RBJSE 2021
Albert Young
|
Dragon
Welded steel and cast glass 30”h x 18”w x 16”d 2020 Artist Albert Young
|
Ann Smith
|
Friday Barely Arrives
Steel, paper mâché, bark, fibers, pawpaw seeds, paint 26“h x 16“w x 16“d 2019 Biography Living in Detroit in the 1980s had a profound influence on Ann Smith's art. The struggle of the city and its people are reflected in the forms and intent of her sculpture, seeking the nutrients to heal and prosper. Ann's mixed-media art has been exhibited in many galleries, the Kresge Foundation, and curated in group exhibitions in the Midwest. She has also been featured on “Detroit Performs”. Ann Smith is a graduate of College for Creative Studies. She is a member of the 333 Midland complex in Highland Park, MI and has a studio there as well. She has been represented in the 2018 Regional Biennial. "Friday Barely Arrives blurs the line between abstract and representational sculpture. The observation of physical processes and nature also translates within human experiences to inform the sculpture. This sculpture interprets the experience of the day job. The sculpture is tilting, tattered, and has melting dripping globules. Still vibrant, it is held aloft by three legs, two of which seem to include burst milkweed pods (fiber and pawpaw seeds). A bark belt cinches a cloth filter over the interior, this simple act keeping the whole mess together.” Website: a-smith-art.com View Ann’s videos: Virtual studio visit. Detroit Performs episode |
Austen Brantley
|
Behind the Mask
Low fire stoneware ceramic, wood stain 14’’h x 8’’w x 8’’d 2021 Biography Austen Brantley is a figurative sculptor from (and based out of) Detroit, Michigan. He initially had little to no knowledge of his artistic abilities until he reached his junior year at Berkley High School in 2011. Austen was inspired by his high school ceramics teacher who saw his potential to succeed in things he thought weren't possible. As a result, in 2013 after a mere two years of sculpting, Austen began receiving local and statewide recognition for his creations and won a gold key with his portfolio in national scholastic's competition. Austen's art has been displayed at various prominent galleries and venues, including the Charles H. Wright Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts in conjunction with the 30 Americans Exhibition, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. He was the winner of the Kresge Foundation Gilda Snowden award. He was also chosen for the commission for the highly honored civil rights activist known as Viola Liuzzo in creating a life size monument in her likeness. While Brantley has created and displayed a prolific amount of work, he also made time to travel and learn as much as he can from other cultures and perspectives in art including Italy and Mexico. Brantley seeks to create work that he feels tell a unique story about his perspective on identity. As Brantley is African American being born from Detroit but growing up partially in Germany, the perspective of a black man or being black is a deep question. He delves into this search for identity in his work titled the Cocoon series as he sculpts black painted sculptures and wraps them in Hydro-stone infused white painted cloth that are composed as isolated figures in states of bondage. He seeks to ask a question of the viewer "what are we? are we black? Or is black only a part of us given by an external ideology?" In creating works with this subject matter Brantley also takes what he has learned from the traditional and contemporary worlds of art that he was inspired by as a teenager and attempts to answer these questions "what it means to be black in the modern age?" with the pursuit of mastering the fine art of sculpture. Website: https://www.austenbrantleysculpture.com/about-the-artist |
Claudia Hershman
|
|
|
Tribe
Cardboard, acrylic paint, pencil, marker, collage 57”h x 36”w x 11”d 2020 |
Tribe 2
Cardboard, acrylic paint, pencil, marker, collage 57”h x 36”w x 11”d 2020 |
Biography
Art has been a part of Claudia Hershman’s world since she was a child. Born in Detroit, she graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in Design and majors in painting and ceramics. She taught art in elementary school, and worked with polymer clay, making jewelry, before it became a popular medium. Her pins and earrings were the small canvases that foreshadowed her current abstract paintings and sculptures. She spent several years making functional ceramics and exploring alternative methods in printmaking. She is a process painter, letting the materials lead her. Excited by the freedom in children’s art, experimentation with materials, a love of color, shape and pattern, are common themes and a driving force in her work.
She has spent much time in South Africa over the past 40 years, which has influenced her work. Her goal is to have the viewer enjoy the varied details and whimsy found in her work and form their own interpretation of it.
Claudia’s mixed media paintings are part of Henry Ford Hospital’s collection, owned by Molina Health Care, The Woman Center at Oakland Community College, Strathmore Apartments and in private collections. She is a member of the TRA Art Group, Clawson, MI (http://www.traartgroup.com/).
Website: claudiahershman.com
Follow Claudia on Instagram: claudiahershmanart
Follow Claudia on Facebook: Claudia Barak Hershman
“Both Totems are done on heavy cardboard shipping tubes. They are mixed media, acrylic paint, collage, markers, and pencil.”
Art has been a part of Claudia Hershman’s world since she was a child. Born in Detroit, she graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in Design and majors in painting and ceramics. She taught art in elementary school, and worked with polymer clay, making jewelry, before it became a popular medium. Her pins and earrings were the small canvases that foreshadowed her current abstract paintings and sculptures. She spent several years making functional ceramics and exploring alternative methods in printmaking. She is a process painter, letting the materials lead her. Excited by the freedom in children’s art, experimentation with materials, a love of color, shape and pattern, are common themes and a driving force in her work.
She has spent much time in South Africa over the past 40 years, which has influenced her work. Her goal is to have the viewer enjoy the varied details and whimsy found in her work and form their own interpretation of it.
Claudia’s mixed media paintings are part of Henry Ford Hospital’s collection, owned by Molina Health Care, The Woman Center at Oakland Community College, Strathmore Apartments and in private collections. She is a member of the TRA Art Group, Clawson, MI (http://www.traartgroup.com/).
Website: claudiahershman.com
Follow Claudia on Instagram: claudiahershmanart
Follow Claudia on Facebook: Claudia Barak Hershman
“Both Totems are done on heavy cardboard shipping tubes. They are mixed media, acrylic paint, collage, markers, and pencil.”
Artist Claudia Hershman
David Petrakovitz
|
Sister Moon
Welded & painted steel with limestone base 65“h x 36“w x 16“d 2018 |
David Versluis
Artist David Versluis
|
Primary Structure, No. 9
Powder-coated & assembled 3 in. (7.6 cm) aluminum tubes 27”h x 9”w x 6”d 2017 Biography David Versluis actively produces prints and sculpture, exhibiting regularly in curated exhibitions. Versluis has had solo exhibitions at Indiana and Purdue Universities at Fort Wayne; Trinity Christian College, Chicago State University, South Suburban College (Illinois); Dordt University, Luther College, and Simpson College (Iowa). Versluis’s larger-scale sculptures have been selected for year-long display in Sioux City, Iowa by the Sioux City Art Center, Sculpt Siouxland Inc.; Public Art Edina (Minnesota); and permanent display on the Dordt University campus. Additionally, he was a contributing artist in the “Geometric Complexions” exhibition in 2017 at the Zhou B Art Center, Chicago. Versluis is a retired professor of art, Dordt University, Sioux Center, Iowa and resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Versluis holds a M.F.A. from Western Michigan University and a B.F.A. from Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is a member of CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts). You can learn more about him at: https://www.dordt.edu/academics/faculty-info/about-me/versluis “Primary Structure, No. 9, is powder-coated & assembled with 3 in. (7.6 cm) aluminum tubes in A Community of Color. My sculptures are about structures which reflect the integral process of combining technology and materials with visual design elements. For this piece, which is one in a series, I’ve emphasized color hues as primary elements of design and the principle of juxtaposing analogous or contrasting colors. This research reveals my growing interest in how colors relate to one another as well as how colors are imbued with meaning. I’m especially interested in the arbitrary meanings and metaphors we ascribe to colors.” Visit David’s website: davidversluis.com Follow David on Instagram: david.versluis |
Dawnice Kerchaert
|
Red and Blue Band Wall Construction
Branches, beads, sinew 14”h x 8”w x 6”d 2020 |
Dora Natella
|
Erato
Terracotta 16"h x 15"w x 8"d 2018 Artist Dora Natella
|
Doug Cannell
|
Tarnished Bravado
Laminated, bent and painted wood, leather 27“h x 60”w x 7”d 2020 Biography Doug Cannell is an award-winning sculptor whose works have been exhibited in museums and art galleries throughout the United States. He was born and schooled in Detroit, where he continues to work from his studio in Highland Park. His sculpture is almost entirely abstract. His early work was predominantly done in clay, then later in steel, and most recently in wood. While his choice of materials has evolved, an aesthetic through line is present in his practice which often blurs the lines between art, craft and design. His work is distinguished by his contrasting materials, textures, and the juxtaposition of the organic and the industrial. Cannell’s artwork is also informed by his work as a graphic designer, a field in which he has also steadily worked. He has been represented in the 2018 Regional Biennial with a sculpture entitled Charm and in 2014, with a sculpture called Wound and Unwound in which he won First Place Award. “Tarnished Bravado is very macho, but it’s worn down, beat up, and tired of being macho. The main elements could be seen as projectiles, weapons or sports equipment, but they are essentially phalluses. The two sections are fighting each other, and the surfaces facing the negative space between them are covered with another icon of the American male; cracked, worn, black leather.” Visit Doug’s website: Dougcannell.com Learn about Doug’s art practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay3oq5TUsGo Follow Doug on Facebook (Doug Cannell) and Instagram (@dougcannell) |
Foster Willey
|
Great River
Mahogany and stainless steel 36“h x 60“w x 16“d 2017 Biography Foster Willey is a sculptor and public artist who maintains his studio in Detroit, MI. He is a new comer to the Detroit art scene having just moved to the Motor City with his wife, Valerie, from Minneapolis, MN. Valerie is also an artist and an associate of the College for Creative Studies. Foster has participated in numerous design settings including large-scale projects for major municipalities. His professional affiliations include architects, engineers, landscape architects, lighting designers, fabricators, historians, graphic designers, and conservators. Originally from St. Joseph, Michigan, and a graduate of St. Joseph High School, Foster received a B.F.A. from Grand Valley State University in painting and sculpture. His art education also included courses at Michigan State University and Andrews University where his mentor was British Sculptor, Allan Collins. In the early 80’s Foster attended the Naguib School of Sculpture in Chicago where he worked with Egyptian sculptor, Mustafa Naguib. Upon relocating to Minneapolis in 1988, Foster was commissioned by the City of Minneapolis to create The Leaders Wall, a series of fifty life-size bronze portraits of community activists that are integrated into the 4th Ave Bridge along the Green Line commuter trail. Other major commissions followed including Centrifuge, a monumental abstract bronze sculpture for Nicollet Commons Park in Burnsville, MN. Today, Foster Willey’s commissions can be found throughout the State of Minnesota, including St. Louis Park; The Bee Way, Plymouth; Winged Iris, Rosemount; Triskele, Owatonna; Regeneration, Minneapolis; Minnesota Menagerie and the Central Avenue Stelae. Recent Public Art projects include two light rail stations for the new Green Line in St. Paul: Hamline Prairie Station and Faces of Rondo at Victoria Station, and Ascent Fountain, in 2016 also located in Nicollet Commons Park. In 2019 Foster completed Intersections, for the City of Cottage Grove, homage to first responders at the new Hero Center Training Facility. Affiliated professional accomplishments include collaborations with landscape architects at Kimley Horn Inc. for Nicollet Commons Park, SRF Consulting for the 13th St Enhancements in Minneapolis, and Toole Design / the Street Design Manual for the City of St. Paul. Foster has received two CUE awards from the Minneapolis Committee on Urban Planning, and an Award of Excellence from the MN Concrete & Masonry Contractors Assn. for stone carving. Burnsville’s Nicollet Commons Park received the Great Places Award from the MN Urban Land Institute & the Sensible Land Use Coalition, which features the sculpture, Centrifuge. More recently, Codaworx Magazine, a global design platform showcasing commissioned public art has recognized his projects The Bee Way and Centrifuge for the ‘The Art of Place’. Hamline Prairie Station has also been recognized in their ‘Art of Transit’. “My work is both abstract and representational. My interest in the figurative tradition and architectural ornament are central to my creative efforts. Of equal importance is the influence of the early modernist from which my explorations into abstraction have evolved.” “Animating form thru the plasticity of materials and utilizing negative space to create forms that express both mass and transparency have been the focus of many of my sculptural investigations. These formal concerns inform the symbolic content of my work, which often involves the search for something archetypal, innate, and universal.” “As a sculptor I am very interested in the built environment. Public Art and large-scale sculpture are exciting fields because of their range of expression and impact on our surroundings and the experience of daily life. My work as a public artist is adapted to the specifics of the opportunity. I bring a range of design and fabrication skills to any public art project. My sculptural designs supplement a collaborative process that includes a community’s voice." Foster Willey is represented by Collected Detroit (https://www.collecteddetroit.com/artists), Detroit, MI “Great River is an abstract sculpture carved in Mahogany. It is mounted to a Stainless-Steel base. Its curvilinear form is a metaphor for the idea of the river as a symbol for life’s ebb and flow.” Visit Foster’s website: www.fosterwilley.com View “Foster Willey Sculptor” on Vimeo / Flyover Films 2019 View “Foster Willey Sculptor” / CODAworx.com View “Foster Willey” / Public Sculpture / Wescover.com Follow Foster Willey / Facebook The Fab 3 @ 333 Midland, Highland Park, MI (https://www.333midland.com/) |