The 10th Annual National Juried Exhibition

Artist Bio

David M. Hicks received an MFA in painting from Indiana University at Bloomington in 2008. Highly influenced by the old masters, Hicks takes a very classical approach to drawing the human figure and portrait. His multi-figure narratives explore interconnectedness in human relationships, consider cause and effect, probe deeper into identity, and question our contemporary notions of human independence and autonomy. David exhibits his “mural scale” drawings nationally, internationally, and regionally. Recent exhibitions include shows in Missouri, Ohio, North Dakota, Indiana, Kentucky, and India. Forthcoming, David will be exhibiting one of his pieces in the group show Emerging Artists at Limner Gallery, in Hudson New York. His work will also be on display in a solo show at BayArts in Bay Village, Ohio in 2022.

More information is available at www.davidmhicks.com

Artist Statement

My drawings are metaphorical narratives of the human experience. I create multi-figure, epic scenarios that explore interconnectedness in human relationships, consider cause and effect, probe deeper into identity, and question our contemporary notions of human independence and autonomy. My narratives are full of heroes and villains, victims and enablers, vigilant protectors and oblivious sleepers, and many other symbolic pictures of the human condition. As I continue to add figures to the story, the relationships between them deepen. My characters oppose and support one another, dominate and submit to one another, become enmeshed and/or enter into tacit agreement with one another. The relationships of each group of figures becomes a sub story of its own that adds more layers of complexity and ramifications to the larger narrative. I present the final drawings as a fantastical and complex allegory, inviting my viewers to evaluate the characters, interpret the metaphors, and ponder the larger themes.

Composing in a metaphorical language gives me the freedom to explore multiple themes on a variety of levels, without necessarily forcing a singular message on the viewer. These themes can be as universal as good vs. evil, or as personal as my own search for identity. I like to leave the interpretations open.

As an artist, I love drawing the human figure. Formally, my work reflects my appreciation for the rich traditions of representing the human figure in two-dimensional art. I am also a lover of the figure in art history. From Michelangelo’s Last Judgment to Paula Rego’s family portraits, I am fascinated with peculiarity and specific languages of the figure throughout art history. By referencing art historical poses and conventions in my work, I seek to make a personal connection and response to my influences, and the traditions themselves.

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Artist Statement

Memories erode. People pass away. Loss and death are common human experiences, and as we age, we are all confronted by the deaths of those around us, as well as by our own mortality. While some accept these experiences as a part of life, many people—including myself—struggle with these inevitabilities on a daily basis.

In my Burial series, I explore personal loss and the memorialization of those who are no longer living. Each piece serves as a burial, but also a memorial. Working from photographs of deceased relatives, I am physically burying them in a shroud of hand-drawn feathers. Through burial, we acknowledge loss; the person is removed from our lives. The pieces become a signifier, like a gravestone, of a person who once lived. These signifiers also serve as a physical connection to those who, through burial, have become physically disconnected from our lives. The use of feather imagery references the cross-cultural symbolism of the bird as a connection between heaven and earth.

Artist Bio

Evie Woltil Richner is an interdisciplinary artist with a primary focus on drawing. Her work explores ideas surrounding the passage of time and the impact this passage has on our thoughts, our feelings, and our everyday life. She attended the University of Florida for her undergraduate and graduate work, getting her BFA in Printmaking, BA in English, and MFA in Painting and Drawing. Her work has been included in shows nationally and internationally. Recently she has shown work at Equity Gallery in New York City, the Long Beach Island Foundation in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, and the Stay Home Gallery in Paris,Tennessee. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN

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Artist Statement

I am interested in the visual and communicative potential of objects that are cast off, discarded, and over-looked. Inherent to still life is an engagement with the mundane and domestic, as well as the notion of an arrested visual experience. These subjects, their intrinsic intimacy, and working from life are rich with pictorial and conceptual possibilities.

I paint in a responsive manner directly from the motif, depicting objects at or near life-size and within reach of the viewer. I am drawn to certain objects for their familiarity, simplicity of form, and potential to connect with viewers through a shared experience of their use. At the core of my practice is a curiosity to uncover and reconstruct a visual order. I modify proportion, tone, and color to produce an articulation of form and space built on extended observation. The paintings retain traces of these adjustments, functioning as both image and object.

There is a sense of loss in something isolated, empty, or discarded. To engage with objects of this sort is to affirm their continued significance, regardless of condition. This is where the objects in my paintings operate metaphorically, representing the body, an individual, or most often myself. In this context painting is a form of reanimation.

Artist Bio

Joe Morzuch is an observational painter currently residing in Starkville, MS. In addition to his studio work, he is an Assistant Professor at Mississippi State University where he teaches courses in foundations, painting, and drawing. In 2006 he received his MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has taught at the college level for the past 15 years and actively exhibits his work nation-wide.

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Artist Statement

In 2003 I began a series of work centering around the notions of appetite and consumption, more specifically the consumption of sexual appetites and the allure of this primal, driving force as well as the sensual allure of the painting process itself. The series explores figurative abstraction through the use of oils on large cut and prepared sheets of paper. This primordial soup of fluids is ever present from one work to the next. It serves a duplicitous role through suggestively encapsulating the forms within the content of the paintings and the direct application of fluids and vehicles to the paper itself. The notion of duplicity can also be linked to the amphibious adaptation of life from water on the most fundamental level. Consequently, water is erotic.

Moreover, I am strongly linked to a key principle of watercolorists which is to allow the white of the ground to generate and exude light from within the work. And yet my work is not of watercolor as my technique is more subtractive than additive thereby attaining greater versatility with the vehicles associated with oils. I have arrived at an application that is very thin with explosive swells of formative space while ever chasing the economy of the stroke. Essentially a dialogue is initiated with the paper as the work evolves from a collaboration of what I sense and impose to what I see and adjust. The collection appears simultaneously ethereal and corporeal, larger than life and yet subtle. Because who doesn’t love the allure of a dichotomy? This blend also gives way, incidentally, to the propulsion of
eroticism.

Artist Bio

Kelly Jo Asbury resides in Cold Spring, Ky where for over two decades she has lived, worked and raised her son, Nathan. In that time she has devoted herself to education, collaboration and the
advancement of her body of work.

She has served in all facets of education from primary to post secondary with most recently having served with The Carnegie as the interdisciplinary arts educator within the Covington public school system serving all five elementaries. Before that Ms. Asbury was a lecturer at NKU and an adjunct instructor for Chatfield College in Over the Rhine. Decompartmentalizing the educational process has been a constant focus regardless of the age of the audience and most certainly integrating the arts completely into the curriculum has been her passion.

Currently Kelly is taking her years of experience in education and applying that to advocacy and arts administration serving as an Operations Manager for Learning Through Art, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio. This organization serves children, families, educators and caregivers by providing a literacy program grounded in the arts, civic engagement, advocacy and philanthropy. Learning Through Art, Inc. founded by Ms. Kathy Wade fosters multiple programs in addition to the literacy program Books Alive! For Kids® which function to address issues of social justice and welfare of the community in which it serves and the communities at large as the organization continues to grow.

Ms. Asbury continues to expand upon her series entitled, “Appetite and Consumption” ever pushing formative spaces in the sexually charged landscape. She works in oils combining additive as well as subtractive techniques that carry a watercolorist sensibility to the ground of the surface. She has exhibited her work regionally as well as nationally with an international, group show to her credit in Budapest, Hungary. The most recent local exhibitions would include Flesh and Form at the UC Blue Ash, College Art Gallery and the Employed: Staff Exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as Herself at the Lexington Art League.

Since the onset of the pandemic, Kelly and her son Nathan have spent a great deal of time quarantined together as his freshman year of college was abbreviated. His love for music and hers for painting have forged an unexpected and rewarding opportunity to experience artist residencies while in residence at their home.

kellyjoasbury.com

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