After a two-year absence, Ohio’s largest art exhibit returns with the Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition.
Every year, except for the two years the fair was canceled due to the pandemic, over 40,000 people stroll through the Cox Fine Arts Center to see paintings, sculptures, photographs, mixed media works and more created by professional artists and amateurs. This year’s exhibit features more than 320 works by 205 artists from 27 Ohio counties.
Raphael and More: Visual Arts: Raphael’s tapestries in the exhibition weave powerful stories from the New Testament
While the 2022 exhibition theme offers a perspective on technology in the arts and many works are technology-based and interactive, there are many more works in more traditional media and styles. As visitors wander the expansive hall, with professional works occupying the north end and amateur works to the south, here are eight must-see pieces:
“Time Machine: Version 2” by Gabe Kenney
This Best of Show winner in the professional division is a large, curious and fun installation that brings together hundreds of mostly obsolete technological equipment: phones, cameras, old laptops, calculators, gas gauges, telescopes, a pencil sharpener, fans and much more – all surrounded by yellow tape and orange traffic cones. This piece, Kenney writes, is “very agile and was developed to travel and be positioned at key site-specific frequency locations to search for angels in radio waves and unlock portal vortexes within the multiverse.”
“Dorothy’s friend / I have collected cattails and dandelions for you” by Edward Steffanni
In two side-by-side videos (transfers of silkscreen enamel and acrylic on stoneware), the artist dresses as the heroine of the “Wizard of Oz”, takes off her blue dress and hangs it on a fence where it flaps in the wind. Charming and silly.
“Consumer Culture” by Amy Deal
This massive five-panel piece is 17 feet tall and 7 1/2 feet wide – a wall of colorful flowers made of single-use plastic waste the artist collected during the COVID-19 lockdown. The work is gorgeous but haunting, a reminder of the pervasiveness of man-made debris.
‘Diálogos’: visual arts: Latin art more than crafts and pop culture, as shown in the ‘Diálogos’ exhibition
“Hey mom, (and hi dad), send me a selfie for my new phone” by Jennifer Sowders
The two watercolor paintings are huge close-ups of the artist’s parents, people obviously new to the practice of selfies. Their wide-eyed expressions and close, personal facial features are fun to laugh at.
“Sounds Like Love” by Cadine Navarro
Through a special device, Navarro recorded the vibration sounds of nine prairie seeds native to Ohio – (yes, they make sounds) – and made them visible through a floating ink painting method on water. Its swirling images hang in a row and visitors can hear the sounds of the seeds. The complete “Sounds Like Love” exhibition continues until August 16 at Otterbein University’s Frank Art Museum.
“Transitional States-6966” by Ardine Nelson
This elegant photograph – one of Nelson’s four at the fair – is a close-up of light brown grass against a black background. The large picture is a testament to the beauty and unique quality of so many living beings of nature.
Ohioana Awards: Hanif Abdurraqib wins Ohioana Award for non-fiction book on black entertainers
“Between love and amp; Hair: Part II ”by Ryenna Royan
Using the unlikely materials of magazine paper and glue, Royan created the portrait of an African American woman braiding a child’s hair. The dignity of its subjects and the color tones of black, brown and cream create a beautiful snapshot of home life. The work won the Best of Show, amateur division.
In a mural sculpture that looks like ceramic but is actually papier mache, the artist created a scene full of humor and movement. A man accompanies six dogs who spy on a cat in a tree and dash towards it, propelling the entire group in a forward motion that has been neatly captured in a still work of art.
Also during the fair at the Cox Fine Arts Center, Scott Hagan, the artist who painted bicentennial barns across Ohio, will paint murals, including a portrait of President Ulysses S. Grant, born 200 years ago.
