2027 SPE Annual Conference: Community in Contrast
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934 Galery
Thursday, October 15 - 5:00PM to 7:00PM
934 Gallery
Before heading to the Welcome Reception, stop by 934 Gallery to view the October Exhibition featuring works by W.E. Arnold, Katie Baker, Blaine Vance (ICHORTOWN). See statements about each artist's work below.
W.E. Arnold will be present during these special gallery open hours to welcome Midwest SPE attendees.
934 Gallery is located at 934 Cleveland Ave, just 1 mile north of the Fort Hayes campus and Shot Tower Gallery.
Pocket Full of Ashes - W.E. Arnold
It was his wish to be cremated, and he always joked about everyone getting a pocketful of ashes—that way, he'd end up in all the bars around town. W.E. felt he was owed a bit more. Since losing his father, Arnold has scattered his ashes across the country, photographing each location as a way of visually chronicling his father's final resting place(s).
While scattering the ashes of a loved one was a new experience for Arnold, he felt guided by a sense of intention from the onset. Rather than leaving pieces behind "just because," he responds directly to the energy of each location, allowing his father the opportunity to participate rather than simply observe.
From the hills of Kentucky to the forests of Olympic National Park, Arnold photographs each site from the experience of the ashes. These images are then combined with lumen prints, in which the ashes themselves are placed on light-sensitive paper and exposed to sunlight, producing purple-toned works that physically embody both the remains and the environments in which they were left.
Katie Baker
My work explores moments of unease, euphoria, loneliness, and deep spiritual craving within familiar surroundings, where our anxieties produce monstrous and divine forms. The home and its objects (alternately prosaic/romantic wallpapers, mirrors, beds, etc.) become the setting and totems of hauntings and visitations, and awkward, ecstatic figures the pitiful bodies transfigured by them.
My practice, based in the intimacy of drawing, imbues a sense of touch and force into the image. Working many years in the company of observational painters has engendered an appreciation for the subjective experience of color and light, particularly with regard to color temperature's atmospheric power. A love of movies, particularly horror movies, has encouraged an exploration of compositional point-of-view, drama, and the purposeful evocation of emotion.
ICHORTOWN - Blaine Vance
My work is heavily inspired by gothic and cosmic horror as well as the works of modern horror artists like Masahiro Ito. I also bring a great deal of my history within working class Central Appalachia as a theme of many of my works. My guiding philosophy as an artist is to find "Dignity for the Monstrous". To me the monster is a being like any other and deserves respect and dignity and above all else, an attempt at understanding. Therefore the creatures I made are not in and of themselves malicious, only in need of an understanding eye.
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