November 3 – December 18

Jan Dean, "Home II," 7'h x 4'w x 4.5'd, polystyrene, light

Beyond the Natural features work by South Bend-based artists Jan Dean, Charles Jevremovic and Eric Souther. The show includes an installation by Jan Dean that was recently exhibited at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, MI. Charles Jevremovic will be showing a new series of multimedia pieces created from discarded computer circuits. Eric Souther, Assistant Professor of New Media at IUSB, will be exhibiting a new video installation created for Artpost.

Jan Dean’s intricately pieced, internally lit foam structure is titled Home II. This sculpture transforms discarded polystyrene packing material into a 7 foot tall block ‘home’. It’s all about the box that fascinates more than the toy on Christmas day. Jan has worked in Chicago as a sculptor and educator for the past 20 years and is currently a resident artist at Fire Arts Inc. in South Bend.

Charles Jevremovic’s work evolves from his understanding of place and time, materials and concepts, of which he finds inevitably intertwined. Departure Routes consists of several phenolic resin boards that illustrate joint, disparate elements. Through soldering, bolting and sewing these materials, man-made conduits can visually embody the nature of the circuits and reveal that integral connection with one another.

Eric Souther’s and Jason Bernagozzi’s installation The Nature of Video pushes the perceptual limits of a circle. Eric uses multiple televisions, each containing an original black and white outline of a circle, to show how editing and filtering can create several hundred video instances. Eric manipulates a circle to push and pull new ways one can view a familiar shape. The circular structure can expand beyond its limits into an abstracted place because of the unique nature of video.

Jason Bernagozzi, a video and new media artist living and working in Rochester, NY, created the sound for this installation. Central to his artistic practice is a desire to investigate and experiment with the significant features of time-based media as an evolving world language. Video, sound and other electronic forms allow him to work out ideas as a real-time process that reflects the impermanent relationships between knowledge and dialogue. Jason Bernagozzi received his Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Integrated Art from Alfred University in 2010.

Jan Dean grew up in South Bend and received an M.F.A in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1990 as well as a B.A in Fine Arts from Indiana University in 1982. She has taught for The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is a member of Chicago Sculpture International and a founding instructor for Gallery 7. Jan has exhibited at The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., Artemisia Gallery, The Illinois State Museum in Chicago and many other venues.

Charles Jevremovic, PCBL03, phenolic resin board, twigs, paint, 35”x51”

Eric Souther, The Essence of the Round (detail), video installation

Eric Souther creates custom software in order to manipulate audio and video in real-time. He obtained a B.F.A in New Media from the Kansas City Art Institute and an M.F.A in Electronic Integrated Arts from Alfred University. Eric is also a time based media teacher and artist. He is currently an Assistant Professor of New Media and Informatics at Indiana University South Bend.

September 1 – October 30

Looking About in Ecstasy features recent work by Ruth Andrews and Mike Slaski. The show includes an installation of red marsh stick and neon by Andrews, limestone sculpture by Slaski, as well as paintings by both artists.

Andrews and Slaski are married and live in Cassopolis, Michigan. Their most recent collaborative piece is Nature’s Calligraphy, created for the Carnegie Center for Art and History’s Bicentennial Series, installed at the Farmer’s Market in New Albany, Indiana.

Ruth Andrews began her artistic career in Chicago as an experimental filmmaker in 1973. Her film, Incumbent Mama, was screened at Cannes in 1974. Stories and dreams are the source of much of Ruth’s work as a painter and muralist. She also enjoys acting, writing and directing for theatre, and creating comix. Ruth was recently the lead artist on “Sanctuary and Deliverance,” a community mural project sponsored by the Minority Coalition of Cass County, Michigan.

Mike Slaski has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Chicago. His work has been shown at Southwestern Michigan College in Dowagiac, Michigan; Studio Arts in South Bend, Indiana; Adelphi University in Garden City, New York; and Swords into Plowshares Gallery in Detroit, Michigan.

June 30 – August 28

What’s going on: Artists depict varied views of the Motor City, South Bend Tribune, July 31st

This show, curated by Steve Panton of 2739 Edwin Gallery in Hamtramck, Michigan, presents a loosely compiled survey of Detroit area artists whose work results in some form of representation of the city. Wide-ranging in terms of media, approach and ambition, the intent is to highlight work that shows perception, empathy and an avoidance of the clichéd.

Quote from participating artist Kathleen Rashid:

“In the late 70’s and early ‘80’s I did a lot of plien-air painting around Detroit focusing on what struck me then as overlooked and forgotten parts of the city. Local residents were bemused; people couldn’t understand why I wanted to paint the city at all, and particularly why I wanted to paint the scenes I did. In 2010 I returned to some of the same locations to re-paint them. Of course the locations themselves had changed, but more striking was the interest that local residents showed in the work I was doing. It seemed that Detroiters now took it for granted that the city was a subject for representation and that the ways in which it was represented impacted them directly.”

Participating Artists

'jide Aje, "Africa Series #22910", mixed media on cardboard, 15" x 22"

‘jide Aje
www.hatchart.org/gallery/pages/aje.html

‘jide Aje is a Hamtramck-based artist whose work reflects a deep interest in African culture and a constant experimentation with new creative processes. Educated in Nigeria and the U.S., Aje has a degree in Art from the University of Ife, where his tutors were influenced by the “Zaria Rebels” — the pioneering group of artists who questioned the European syllabus at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria around the time of Nigerian independence (late 50’s to early 60’s).

Reflecting the “natural synthesis” philosophy from Zaria, Aje’s own work draws its content primarily, but not exclusively, from Yoruba traditional sources, and derives from a background that contrasts rural and urban, traditional and modern, African and Western. Constantly experimenting with new materials and processes, and always seeking out new experiences and knowledge, his work is ever evolving, yet instantly recognizable.

Anthony Bacon, DJ Swine Flu, mixed media, 30" x 48" framed

Anthony Bacon
Tony Bacon is an artist, art educator and lifelong Detroiter whose diverse catalog is characterized by its energy and constant experimentation. He graduated in Fine Arts from Howard University and currently teaches in the Liberal Arts department at Schoolcraft College. “DJ Swine Flu” is part of a large and rich series of work that places the DJ figure into various situations in the city.

Rebecca Cook

Rebecca Cook is a Reuters contract photographer covering SE Michigan and the surrounding area. As a long time Detroit resident and veteran photo-journalist Cook has been uniquely positioned to observe the city over the last quarter century, being both thrust into the center of the most newsworthy events of the period, as well as independently investigating and promoting stories that might otherwise go unrecorded. Her practice has often returned to the themes of community, labor and the environment and she has built a remarkable body of work in these areas.

Maurice Greenia, Jr.
http://research.udmercy.edu/find/special_collections/digital/greenia/

Maurice Greenia Jr. is a native Detroit artist whose work grows out of the city. His surrealist vision has responded to Detroit in both the good times and bad times and has expressed itself in temporary chalk street drawings, his street theater / music project “The Space Band,” film, puppetry, his long running twice-monthly poetry broadsheet “The Poetic Express” and literally thousands of paintings and drawings.

In 2008 he was recognized with a large survey of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. His work is currently being archived in a special on-line collection at the University of Detroit Mercy.

Scott Hocking, Ziggurat, East, Summer II, (from series Ziggurat and FB21 (2008), 22" x 33"

Scott Hocking
www.scotthocking.com

Scott Hocking was born in Redford Township, Michigan in 1975, and has lived and worked in Detroit proper since 1996. He creates site-specific sculptural and photographic installation projects, often using found materials.

His artwork has been exhibited nationally at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Art Museum, the University of Michigan, the Smart Museum of Art, and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and internationally at the Kunst-Werke Institute, the Van Abbemuseum, and the Kunsthalle Wien. He recently completed projects at Sculpture Space in upstate New York, and at the Bundanon Trust in New South Wales, Australia.

Toby Millman
www.tobymillman.com

Toby Millman is a Hamtramck-based artist whose work combines text, photography and various strategies for cut-paper, to illustrate the intersection of identities, culture and politics.

The blocks on display are influenced by her time working on the census, and flyers she’s collected in the highly diverse Detroit enclave city of Hamtramck.

Her artist’s book “Access and Closure” (stories from in and out of an occupied Palestine) is available from Vamp & Tramp, Booksellers

Kathleen Rashid
http://2739edwin.com/kathleen_rashid_catalog.pdf

Kathleen Rashid is a lifelong Detroiter who grew up in the Linwood and Lothrop area, and graduated from Wayne State with degrees in English and Fine Art. She has exhibited regularly since the early 80’s in venues throughout the Detroit Metro area and elsewhere.

Rashid has adopted a consistently representational approach as a painter. Her mature painting style takes easily overlooked objects, or scenes, and meticulously observes details that only appear after careful observation. In this way her paintings transcend the literal, and become invested with a luminous quality. Her painting style is entirely consistent with her lifelong commitment to peace, tolerance and looking beyond the surface.

Gary Schwartz
www.singleframefilms.com

Gary Schwartz is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker, award winning animator, director, artist & educator. He conducts intensive hands-on animation workshops in elementary, middle, high school, under-graduate, graduate, post-graduate, professional training, film festivals, museums, summer camps, community centers, prisons & psychiatric hospitals national & internationally in an environment of creativity, imagination & self-expression.

Through his company, Single Frame Films, Gary produced, designed & directed animation for Disney, Sesame Street, MTV, Fox Television, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and others.

Mr. Schwartz is currently Lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design. His kinetic cinema sculptures, installations & films have been exhibited in major museums & galleries internationally.

Clinton Snider
www.clintonsnider.com

Clinton Snider is a Detroit area artist who has made extensive use of landscape to examine issues of social, environmental and personal transformation. Working primarily in the city and utilizing a variety of mediums, but most notably oil painting, he has produced a body of work that is beautifully realized and approachable, but which defies easy analysis.

Bryant Tillman

Bryant Tillman is a lifelong Detroiter who studied at Wayne County Community College and the Center for Creative studies before serving in the US Navy. He is a prolific artist who has exhibited regularly throughout the metro Detroit area and elsewhere since the early 1980’s. More recently he has curated shows at a number of artist run galleries in the city.

Working primarily in acrylic his art moves effortlessly between representation and abstraction. His landscapes of the city deal with everyday scenes and impress with their painterly qualities and their quiet beauty and honesty.

May 5 – June 26

Eccentric art: Artpost exhibits works by husband and wife (South Bend Tribune, May 2011)

Two of Pulaski County’s best-kept secrets, Lee Heinsen-Ligocki and Gordon Ligocki, will be exhibiting new work at Artpost in May and June.

Lee Heinsen-Ligocki, who works with watercolor and ink, creates vividly colored paintings that verge between the real and surreal. Her meditative work represents spiritual, emotional, physical and visual everyday experiences. Lee, who studied fine art at IU Northwest-Gary and IU South Bend, drives a semi-truck cross-country and paints while on the road. Some of the work she will be exhibiting include paintings from “Trippin Hands,” a series of 6” x 6” watercolors in which her hands take fantastic journeys.

Gordon Ligocki is an artist who creates assemblage pieces out of found materials. His work uses both natural elements and manufactured objects, combining these in unexpected ways to make sculpture. He explains his process by stating, “I love physical materials each for its’ own personality and necessary individual process. All materials are equal.”

Gordon is an assistant instructor in fine arts at Ancilla College and has also taught art at IU Northwest and Valparaiso University. He has an M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Illinois, and a B.F.A. in Fine Arts from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Gordon’s work, with Chicago-based artist Jno Cook, is also up at the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University, you can read a great review here>>

March 3 – April 23

Erin Jackson’s body of work, “Gary,” is a collection of photographs that document the mystery and splendor of the city of Gary, Indiana. These images were created not only to document the city but also to act as a window into the past and provoke our imaginations to meditate on what was.

Erin Jackson is a photographer currently based in the Phoenix Metro area. Ms. Jackson began studying photography at Andrews University as a high school Junior, and earned a B.A degree in Photography at Columbia College Chicago.

Read more at www.erinjacksonphotography.com

March 3 – April 23

Nandita Raman’s series, “Cinema Play House,” was recently awarded the prestigious Daylight Magazine/Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University Project Prize. This work focuses on the interiors of old theaters in her home country of India. Built between 1930 and 1960, these grand theaters have largely been replaced by generic multiplexes. Through her quiet and beautiful images, Raman explores her childhood memories and provides insight about the people who built and occupied these spaces.

Nandita Raman is a photographer pursuing an MFA at Bard-International Center for Photography, NY. Born in Varanasi, India, she studied Graphic Communication in National Institute of Fashion Technology, Delhi, and began working in films soon after. She directed documentaries and managed production of international documentaries and ad films. But it was in photography that she found her voice. She worked with photographers such as Fazal Sheikh, Dayanita Singh, Robert Polidori and Kenro Izu which exposed her to the unique ways of approaching the medium and the subject. Her initial work on Cinema Halls in India was exhibited in Flatfile Gallery, Chicago.

Click on the video below to hear a podcast about the “Cinema Play House” series, or read more at www.ramannandita.blogspot.com

Nandita Raman: Cinema Playhouse from Daylight Multimedia on Vimeo.

Nandita Raman, Untitled #1, archival pigment ink print, 24”x30

January 6 – February 27

Cuban poster art, photography and movies will be featured in the months of January and February at Artpost. A vintage Cuban poster will be raffled off during the exhibit opening on January 7th, with the proceeds benefiting CUBAmistad, a Bloomington Indiana – Santa Clara Cuba sister city group.

South Bend residents Gerrie Casey and Paul Mishler will be exhibiting their collection of offset and silk screen posters from the hey-day of Cuba’s Poster Movement (1964-1980). Following the Cuban revolution, the poster became simultaneously, the preferred vehicle for mass education and a highly developed art form. From the 1960s-1980s, the best artists in the country – trained in a wide range of art styles — dedicated themselves to poster production. These posters are world renown for their use of bright colors, imaginative vision, ironic sensibilities and intense passion for justice. The work in the Casey-Mishler collection represents all four realms of Cuban poster production, including: Art and History, Film Posters for Cuba’s award-winning National Film Institute; Mass Education Campaigns; and International Solidarity with 3rd World revolutionary movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The posters were collected when Casey and Mishler worked in Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade, a U.S.-based solidarity organization.

Artpost will also be showing two films about Cuba during the exhibit. The first, Kordavision, a documentary by American filmmaker Hector Sandoval, is about the Cuban photographer Alberto Diaz “Korda”, whose iconic photograph of Ernesto “Che” Guevara may be one of the most famous photographs of the 20th Century. Kordavision will be shown Sunday, Jan 23 at 2 pm. The second film, TBA, will be shown in February as part of Artpost’s Black History celebration.

Poster commemorating the anniversary of the death of Jose Marti

No Tenemos Derecho A Esperar/ We Don't Have the Right to Wait (Poster for 1972 Cuban film, directed by Rogelio Paris)

January 6 – February 27

Kay Westhues will be exhibiting black and white photographs taken in Cuba during 1989-1995. During that time, Kay traveled to Havana to attend the Havana Biennials through the Center for Cuban Studies, located in New York City. Her photos include portraits of Cuban artists and writers, as well as images from her Malecón series – portraits taken during evening walks on this famous seawall on Havana Bay.

Malecón Series #8, Havana Cuba, silver gelatin print

Malecón Series #1, Havana Cuba, silver gelatin print

September 2 – October 24

Stacey Holloway’s new work, ‘Somewhere in Between’ uses mixed-media installation pieces to communicate an emotion of discomfort within her everyday adult life. This emotion suggests isolation amid two worlds: the real and the surreal.

At first glance her work can appear playful, but upon examination her use of the surreal creates a nightmarish fantasy that illustrates her fears and anxiety about her lost sense of childhood and the trepidations of growing older.

Stacey M. Holloway was born in South Bend, Indiana and has recently completed her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus with an emphasis in sculpture. Within the program, she received a Graduate School Fellowship, the Katherine E. Nash Studio Art Scholarship, and the Pioneer Scholarship to support her studies. Additionally, Holloway also received a Graduate Research Partnership Fellowship with Professor Wayne E. Potratz to complete Inter-Connections in Art Through Metalcasting, a collaborative project between the Interact Center and the University of Minnesota’s Department of Art foundry.

Currently, Stacey M. Holloway resides and remains an active artist in Indianapolis, Indiana. Here, she is employed by Herron School of Art and Design as their Sculpture Technician, Metal Casting Instructor, and 3D Design Instructor. Holloway also acts as the co-founder, curator, and organizer of Bootleg Exhibitions, a new gorilla exhibition space that has just begun exhibiting emerging artists throughout the Midwest in Indianapolis.

For more info, see http://staceyholloway.com/

Stacey M. Holloway, Sheep Shelf, mixed media

Stacey M. Holloway, Sheep Shelf (detail), mixed media

September 2 – October 24

Laura Shindollar’s series, ‘I Love the Romance of Crime’, is about her fascination with old prisons and criminals in general. She uses a low-resolution plastic camera to photograph well-known prisons which are now being used as tourist destinations or movie sets. The empty places she photographs have sobering and tragic histories, yet their architectural style often resemble romantic castles or fortresses.

“Along this way, outside the prison gates, I love the romance of crime.”, from “Sister, I’m a Poet” by Morrissey.

Laura lives in South Bend, Indiana, and received a BFA in Photography from Memphis College of Art in 1998. She uses both traditional and low-tech cameras in her photographic work. She has exhibited nationally, and has worked as a Teaching Assistant at the South Bend Museum of Art.

Laura Shindollar, Alcatraz, silver gelatin photograph

Laura Shindollar, silver gelatin photograph