Playing with symbolic signifiers, Dan Solberg’s installations keep the doors of interpretations wide open to viewers. Solberg creates installations almost exclusively from considered selection and alteration of found objects. Inspired by the line “the silence and smoothness of luxury,” he touches on subjects of economic crisis and its effect on society. In the work, Remember, this word is spray painted in shiny golden and silver on the air mattresses themselves. During the recent Occupy movements, the economic status was protested with the help of air mattresses for rest. These beds would serve somewhat of a comfort to the protesters. By writing “remember” with such luxurious paint, Solberg asks the viewer to consider contemporary means of protest and to truly contemplate the initiatives of what happened in Wall Street and other major cities around the nation.

In Solberg’s work, clues are often hidden in the form of text, sometimes in the title or written directly onto the piece. In the work, Mega Plates, eight glasses are nailed into the gallery walls. Underneath each glass plate, there is a ghostly graphite text including words such as “Mafia”, “God”, and “Guilty.” These texts potentially embrace numerous meanings. However, the artist took these words from license plates of luxurious cars owned by a pirating software company’s, MegaUpload, founder. The government recently took the assets from the founder of the popular file-hosting website due to obvious legal issues in the organization’s activities.

As Solberg’s works invite viewers to contemplate symbols, a sofa teeters, balancing on one leg in the south side of the gallery. In his works, Jacob Tonski plays with metaphors on the complexity of daily life with an optimistic point of view. When the sofa teeters, a self-operated mechanism reacts to keep the sofa from falling. The sofa is a perfect signifier of the most common place of any individual’s life; a place to rest, eat, socialize. The artist defies the limits of gravity to keep the sofa in one piece. As a result of its survival mechanism, the sofa always finds a way to adapt and balance against difficulties.

Tonski’s fascination with balance is also apparent in the video, Balance Study. In the one-minute video, the artist performs a balance study in a wheel-like structure that is attached to a video camera which creates  a fixed horizon line. As the wheel rocks back and forth against the ground, the viewer loses the sense of spatial relationships. Much like the sofa, the artist seems to find his balance despite his disorientation. His other video Reel is also on view at the south side of the gallery.  The videos loop together forming a sonata on perspective, equilibrium, and gravity.

By Ipek Saygi

All submissions must be received by: Saturday, June 9, 2012.

Work submitted should not be dated older than 2009.

ENTRY PROCEDURE

For consideration, the artist must submit ten to twelve images digitally on CD. Disk must include jpeg files, that are 300dpi and not exceed 5MB in size, of each image submitted.  Please name each file with your last name and slide number (example:smith_001.jpg). Do Not embed your name on any slides.

Video artists can submit a selection of no more than 3 videos.  Videos must be submitted on DVD or CD as Quicktime (.mov) with 740 X 480 aspect ratio for widescreen or 640 X 480 for fullscreen. The first two minutes of each video will be reviewed. DVD submissions should not exceed a playing time of 10 minutes per video. Video artists must submit still images as well following the same instructions mentioned above.

Submissions must include an artist statement, an image/video list (number, title, date of work, medium and dimensions) and resume on CD. All three documents must be in .doc or PDF format. Do not embed you name within the artist statement or image list.

No other supplemental materials will be taken into consideration during the jury process. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Attach below form to submission material.

Artists who have exhibited with ROY G BIV in the past three years (2010-2012) cannot apply. Artists who have participated exhibitions: Pulp Art, Borrowed Words, 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Small Works, ImageOHIO, and Time-Sensitive, may apply.  CDs and DVDs will only be returned if accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. CDs and DVDs of selected artists will be retained for use in the promotion of the 2013 Exhibition Season.

MAIL or DELIVER ENTRIES BY SATURDAY, JUNE 9TH, 2012 TO:

ROY G BIV Gallery

Attention: 2012 Season

997 North High Street

Columbus, OH 43201

ENTRY FEE

There is a $35 entry fee for non-members.  Entry fee is waived for Artist level and above members of ROY. For more information on becoming a member, please visit www.roygbivgallery.org/donate-membership.

Upload entry form: 2013cfe

ROY G BIV Gallery for Emerging Artists is currently looking for member entries for their fifth-annual Columbus Metropolitan Main Library Carnegie Gallery exhibition. The exhibition will take place from Thursday, July 12th 2012 through Friday, August 24th, 2012. Participating artists must be members of ROY G BIV Gallery. The exhibition will be curated by Richard Petry, Graduate Director of Columbus College of Art & Design (http://www.ricpetry.com/).

EXHIBITION DETAILS Art Information is an exhibition that explores contemporary artists’ use of research to inspire creativity. In an increasingly academic creative environment, artists are responding by collecting, re-interpreting, and finding meaning in information. This exhibition features various media strategies in representing an artist’s innovative archive.

The exhibition is open to 2-D and 3-D works, ready to hang, and suitable for public viewing. Two-dimensional works’ size constraints are 6′ x 6′ and no more than 50 lbs. Three-dimensional work must be able to travel up stairs if larger that 4′x4′x4′. Installation submission accepted upon artists understanding of security issues. Video equipment must be provided by the artist. ENTRY FEE

All artists must be current members of ROY G BIV Gallery.

Please visit www.roygbivgallery.org/membership or email info@roygbivgallery.org for more information on becoming a member.

CONTRACT

All artists will be notified via email upon selection. Selected artists will be required to sign an exhibition agreement and publicity release. ROY G BIV Gallery has a sales commission of 35% on works sold.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

2 entries of 2-4 .jpg image files at 72dpi

(no larger than 700 x 700 pixels)

More than one piece may be accepted.

Additionally, include an imagelist in word .doc or pdf files

Please email all files to entries@roygbivgallery.org

EXHIBITION CALENDAR

Entry Deadline: Saturday, May 26th by 5pm

DROP OFF OF ACCEPTED WORK AT MAIN LIBRARY

ARTS AND MEDIA DIVISION DESK, SECOND FLOOR:

7/2, 7/3. closed 7/4, 7/5 (10am-8pm)

7/6, 7/7 (10am-5pm)

EXHIBITION: Thursday, July 12th – Friday, August 24th

CLOSING RECEPTION: Thursday, August 9th < 6-8pm

PICKUP OF EXHIBITED WORK AT THE CARNEGIE GALLERY:

Saturday, August 25th > 10am – 5pm

For more information, contact ROY G BIV at info@roygbivgallery.org, call 614-297-7694, or visit www.roygbivgallery.org

Downloadable form: artinformation

We look forward to seeing your work!

ROY G BIV Gallery for Emerging Artists

The director supervises ROY G BIV’s yearly exhibition season and related activities (opening receptions, artists’ talks, and other events), oversees maintenance of the gallery space, seeks grant opportunities and writes grants, manages online and social networking promotion of gallery events, as well as handles art sales and donations. The ideal candidate has superior communication skills and can work with all types of personalities, as this position requires coordinating events between multiple people and businesses.

Other responsibilities include scheduling and training volunteers and interns with gallery operations, curating and preparatory work for monthly exhibitions, designing our printed promotional materials, and planning future exhibition seasons and calls for entries. The Gallery Director works closely with the Board of Trustees to create and implement programming, creating and maintaining relationships with local businesses, seeking out corporate sponsorships and partnerships with other art organizations, and identifying and solving challenges that may arise in the gallery.

The ideal candidate has experience working as an arts administrator and/or extensive experience with an arts organization. The position is part-time. Grant-writing experience is preferred. The gallery director receives a $600 per month stipend. ROY G BIV Gallery for Emerging Artists is a non-profit arts organization located in Columbus, Ohio’s historic Short North district. ROY G BIV has been dedicated to showcasing emerging artists since 1989, featuring thousands of artists during its 23 years of existence.

To be considered for this position, please email a cover letter and resume with professional references to info@roygbivgallery.org. Subject heading: Gallery Director. Email inquiries only please. Resumes will be accepted until Friday, April 27, 2012. Selected applicants will contacted for interviews. ROY G BIV Gallery for Emerging Artists 997 North High Street Columbus, OH 43201

For more information download the form below

RGB_director_12

Inspired from celebratory events and narrative-based memories, Zielinski  constructs visual parties in the gallery. A central focus in her work comes from the traditional language of American celebration that juxtaposes playfulness with potential danger, through activities such as fireworks. Pushing the ironic coupling of these ideas to the limit, the artist appropriates large shooting targets, shedding them from their violent context through the addition of colorful paintings. At first glance, the viewer cannot help but simply enjoy the aesthetic pleasure of these works. However after careful investigation, viewers might contemplate the contradiction of aesthetic appeal found in normally violent shooting target or pinata forms. Zielinski’s artistic manipulations of such objects plays on culture’s acceptance of these violent acts.

Zielinski’s installation work, Spectra Spectacular, incorporates paper mache techniques analogous to that used in pinatas. The work consists of self-made objects such as paper chair cutouts, paper mache balloons, shiny paper fans and metallic papers that invite viewers to linger around the work. “I take it as a compliment when people ask me if I bought my materials from party stores,” Zielinski says. She pre-made materials serve only as a models for the construction of her pieces. For example, in Poof!, the artist cut, glued, and painted newsprints resembling decorative paper lanterns after having analyzed the manufactured original objects.

Zielinski’s theme, celebration and destruction, is also evident in Christopher Greathouse’s works on the north side of the gallery. Wrestling, a violent sport, is viewed as a celebratory event of physical prowess all over the world. During this month’s opening night, the artist performed as Viking Chris, “a professional wrestler trying to cruise through life.” Visitors were invited to wrestle with Viking Chris whom was costumed in a puffy six-pack muscle shirt, and an animal skin skirt with fur boots. Viking hats, muscle shirts, and other various props were available for the guests wear in preparation for a match against Viking Chris. Photographs of guest wrestlers were taken against a painting of a wrestling ring with flashing lights and cheering audiences. Greathouse’s installation work, including the wrestler outfits, props, and sculptures on the wall are on view through the end of this month.

Essay by Ipek Saygi

Images by Katie Browne

Vote for us at:
http://614columbus.com/survey/columbest-2012/

Columbus Dispatch

By Christopher Yates

In its 12th year, Image Ohio continues to fulfill a mission highlighting the achievements of Ohio photographers and time-based media artists.

The juried exhibition includes work selected by a different juror every year — this year, Chris Stults, assistant film/video curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Such a selection process can be arduous and is dependent, of course, on the number and quality of works submitted. Rather than adhering to an overarching theme, Stults aimed to select a representative sampling.

Nevertheless, a conceptual thread emerged.

While making use of different techniques, processes and subjects, many of the works address issues of absence and loss. Throughout the exhibit, viewers encounter partial stories and scenes of ruin or disintegration.

Photographer Ardine Nelson documents spaces in decline. She examines subtle and dramatic geometries in her evocative abstract compositions. In Franklinton-2063, woodwork graphically frames the smashed plaster walls of an older home. Although debris litters the floor, the room’s bright blue walls suggest happier times. An observation rather than a call to arms, the piece directs attention to the housing crisis.

Jacqueline McGilvray’s Room Without a Man features a darkened room with a small curtained window. Soft morning light filters through the window. The implied open narrative concerns action and inaction, presence and absence, and the inner and outer.

Francis Schanberger’s experiments with anthotype photographs are compelling. Using natural plant pigments that fade when exposed to light, he positions bedtime garments on sensitized paper and exposes them to direct sunlight. The resulting photograms are haunting.

Crystal Tursich raises issues of homelessness and survival in Mobile Pantry. The image depicts a shopping cart filled with belongings and parked in a wooded camp.

In Chanika Svetvilas’ video Joshua T. Edwards, dreamlike experiences flash by as if they were out-of-body experiences. In one scene, a man, lying on the ground, is being arrested while officers callously step on his legs.

Leah Fisher documents small communities in decline. In Old Bakery, Glouster, Ohio, she captures a weathered two-story structure, its function visibly fading from memory.

Other successful works include Amy Leibrand’s surreal The Heart Is the Smallest Place of All, Rachel Girard-Reisert’s triptych Tropism #1, and Jenny Fine’s comical When We Were Synchronized Swimmers.

Though thin in terms of the quantity of work, the challenging exhibit offers strong pieces that represent diverse techniques.

cayates.dispatch@earthlink.net

dispatch website

“The internet has replaced a certain actual physical communication and interface between people,” said the West Virginia-based art professor who will be showing at Roy G Biv gallery this month. “As a society, we’re kind of seeking answers or connections via the internet and social media.”

This idea inspired his 2010 series “Searching.” He searched Google Images for quoted phrases that are part of our lexicon — “tree hugger,” “nature at its best” — and paired together the most intriguing, copyright-free photo results. He compiled the results into 8-by-10-inch books.

“It was so fascinating once I got into it,” Sherwin said. “It’s amazing how wildly different our interpretations are.”

To one user in the abyss of cyberspace, for example, “heaven on earth” meant a mouthwatering cheeseburger. To another it meant a half-dressed woman lounging on a car.

“The whole thing was very revealing,” Sherwin said. “What surprises me more than anything is how the internet has become this expression of who we are as a society, a representation of what we think heaven on earth or nature at its best are. The underlying sort of theme here is searching for images that have some sort of purpose and bouncing those questions off society on the internet. Who knew something as simple as a Google image search could be so telling?”

The photographer has employed the internet in other works as well — in one series he took images of the sky and then superimposed people’s Facebook status updates over the photos — but the greatest theme in his art is something else.

“Interconnectivity is the undercurrent to my work,” Sherwin said. “It’s always been there, these micro and macro connections. I’m fascinated by the everyday and how we can find the cosmic in our own backyard.”

“Constellations” best illustrates this point. The series features Sherwin’s photographs of small rocks lit to look like images of planets in space.

Showing alongside Sherwin in this exhibition is Hans Gindlesberger. His performative photographs are part of a series titled “I’m in the Wrong Film” and use the colloquialism as a metaphor for life when it starts to feel unauthentic.

Gindlesberger and Sherwin have worked out which of their individual pieces would best complement each other; however, that fact has some poetic significance. The two artists have not met yet. Their communications have been through — where else — the internet.

by Jakie Mantey of ColumbusAlive

Other Klimek photos mimic the jagged panoramas of NASA photos, or show what appear to be the barren terrains of distant planets. This series is called Analogs, referring to the simulation of conditions on other planets. These illusions allow the mind to wander between locations, between the miniscule and the massive, the mundane and the exotic. It allows us to look inward and simultaneously outward.

Also concerned with re-examination of space, Rojorshi Ghosh’s work features video projections and light box photographs. Much of Ghosh’s work transports the viewer to the local realities of India’s recent history, but it’s simultaneous specificity and abstraction of image make for an unsettling experience. One projection is a view of an old elevator going up and down, forming shifting black and white patterns as it goes. But this elevator doesn’t exist, because the projection is pieced together video. Thus, to experience this video is to be many places at once.

In the other projection, the black silhouettes of birds wheel over Delhi to a soundtrack of horns, sirens, song, and voices that wanders between music and cacophony. The birds (kites) are considered to be djinn, or spirits, from the city’s past.

Layering of abstraction and representation of location can also be seen in Ghosh’s light boxes. One shows an image of a propaganda poster, torn in half to disfigure the face on it. The images work to situate viewers in recent politics while the abstraction works to distance them.

Shifting location and a multilayered present can be seen in both halves of the show, as the artists re-imagine familiar landscapes as sites for fantasy and play.

By Chris Greathouse

2012 Exhibition Season Schedule

January 7 – 28, 2012

Hans Gindlesberger and Michael Sherwin

February 4 – 25, 2012

Millee Tibbs, Lauren Kalman, and George Gregory

March 3 – 31, 2012

Christopher Greathouse and Angie Zielinski

April 7 – 28, 2012

Dan Solberg and Jacob Tonski

May 5 – 26, 2012

Marty Weishaar and Cayla Skillin-Brauchle

June 2 – 30, 2012

Lali Khalid and Monika Laskowska

July 7 – 28, 2012

Community Outreach Exhibit: TBA

August 4 – 25, 2012

Xiaoshi Qin and Lauri Lynnxe-Murphy

September 1 – 29, 2012

Elena Harvey-Collins, Philip Spangler, and Nate Mathews

October 6 – 27, 2012

Jennifer Anable and Jeremy Stone

November 3 – 24, 2012

Courtney Kessel and Linda Diec

December 1 – 29, 2012

Small Works