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New exhibit pushes viewers’ preconceptions

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By Eric Robinette, Staff Writer 10:54 AM Friday, January 22, 2010

HAMILTON — In the right hands, even a clump of hardened spaghetti can be art.

So can thousands of push-pins pressed into a wall. And so it goes for a series of photographs that contrast the female body with various objects.

All of these are part of an exhibit called “Boundaries,” opening Tuesday, Jan. 26, at the Fitton Center for the Creative Arts. The work of three artists challenges viewers not only to look at boundaries but also to look beyond them.

Birgit Ehmer, an artist from Germany who lives in Cincinnati, brings two series with her: “Eroded Layers” and “Having a Bad Day.”

“Eroded Layers” contains various sculptures made out of dried food items. For example, a bunch of uncooked spaghetti seems normal at the top, but at the bottom it’s been glued together and sanded to look like something entirely different.

“It sort of resembles wood, but it’s different enough. There’s nothing fancy or unusual,” Ehmer said.

Other sculptures were melded together from vegetables and grain. At least one of them looks so unusual, even Ehmer can’t remember what is in it.

The “Having a Bad Day” series is a number of wall panels about dealing with the various adversities of life. They’re not paintings, but sculptures mounted on boards.

“I like the idea of painting, but I’m not a painter,” Ehmer said.

One of these pieces shows a contorted figure amid several pins. None of the pins is puncturing the figure, but they have twisted it into an uncomfortable-looking pose.

That work reflects the idea that life “makes us do certain things we don’t always want to do,” Ehmer said.

Many times people need maps to show them the way in life, but the maps of Dawn Gavin of Baltimore might make a viewer get lost in thought.

For her artwork, Gavin takes pieces of maps and deconstructs them in various ways, though they’re still recognizable as maps. For one piece, using a surgical scalpel, she cut out an interstate map of the United States so that it resembles a spider’s web. Another piece has its map rearranged into squares, looking like an unsolved picture puzzle.

When she was growing up, Gavin became enamored of an atlas in her family’s home, trying to find ways to make the maps look different, so that “it’s data that has just been scrambled,” she says.

One of the more intricate works is one that has literally thousands of pins pushed into the wall, with each pin having a tiny piece of map on its head. Placed in the light just so, the pins cast shadows on the wall, creating a striking pattern.

“People ask me if I know where each pin goes, but no. I’m not that crazy,” Gavin said, adding that it wasn’t just her who made the pins — it was a crew of volunteers who worked for food.

Gavin prefers not to try to imprint any specific thought on viewers of her work, she said.

“I’m always interested in people getting things from the work that I don’t get. I’m more into it being a dialogue.”

The third part of “Boundaries” is by artist Jana C. Perez of Plano, Texas, whose series “Objectify” presents a series of 20 pairs of photographs. One of the photos is part of a woman’s body, the other is an object meant to reflect some kind of similarity. One called “Solidify” contrasts a Jell-O mold with a girdle.

“The combination of the pose with object changes the meaning of both and creates a curiously familiar, sardonic and disturbing connection,” Perez says in her artist statement.

“Boundaries” will be on view through March 20. An opening reception will be held 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, before Music Cafe.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.

6 | L!FE | JANUARY 22, 2010 | HAMILTON JOURNALNEWS

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