Exhibits feature prints, paintings that consider the environment, human significance

Prints and paintings by artists from Ohio and Illinois are on exhibit in two gallery spaces at 91��Ƭ.

The exhibits, “A Series of Entanglements,” by and “Re. Rainbow Girl” by , will run through Saturday, April 9.

Face masks are required indoors at 91��Ƭ through Friday, March 11.

The north space in the gallery features monotype and laser monotype prints by McMahon, who is an associate professor at in Kent, Ohio.

The art of Taryn McMahon, who teaches at Kent State University, focuses on the “human impact on ecologies and cultural preconceptions of nature.” / Contributed photo

“Human impact on ecologies and cultural preconceptions of nature have been the primary concerns of my artwork for nearly 10 years,” McMahon said. “My exhibition ‘A Series of Entanglements’ layers silhouettes of objects found on the shores of the Cuyahoga River. These highly layered prints point to the current state of entanglement between people and our environment.

“The spaces I draw and photograph reveal complex interactions between the human and nonhuman. The drawings and photographs are manipulated and filtered through digital and handmade printmaking processes to generate mixed media works on paper and installations. As viewers walk around the installations, they shift from pictorial image to sculptural object; their constructed-ness is revealed. My works in both installation and two-dimension move between real and artificial, landscape and construction,” she said.

McMahon gave a virtual presentation March 3 as part of ��-��ٴǳܳ�’s School of Art and Design Speaker Series, exploring how art has fueled and shaped fantasies of nature.

Artist Tim Lowly, of Chicago, stands in his studio near a painting that depicts his daughter, Temma, who has cerebral palsy. / Leah Emerson photo

The south space in the gallery features paintings by Lowly, a Chicago-area artist, curator, musician and teacher who has been affiliated with as gallery director, professor and artist-in-residence.

The central subject of Lowly’s work is his daughter Temma, born in 1985, who has cerebral palsy with spastic quadriplegia.

“The works in this project all focus on a single woman, my daughter Temma, who — by visual associations with well-known artworks — is positioned as a meaningful human being: perhaps even some kind of ‘super hero,’” Lowly said.

“The eventual comprehension by the viewer that the person depicted is ‘profoundly other’ complicates conventional expectations of power, agency and human significance,” Lowly added, noting that the term “profoundly other” is used in lieu of the “problematic and misleading categorization ‘profoundly disabled.’”

��-��ٴǳܳ�’s School of Art and Design offers seven fine arts programs, including a master’s in design. First-year SOAD students start in the Pre-Bachelor of Fine Arts program, which is the gateway to a BFA degree. The university also offers a B.S. in arts administration and entrepreneurship.

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