contain. A fast moving river, the depths of the ocean, cloud formations illusively changing with the wind—these I cannot contain and I am reminded that I am small. Drawing these ever-present natural objects and scenes through intense observation quiets me and connects me to both the grandeur and frailty of life. Graphite and colored pencils are my primary tools, and paper is integral to the image, not simply the surface which holds it. Paper surface and marks synthesize, yielding a single seamless result. The interaction between tool and surface is alive and vital, bringing forth imagery.
This exhibition was selected from among 164 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 21st season.
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north gallery
WEATHER Weather is a local phenomena. Distinct from climate, it is the word we use to describe the state of nature in our immediate vicinity, in a specific moment. Weather is the data for projecting potential futures, calculated in chance. We forecast it as best we can to plan everything from agriculture, to travel, to how we dress in the morning. Famously mercurial, we have learned that while we still live vulnerable to its whims, its general trends stunningly react to us as well; we are very presently reaping the results of our effect on the planet in the form of re-shaped air currents and intensifying storms. Our relationship with weather is less about humanity living at the mercy of capricious, divine whim, and rather a form of co-existence with a vast and complex network of forces that still carry the power of blessing and judgment. Aesthetically, intimately, weather is the sensation of humid air on our skin during a summer evening, and the muffled quietude of a silencing snowfall. The question of a setting’s “atmosphere” is partly a question about weather, and even when it isn’t, we use it as metaphor anyways: a “cloudy expression” a “stormy mood”, an “arid, dry tone”. The language of flooding, gusting, billowing, drizzling and freezing has an emotive power that evokes the actual power of nature. WEATHER is an exhibit of works about weather phenomena, metaphor, atmosphere, climate, and about how we experience, map, and understand it. For this exhibit 105 artists submitted 341 works from 32 states and 4 countries, including Canada, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Eleven works by the following 7 artists from 5 states and Italy were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Kirstin Dunlap Lisa Geertsen Lynne Miller Jones Miao Ma Mariam Aziza Stephan Lynn Vandeberg Dganit Zauberman
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Lynne Miller Jones
Lynn Vandeberg
Dganit Zauberman
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| May 30 - June 27, 2025 |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: |
| July 11 - August 8, 2025 |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: |
| August 15 - September 12, 2025 SEASON 21 FINALÉ! |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: |
——— END OF SEASON 21 ———
THANK YOU!
PREVIOUS SEASON 21 EXHIBITS:
Season 21 Launch |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit |
main gallery
CORPUS A FotoFocus Biennial Participating Venue Exhibit and Manifest's 500th Exhibition Produced Since January 2005! Another Manifest participating project in the FotoFocus Biennial is our PICK IT UP, TURN IT OVER experimental photography workshop and the showcase of resulting works on view at the historic campus of Manifest Drawing Center at 3464 Central Parkway in Clifton.
Not so many years ago, we stopped touching photographs. While print media and brick-and-mortar galleries exist, our common, everyday experience with the photograph has drastically shifted from the handling of 4” x 6” prints from the drugstore to scrolling through brilliant digital images shining out from our screens. These photographs are easily created, manipulated, and shared, but at a cultural level it cost us the sense of intimacy, of preciousness, that comes with holding an image that has dimension and weight. We lost the expectation that images do not “go out” when we turn our phones off. Has this also affected how we as a culture relate to each other? This exhibit aims to examine that photograph that does not turn off. It reminds us that a photograph exists in the world, accumulating the history that sticks to all things that take up space. It showcases the photograph that is touched, that has more than one side, that expands and bends into three dimensions, that is flipped through, that is printed onto something that had a history before it became a surface. You can touch a photograph with your fingers. You cannot touch an electronic digital image at all—you only touch the plastic container that pretends to be a photo. CORPUS called to artists for photographic-based works that re-engage the body, acknowledge their place in the physical world, and explore the impacts of choice of surface, volume, texture, material, and presentation methods on the experience of the image itself—the spirit in the body of the art. This exhibit aims to reveal the literal backstory, or other sides of what has become a sideless visual phenomenon, giving the photo back its body. Support for this FotoFocus Biennial 2024 exhibition was provided by FotoFocus. For this exhibit 72 artists submitted 233 works from 27 states, Washington D.C. and Germany. Sixteen works by the following 12 artists from 9 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Dylan Bannister Sally Chapman Natalie Christensen and Jim Eyre Catherine Day Myles Dunigan Liz Barick Fall Karen Hillier Julie Mixon Amanda Musick Rachel Nemecek Carolyn Norton Kaylee Peters
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Julie Mixon
Carolyn Norton
Kaylee Peters
Liz Barick Fall
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drawing room
All I’ve Sung and Have Yet To Sing Michael Tittel earned a BFA in Photography from Ohio University in 1992. His work has appeared in Leica Magazine, Saveur, Conde Naste Traveler, Ain’t Bad and aCurator and he was a 2023 Best in Show Winner in the Communication’s Arts Photography Annual. His fine art photographs are held in private collections and Ohio University’s permanent collection. He currently teaches full-time at the School of the Arts at Northern Kentucky University. Of his work the artist states: "For forty years I’ve photographed habitually in the pursuit of honoring the people, and places of my life. I explore the existential precariousness of the landscape, and the sublime dimensions reached through portraiture. I often treat portraiture as still life and personify landscapes. To me they are equals in storytelling power. This work is part of an extended visual poem representing the more visceral moments between people and places in the Midwest. Like music, these photographs celebrate the mystery and wonder of shared experiences. Without the visual grandeur of a place like the American desert or the northern latitudes of Iceland, the camera must evoke drama in other ways. These forced image combinations reveal evocative new contexts and non-obvious qualities: a mysteriousness prescribed by Ohio Valley light, a new sense of weight and form, and a startling respect for the subjects, human or otherwise. Themes of love, solitude, and the memories or people we fear losing are presented here like short love songs. A formal photographic treatment draws attention to what might have been too obvious to notice. These realistic images take on new fictional life in their designed sequencing, which often places one or more images against each other, giving rise to new visual phrases. In this work, one is reminded of the subtle magic that photography delivers and the moments it so effectively honors.” This exhibition was selected from among 164 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 21st season.
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parallel space
Gain-of-Function Mark Armbruster lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a Lens based multi-media artist who creates art in reaction to climate change and human effects on the landscape. Mark received his BFA in photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1992, and an MS in Instructional Design and Technology from the University of Maryland in 2019. Mark has exhibited his photography in numerous group shows including in such venues as Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Giertz Gallery, Champaign, IL; The Crows Nest, Baltimore, MD; Artscape - B24, Baltimore MD; TouchStone Gallery, Washington D.C.; Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT; Perspective Photo Gallery, Evanston, IL; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA; Tamar Hendel Gallery, Silver Spring, MD; The Contemporary, Baltimore, MD, among others. His work has also been featured in F-Stop Magazine Issues #86 & #6 and Jpeg Magazine, Issue #4. Of his work the artist states: "These images are from an ongoing project titled Gain-of-Function. The series uses non-traditional landscape imagery that acts as a backdrop for painted graphs and charts representing data from studies on climate change and its effects on the environment. The landscapes are recognizable, taken from a vantage point that shows larger structures of globalized commerce, energy and natural resources, and industrialization at play in our own backyards. Visual data depicted by dots, lines, and complex patterns illustrates climate studies relevant to those environments and speaks to phenomena like temperature extremes, drought, wild fires, and much more. The artwork titles are derived from quotes of climate change denials by politicians and leaders from the past decade. They refer to the specific studies or climate issue represented in the images, while also selected for their satirical tone and sometimes tragic and idiotic brutality." This exhibition was selected from among 164 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 21st season.
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central gallery
The Aesthetics of Collapse Brooks Dierdorff is an artist exploring the ways media like photography and video shape our cultural imagination of environmental collapse. His work includes a range of methodologies such as photo-based sculptures, installation, video, appropriating images from commercial and archival sources, and experimental documentary filmmaking. His work serves as an interface between political, ecological, and artistic spheres. Of his work the artist states: "My work explores how photography shapes our ideas about nature, climate disasters, and environmental collapse. The Aesthetics of Collapse is based on photographs of recent natural and man-made disasters produced for the United States Geological Survey. In the series, select photographs from the USGS digital archive are recombined and cut into an assortment of non-rectilinear shapes, a process that involves both accumulation and destruction. This exhibition was selected from among 164 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 21st season.
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north gallery
LOST AND FOUND Objects do not die. Destroyed, broken, discarded, or otherwise at their end-of-use, they still have form and, therefore, potential. Through an alchemy-like process, artists can see discarded things for the essence they represent, as raw material, and re-shape it into new life. Such creative resourcefulness is often driven by necessity. For example, within the fiber arts, scraps are turned into quilts, and entire mending traditions developed around extending and beautifying the lives of garments. Sculptors and craftsmen will harvest wood from anywhere, and reshape it into new works of art, design, or utility. Others, by impulse or conscience, pursue assemblage, collage, and re-contextualization not only to be thrifty or ethical, but to push culture forward. We worry about the second life of our stuff. The level of guilt, however subliminal, has dramatically intensified the experience of modern life. The aesthetics of dystopic science fiction, where survivalists live in cities of refuse and pilot frankensteinian, rusting vehicles, reveal anxieties about the future use of the things people have made and cast-off. This expanding social lament over the possible future we are complicit in bringing about causes us to ask how can we use the already once used in order to avoid depleting the now understood limited resources at our disposal? How can we be productively creative without contributing to a larger systemic disaster? With artists, being a particularly sensitive and perceptive subset of society, and with art often serving in the role of a sentinel specie, this subject becomes not only one for serious or playful poetry, but also one of thoughtful hope and ingenuity. For this exhibit 159 artists submitted 493 works from 35 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and 7 countries, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Germany, Netherlands, and the United States. Nineteen works by the following 12 artists from 8 states, England, and Germany were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Justin Behm Franklyn Campbell Victoria Fuller Veronika Krämer Susan Lenz Carolin Mueller Eric Penington Jori Phillips Bonnie Ralston Sabrina Rodrigues April Wright Larry Zdeb
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Victoria Fuller
Eric Penington
Bonnie Ralston
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| November 8 - December 6, 2024 |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit |
main gallery
CONTAINER Clay is moulded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not. A container inspires a myriad of reactions, from the exhilaration of opening a surprise present, to the swelling trepidation while winding a jack-in-the-box. Varying widely in size and shape, these objects are defined first by their function and further by their contents, and ultimately by our interaction with them—the act of placing into or removing something from within. Often, but not always, containers are everyday objects, plentiful and readily overlooked for their contents. Emphasis is placed on the treasure within. What secrets might be kept secured, contained, or protected? Where does a container land at the intersections between craft, art, and design? How can we explore its capacity to hold, transport, or protect? CONTAINER is an exhibit about holding including images and objects that acknowledge containers of various types not just for their function, but for their meaning. For this exhibit 116 artists submitted 343 works from 34 states, Washington D.C. and 5 countries, including Canada, China, England, Netherlands, and the United States. Twenty works by the following 13 artists from 10 states and Canada were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Travis Apel Curtiss Brock Katherine Cox Palli Davene Davis Samantha Haring Katie Hudnall Noah Lagle Yevgeniya Mikhailik Cat Quattrociocchi John Richardson Jaye Schlesinger Jesse Torres-Medina
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Katie Hudnall
John Richardson
Jaye Schlesinger
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drawing room
Nurturing Shadows: Weiting Wei (b.1984) is a Chinese-born artist who currently lives and works in Columbus, OH. She received her Bachelor of Education from Fujian Huanan Women’s Vocational College in China and her MFA from Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, OH.
Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at Yellowstone Art Museum, MT, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, TX, Evansville Museum, IN, Zanesville Museum, OH, McConnell Art Center, Ohio Craft Museum, Cultural Arts Center and China. Of her work the artist states: "My identity as a mother and caregiver is intertwined with my role as an artist. Understanding the behavior of materials and using processes akin to domestic tasks fosters a sense of familiarity with forms and muscle memory. This enables me to engage with the nuances of the materials, their responsiveness to my hands, and the fusion of clay shaping and the use of kitchen tools in my creative process. My work traverses the domestic realm through the use of tools and themes centered around pregnancy, children, and motherhood, interwoven with memories and traditions from my life in China. In my recent artworks, I draw inspiration from the natural forms of organisms and integrate them into sculptures crafted from polymer clay. By capturing the dynamic shapes and intricate details of nature, rooted in my childhood memories, I convey the diverse emotions and states experienced by women during their journey of growth. My artworks invite viewers to explore the hidden complexities within the monochromatic surfaces.” This exhibition was selected from among 164 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 21st season.
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parallel space + central gallery
ALTARPIECES An altar is a place for worship, for ritual, for sacrifice. While functionally a table, an altar is holier in intent—the difference comes from dedication. Objects on an altar are carefully arranged and used for sacred purpose. An object placed on an altar becomes an icon. The objects in a still life are similarly arranged, imbued with meaning by artistic intent. If a still life is an altarpiece, to what deity is it dedicated? The act of dedication takes many forms. Walls of generational family photos are dedicated places for remembrance, as are roadside shrines, and places of pilgrimage. Bedroom mirror and locker door collages serve as tributes to something the maker holds dear. Taken further from the physical realm, a form of altar might occur as an online fan blog extolling the virtues of celebrated figures past or present representing ideals for private aspiration, or as odes and poems written to a lover, to nature, to a place, an idea. For this exhibit we asked artists around the world at what point does such devotional practice, often quite personal, become art? At what point does generating special objects or images made as a form of dedication become a conduit for a higher idea to be shared with a public audience? What do we enshrine through the making of art? ALTARPIECES is an exhibit of artworks about purposeful arrangement, ritual, still life, altars, shrines, odes, eulogies, offerings, decorations, and dedications. For this exhibit 149 artists submitted 437 works from 37 states, Washington D.C. and 5 countries, including Canada, England, Norther Ireland, Spain, and the United States. Eighteen works by the following 13 artists from 10 states and Northern Ireland were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Michelle Bennett Rachel Bensimon Whitney Blue Todd Fox Stephen Johnston Jonathan Kusnerek Hui Chi Lee Jeanette May Todd McDonald Sangun Park Ron Richmond Rebecca Woodward
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Rachel Bensimon
Jonathan Kusnerek
Sangun Park
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north gallery
THIRD PLACES Where do we go when we are not at home? The place that isn’t where we live, nor where we labor, is known as a “Third Place”. In a third place, we are not beholden to the same roles and responsibilities that generally define us. In a third place we are at leisure; we can sit, eat, play, talk, drink, and otherwise engage in activities with other people. This includes such spaces as restaurants, parks, skating rinks, museums, malls, bars, coffee shops, churches, and libraries. They are forums, social platforms, and MRPGs. Third places provide the opportunity to build relationships and engage with people outside our immediate sphere. They are places of learning, relaxation, and they are places of potential conflict. We crave a third place for its variety, the friction and company of other people, for newness, for change and exchange, for information, beauty, companionship. The alternative is isolation, a repeated pattern sealing us away from other people and from the larger world. How do artists represent this important personal and social catalyst? THIRD PLACES shares works of art that are about or which symbolize or depict the places we go when we are not at home and not at labor. For this exhibit 43 artists submitted 126 works from 19 states and Canada. Nine works by the following 9 artists from 5 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Dean Brown Jason Coatney Sally Gil Jaclyn Gordyan Ruoxi Hua Emma Reynolds Jessica Summers Izel Vargas Renae Wang
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Emma Reynolds
Jessica Summers
Dean Brown
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| December 13, 2024 - January 10, 2025 |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: |
main gallery + drawing room
IMPRINT BIENNIAL 2024 Like photography, printmaking is a genre of creative work that is underscored by its processes. Like photography, it changed the world. As Manifest embarks on the establishment of its new permanent home on Central Parkway over the next two years with our studio program leading the way, we have made the commitment to flesh out a new branch of programming, and establish a printmaking studio parallel to and integrated with our Drawing, Painting, and Darkroom Photography offerings. This will fill out the equation perfectly since Manifest's Drawing Center is committed to preserving, teaching, and supporting the practice of the visual art disciplines and skills that changed the world. Printmaking is an important checkpoint along the road map between the most primitive early cave scrawlings and the ubiquitous photography in everyone's pocket today. In many ways it is where the Arts meet the Humanities. As a historic creative discipline it represents the first awakening of the individual's potential for gaining broad knowledge and wide dissemination of facts, personal opinion, and expression. With this, printmaking might just be the first true form of a 'social media', affecting, and one would hope, uplifting visual literacy and critical thinking in meaningful ways. Some artists are steadfast traditionalists, anchoring themselves in age-old technical methods. Others push the boundaries of the discipline, exploring just what constitutes ‘printmaking’. For this exhibit Manifest takes a fresh look at the media, and now is proud to make IMPRINT an ongoing committment as a biennial exhibition. For this exhibit 153 artists submitted 512 works from 36 states and 5 countries, including Canada, England, Italy, Taiwan, and the United States. Thirty-two works by the following 24 artists from 12 states, Canada and Italy were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Miguel Aragon Pat Bacon Peter Baczek Jerome Bertrand Elaine Cunfer Meryl Engler Rick Finn Ivan Fortushniak Yuji Hiratsuka Heidi Hogden Anthony TungNing Huang Lindsey Hurst Brian Johnson Patti Jordan Catherine Kramer Kathy McGhee Miriana Pino Endi Poskovic Rosalyn Richards Kristin Sarette Katherine Sullivan Tyler Thenikl Joe Tsambiras Koichi Yamamoto
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Meryl Engler
Elaine Cunfer
Endi Poskovic
Kristin Sarette
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parallel space
ROOTS A tree is a common symbol for family. The association being that a tree has roots in the past that nurture, branches that spread, bloom, and multiply; the metaphor helps us understand our position in time through a similar generational sprawl. We are born of our ancestors, and grow within the community of those that raise us, and in our adulthood foster the world our children will live in. We, our individual part, will eventually pass on, but the structure remains. Family gives us a sense of culture through the languages used within it, the food cooked, the hierarchies and customs within, the histories and stories told. Family is shared experience, a shared home, a shared ease of being. Family moves beyond mere identity, however—it implies love, support, and a connection with a sense of obligation, in sickness and in health. It certainly includes, but isn’t limited to parentage and progeny. Family is made through the act of care, and we find and give that care in people beyond bonds of tradition. When does friend, does neighbor, become family? Who do you accept into your family? Who has been dismissed? Have you made a new family? When the bonds of family fracture, the damage is compound and brutal. Are they healed through being splinted together, or by amputation? Who do we owe our care to? Who do we find our resemblance in? What have our traditions and histories done for us, and what do we do to continue them, to contribute to them, to pass on or better them? And how are these questions reflected in art? ROOTS is an exhibition of works about family, heritage, ancestors—art about siblings, parents, children, the homes we make, the bonds of care, about where we came from and where we might grow. For this exhibit 111 artists submitted 339 works from 32 states, Washington D.C., and 6 countries, including Canada, Egypt, France, Israel, Nigeria, and the United States. Nine works by the following 7 artists from 7 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Julia Arstorp Kayley Jane Dykman Andrea Garland Thais Glazman Michael McCaffrey Irene Delka McCray Meghan Murray
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Julia Arstorp
Michael McCaffrey
Irene Delka McCray
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central gallery
ONE 15
Of his work the artist states: "The T-Square in this painting belonged to my grandfather William Schickel whose modern artistic career spanned architecture to photography sculpture and painting. I never saw a traditional office space as a kid but my grandfather’s studio with its rulers, tracing paper, paint and bent metal was my example of what a working person looked like. Always busy, my grandfather’s mantra was art is life—life is art, which fit a moral view of the world informed by his Catholic faith. Aesthetics and rightness were synonymous pursuits that I had to untangle in my own development as a mature artist, but the ease of making and looking at the world through an artist’s lens is a kind of permission I am thankful to have been given. I teach at the University of Cincinnati and have spent some time working with fashion design students. Basic materials are inherently beautiful to me, and even though I marvel at how my design students can craft and detail garments, the fabric itself is where I see the most magic. This painting is simple: expanses of gold and blue fabric divided by a T-Square. It’s not meant to be topical, but if you think it is, well that’s lovely too."
Emil Robinson is an artist and tenured Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati. Presentations include a prize-winning painting in the Smithsonian, a recent solo exhibition with Taymour Grahne, and exhibitions with Abattoir Cleveland, Essex Flowers NYC, and Anna Zorina Gallery NYC. Robinson has received grants or awards from the Ohio Arts Council, Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, and The Smithsonian. His work can be found in public and private collections including the Beth Rudin Dewoody collection in Miami.
ABOUT THE MANIFEST PRIZE We respect the creative principle of reduction (the blind jury process) as it is employed to achieve an essential conclusive statement for each exhibit we produce. This is what has led to the high caliber of each Manifest exhibit, and to the gallery's notable following. We believe competition inspires excellence. Therefore we determined over a decade ago to launch the Manifest Prize in order to push the process to the ultimate limit—from among many to select just ONE work. Manifest's jury process for the 15th Annual Manifest Prize included multiple levels of jury review of 808 works of all shapes, sizes, and media made by 189 artists from around the world. The jury consisted of a total of 16 different volunteer jurors from across the U.S. providing over 6,500 scores through multipe rounds. Each level of the process resulted in fewer works passing on to the next, until a winner was reached. The size and physical nature of the works considered was not a factor in the jury scoring and selection. It should be noted that the winner and finalists, 5 works, represent roughly the top scoring .5% of the jury pool. The winner represents the top one-tenth of 1% of the jury pool and Emil Robinson is the first Cincinnatian to win the Prize across its fifteen year span. The winning work will be presented in Manifest's Central Gallery from December 13, 2024 through January 10, 2025. It will be accompanied by excerpts from juror statements and the artist's statement. The Finalists: Four finalist works by fours artists (runners up to the winner), including a second work by Emil Robinson, will also be featured in the season-documenting Manifest Exhibition Annual publication (MEAs21). These are works by:
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north gallery
15th Annual TAPPED The relationship between artists and their current or former instructors can be a powerful one. Even when this bond is left unstated, we carry our professors' voices forward in time as we mature as artists and people. We eventually realize that the instruction given by our teachers during our relatively brief careers as students continues to expand within us. We realize that the learning they inspired (or insisted upon) is a chain-reaction process that develops across our lifetime. All of us who have been students carry forward our teachers' legacy in one form or another. And those who are, or have been teachers, bear witness to the potency of studenthood. Out of respect for this artist-teacher bond, and in honor of teachers working hard to help artists tap into a higher mind relative to art and life, Manifest is proud to present TAPPED, an annual exhibit that presents paired works of art by current or former artist/teacher pairs. For this exhibit 73 artists submitted 196 works from 19 states. Twelve works by the following 12 artists from 9 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. The artists are listed in pairings to illustrate their teacher/student relationship (past or present). Works on view will include paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and digital paintings. The exhibition layout is planned so that each pair of artists' works will be shown side-by-side or in close proximity. Visitors will be able to enjoy the variety of types of works while also considering the nature of influence between professor and student. It is worth noting also that a number of the artists in the 'former student' category are now themselves working as a professor.
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| January 24 - February 21, 2025 | Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: |
main gallery + drawing room
BOTANICAL At one time the world of living things was classified into two simple groups, plants and animals. Botany concerned itself with the study of plants. We are linked to these, our earthly cousins, in so many ways. As a planetary phenomenon we take for granted that to our yin the plants provide the yang. We breath in oxygen and out carbon dioxide, they absorb carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Clearly an elegant arrangement was agreed upon by the forces of the Universe to arrive at such a symbiosis. Whether it be the form of organic plant life, or the concept of its functionality, the implications of its shared existence with humanity, or its clever ability to convert sunlight into food, plant life is as fascinating as it is beautiful. In the context of contemporary society it is interesting to consider what this can mean in the hands of artists. For our 21st exhibit season Manifest revisits the theme the gallery first presented in spring of 2012, and again in early 2016. BOTANICAL called to artists around the world for works of visual art which explore the theme of plant life using formal or conceptual approaches in ways that may be quite straightforward and descriptive, or which are abstract, conceptual or in other ways surprising or inventive. For this exhibit 185 artists submitted 623 works from 37 states, Washington D.C., and 5 countries, including Argentina, Canada, Latvia, Scotland, and the United States. Thirty works by the following 21 artists from 13 states, Washington D.C. and Canada were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting works by: Paige Billin-Frye Lisa Brussell Julie Cowan Adam Crowley Meghan Flynn Kiki Gaffney Porter Gifford Jody Graff Jessica Greenfield Cynthia Greig Susan Hackworth Scott Miller Jessica Mohl Lynda Nugent Julia Peterson Heather Skinner Ellie Stanislav Meghan Stanley Vesselina Traptcheva Janelle VanderKelen Marnie White
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Lisa Brussell
Scott Miller
Heather Skinner
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parallel space
MYTHOGRAPHY Whether gathered around a campfire telling ghost stories, sequestered in a quiet room buried into an epic novel, or following the latest adventures in the multi-verse, we are fascinated with stories, legends, myths and fables. Stories help locate us, form our personal and shared identities and often operate as larger metaphors for reality. Throughout history, from the remains of ancient cultures preserved in museums around the world to the soaring frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, or the provocative films of Matthew Barney, visual artists have offered a unique contribution to the telling of tales. For this exhibit 75 artists submitted 249 works from 30 states, Washington D.C., and 3 countries, including Canada, Norway, and the United States. Eight works by the following 8 artists from 7 states and Norway were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Charles Cooper Farrar Cusomato Ingvild Adelaine Eiring David Hicks RD Mitchell Vittorio Ottaviani Steven Pearson Dusty Rose
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Charles Cooper
Dusty Rose
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central gallery
PROMETHEUS Fire is a symbol of transformation and enlightenment. Its mythic gifting provided the spark of human development, representing knowledge—and hubris. There have always been two sides to fire, the creator and the destroyer. In our modern world, our language reflects the means of controlling fire’s destructive power: fire trucks, fire drills, fire escapes, and fire extinguishers. Despite the risk of fire’s rampage however, it is equally as beneficial as it is dangerous. Fire provides heat for cooking, manufacturing, comfort, and incandescence for light. Certain creative technological pursuits such as metallurgy, pyrography, ceramics, and glass working are enabled by fire. Fire burns parallel to humans and has come to symbolize parts of our culture outside of utility. Anger, the feeling that triggers our adrenaline and brings heat to our faces, finds metaphor in fire’s uncontrollable spread. Anxiety, stress, or embarrassment plunge us into the sensation of boiling air. The formal qualities of colors can emulate and even inspire ‘hot’ feelings, with warm reds and oranges representing and even feeding irritability, hunger, and arousal. Heat has emotional reality, as well as physical. As we are witnessing this very day, in January of 2025, fire is indiscriminate, as horrific as it is empowering. It is, perhaps, humanity's oldest friend—and enemy. Our hearts go out to those affected by the fire still raging in California. For this exhibit 85 artists submitted 234 works from 33 states, Washington D.C., and 4 countries, including Canada, Iran, Italy, and the United States. Eleven works by the following 9 artists from 8 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Paul Billings Lynne Breitfeller Donna Cooper Mark Gleason Matthew Jones Sarah Knight Peggy Nichols Grant Whipple Dganit Zauberman
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Lynne Breitfeller
Mark Gleason
Matthew Jones
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north gallery
ETERNAL CYCLES In considering proposals submitted for this exhibition period Manifest's team realized it had a special opportunity to craft another rare two-person show featuring two bodies of compatible, contrasting, yet highly unique works by two noteworthy artists. We are grateful that Ronna and Anthony accepted our invitation to join forces in this combined presentation of their work.
Ronna S. Harris Ronna S. Harris holds a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Bachelor of Art in drawing from California State University, Northridge, CA. She was an Associate Professor of Art for thirty five years at Tulane University in New Orleans and has exhibited in solo shows with galleries in New Orleans; South Miami, FL; Los Angeles, CA; and Mobile, AL. Harris has participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea at the Florence Biennale in Italy. She contributed to the White House Bicentennial Celebration: Part Two: Commemorative White House Calendar and her works have appeared in Magazine Contemporary Art, Art and Beyond Magazine, and New American Paintings. Harris is represented in the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Jacksonville Art Museum (Jacksonville, FL), the Morris Museum (Augusta, GA), The Huntsville Museum of Art (Huntsville, AL), and the Birmingham Museum of Art (Birmingham, AL). Ronna was a finalist Bennett Prize “Rising Voices 3” currently traveling exhibition in numerous museums throughout, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Ronna Harris lives and works in New Orleans, LA and Boone, NC and is represented by Steven Callan.
Of her work Harris states: My paintings communicate a state of controlled chaos as I combine two divergent forces and approaches: realism and abstract expression. Displaying a proficient handling of light, a mastery of images, and a skillful mark making method, the paintings confer an illusion of reality to something that isn’t. The end result is a space between magic and illusion, rooted in the American Realist tradition. My philosophy is that art is magic, and the magic is illusion. My creative theme is internal perspective. This intimate, cohesive thread connects my artwork throughout my career. My goal is to transport the viewer into another realm of intimacy and exploration. At first glance the works are just examples of narrative painting, however the narrative conveys my concern for issues that affect our contemporary society, particularly man’s impact on our environment, causing climate change. The imagery I have chosen throughout all my series (figure, still-life, and nature) are my observations that represent this impact. They are my intimate vision of life.
Anthony TungNing Huang
Huang started printmaking in 2020 and became captivated by traditional print processes. Influenced by Daoist philosophy, particularly Wu Wei (effortless action), he rethinks the relationship between urban spaces and nature, aiming to create spiritual sublimation for urban dwellers. His art, a dialogue with the universe, offers solace in nature's harmony. He invites viewers into a meditative state of "flow," blending timeless concepts with contemporary art to foster a deeper connection with the natural world. His prints provide a refuge from modern life's chaos, each brushstroke carrying intention and meaning, reflecting joy, sorrow, fragility, and resilience, and offering a whispered promise that amidst the chaos, it will be okay.
Of his work Huang states: In the tranquil spaces between life's bustling rhythms, I discover solace. As a printmaker, my art serves as a refuge. Within its sanctuary, I find myself immersed in a world of my own making, experiencing a profound sense of tranquility amidst the focused concentration of printmaking. It is within these quiet moments of creation that I find my truest expression, where every stroke of the brush is infused with intention and meaning. By immersing myself in the flow of creation, I cultivate a space of contemplation, where both artist and audience can find refuge from the relentless pace of the world. Guided by the ancient wisdom of Daoist philosophy, particularly the principle of 無為 – Wu Wei, I aim to create an environment conducive to reflection—a space where viewers can immerse themselves in the flow of the natural world. Drawing inspiration from the cycles of the sun, the meandering rivers, and the resilient life of trees, I seek to embody Wu Wei, allowing actions to unfold effortlessly, in harmony with the unfolding circumstances. In this meditative state of "flow," the ceaseless chatter of the mind is silenced, and one is fully present in the moment. So, if you're weary, just take a deep breath—right here. In the gentle embrace of my prints, may you rediscover the sacred dance of non-action and find reassurance in the whispered promise that it will be okay.
This exhibition was selected from among 164 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 21st season.
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Ronna S. Harris
Anthony TungNing Huang
Ronna S. Harris
Anthony TungNing Huang
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| March 7 - April 4, 2025 |
Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit: |
main gallery + drawing room
OHIO, KENTUCKY, INDIANA
In 21 seasons Manifest's projects have included works by artists representing 50 states and 48 countries. Beginning in our tenth season, we launched an ongoing series of exhibits focusing on works by artists in our three-state region. Ten years ago we added projects that also focused on other definable regions outside our own. These Regional Showcases were offered to complement the very wide geographical makeup of most Manifest exhibits with a closer look at art being made here in our own backyard, as well as provide a platform from which we could examine the trends, qualities, and idiosyncrasies of contemporary art within specific geographical areas and compare them to our own. As is the case every season, this exhibit had no specific requirement for type, media, or style of work to be submitted. This was an open call. Submissions ranged widely from traditional to very conceptual, abstract, and experimental work. Jury selections were made based on the overall quality of the works submitted. For this exhibit 192 artists submitted 652 works from Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. Twenty-seven works by the following 21 artists from our three-state region were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication. Presenting Works by: Rod Bradfield Joan Clare Brown Eli Craven Alyssa Davis Craig Fisher Peter Green David Hannon Ron Isaacs Uhma Janus Kathy McGhee Maddie Miller Elissa Morley Robert Pulley Kameron Robinson Priscilla Roggenkamp Constance Scopelitis Brook Slobodien Jennifer Sowders Patricia Swanson Eric Tuck-Macalla Megan Wolfkill
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Robert Pulley
Ron Isaacs
Priscilla Roggenkamp
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parallel space + central gallery
TOTALLY OPEN Manifest is known for its thoughtful thematic approaches to exhibitions. When we put out a call for works with a subject in mind, the resulting show serves as a survey of contemporary art made about that certain idea. The subjects span geographies, emotions, methods, concepts. Throughout our over 500 exhibit history Manifest has produced shows exploring hundreds of unique themes. And each work, each theme, has been documented through our exhibition catalogs and award-winning publications. For this exhibit 226 artists submitted 664 works from 42 states, Washington D.C., and 14 countries, including Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Nigeria, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States. Nineteen works by the following 17 artists from 10 states, Germany, and Italy were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.
Presenting works by: Helmut Amann Duncan Anderson Liz Boch Melinda Borysevicz Jason Coatney Brigham Dimick Liz Barick Fall John Ferry Nick Gadbois Grace Kerr Jordan Kornreich Asia Mathis Ryan Mitchell Doug Norman Isaac Powell Hao Shen Thomas Whitworth
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Duncan Anderson
Asia Mathis
Jordan Kornreich
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north gallery
SHOOTING DAY FOR NIGHT Robert A. McCann is a Midwest-based artist and educator. Born and raised in the Ozarks of southwest Missouri, he developed his studio practice through studies at Missouri State University, Indiana University, and as a Fulbright scholar based in Berlin, Germany. Of his work the artist states: "My creative work is concerned with big psychological themes like desire and loss, history and progress, entertainment, and entropy. This group of paintings comes from a period of societal strife and significant personal events over the last half dozen years. They are informed by a political landscape resistant to parody. They're fueled by the joy and terror of becoming a first-time father at middle age at the beginning of a global pandemic. For me, painting is a good vehicle for such contradictory impulses and layered experiences. As paintings are constructed over time, they gather up discrete moments that fuse and become singular. They look forward and backward. There is a multiplicity in painting as a time-based, sculptural, and fictional medium. These are not images of things that have happened; they are analogies for internal dialogues about the outside world. The paintings reflect our mind-inside-a-body relationship to society, conflating perceptions, memories, dreams, and imagination. One meaning of “Shooting Day For Night” is the movie-making process of simulating night scenes in daylight. I take a cinematic approach in staging and composition of painted events, framing and lighting to effect. My imagery is initially sourced from YouTube videos, personal photography, scale models, digital 3-D scans, and AI-generated places and characters, selectively collaged together. The distortion of reality into considered fiction is both a search for meaning and a way of coping.”
This exhibition was selected from among 164 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 21st season.
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Manifest is supported by sustainability funding from
the Ohio Arts Council, and through the generous direct contributions of hundreds of individual supporters and private foundations who care deeply about Manifest's mission for the visual arts. |
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