Making It: Process and Materials
Anthony Becker, Katherine Gibson
Jennifer Purdum, Jonpaul Smith
June 3rd - July 17th
Opening Reception: June 3rd from 6-9 PM
The disparate works by the four artists in Making It: Process and Materials are a reflection of the diverse and exciting art making methods and processes in Cincinnati’s art world. The exhibition offers an exploration on a range of materials, additive and subtractive means of making, and the creation of patterns and abstract imagery.
The works are the result of the variety of artistic processes from collage, printmaking techniques, collecting, assemblage, painting, sewing, and an emphasis on the act of artistic creation.
Anthony Becker
Since graduating from Yale in 1981, Anthony Becker has been challenging himself to “see things and causes” in the world around him. Working in a wide range of materials from steel, wire, and wood, to oil paint, paper, and fabric, he has made large eagle-sized nests from rusty wire, installed paper birds flocking in an airy atrium, and cobbled together ruined angels from chicken wire and rice paper. He has exhibited throughout the country, including notable shows at the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington, Kentucky, the Spertus Museum in Chicago, the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, The Weston Art Gallery, The Dayton Art Institute, and Creon Gallery in New York City. He taught community education at the Art Academy and works with high school students in the Taft Museum’s ARC program. Recently, he collaborated with children of all ages on House, an installation at Prairie Gallery. He also works with the artists at Visionaries and Voices, often collaborating with members on individual projects.
Katherine Gibson
Katherine Gibson (b. 1980 in Middletown, Rhode Island) is an artist and educator primarily working in painting who has been trained as a metalsmith. She studied art at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, earning her BA in Sculpture, then moved to Richmond to study metalsmithing at Virginia Commonwealth University. She brings a keen awareness of craft and labor that is influenced by her study of sociology and philosophy and her professional experience as a metalsmith. Her research is focused on meaning-making in the intersubjective landscape of media, most recently the world of 1990’s teen magazines, and how these texts are interpreted and expressed by young women. Using textile techniques, painting, and recycled teen magazines, she creates items associated with comfort and protection. In so doing, she illuminates disparities between the fictive construction of an ideal self in the world and the less glamorous, easily overlooked reality of teens’ life experiences. She earned her MFA in Painting from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, & Planning, in 2020.
Jennifer Purdum
Jennifer Purdum has been exhibited internationally and nationally, including the “Printmaking Today” at the Cincinnati Art Museum, where her “Exodus Print Series” is part of the permanent collection. She has exhibited her drawings and collages internationally.
Jennifer has been teaching studio arts, design, and art concepts for 15 years since graduating with my MFA from American University. She is both a professor of art and an owner of a printmaking studio in OTR, Cincinnati. Jennifer’s current body of collages are an extension of her research into place and identity. The layered and ripped detritus from mass produced materials accumulates into “rock-like” sediments, a kind of amalgamation of culture and rot references held together by fragile taped skins. Her work is an investigation into architectures’ ability to shape our world views and our world views’ ultimate resting place in both the intentional and unintended built environments we create.
Jonpaul Smith
Born in Logansport, IN, Smith received his M.F.A. and Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Cincinnati, D.A.A.P. His B.A. is from Hanover College in Indiana and he also studied fine arts at the University of Wollongong in Australia. Smith frequently conducts visiting artist seminars. He has also completed a residency and exhibition in Budapest-Hungary, Paducah-Kentucky and was the working artist in residency at Tiger Lily Press in Cincinnati, OH where he is now Vice President on their board. Smith has exhibited widely in the United States and abroad. His work is included in many prominent private and public collections.
