WINTER EXHIBITIONS
2010 WINDOW TO SCULPTURE EMERGING ARTIST SERIES

January 15- February 20, 2010
Sam Blanchard and Nathan Lareau: Subject, Object, Viewer
Main Gallery
and
Smith Townsend Collaborative: The Triumph
Euclid Avenue Gallery

Friday, January 15
5:30-8:00 PM Public Opening
6:30 PM The Artists Talk with Sam Blanchard and Nathan Lareau

Saturday, February 20
2:00 PM Public Closing Reception
Including The Artists Talk with Brandon Smith and Travis Townsend

Cleveland Scene Subject, Object, Viewer – The Triumph Review

Sam Blanchard and Nathan Lareau: Subject, Object, Viewer
Main Gallery
Sam Blanchard and Nathan Lareau's works are often hybrids of sculpture, installation, performance, and video in which "simple imagery is incorporated layer by layer to create complex, but decipherable, narratives." Their new piece carries on in this vein as it intertwines video projections of Sisyphean efforts and a rollercoaster mounted video that records the gallery visitors’ experience.

Interested in the social challenges that emerge in the quotidian, Sam Blanchard and Nathan Lareau explore scenarios that illustrate, often blandly, the internal struggles of the "everyman," as the morning commute, doing paperwork, or even simply waiting in line. They view these happenings as real-life cartoons into which they can place and observe the "everyman.” By watching the movements and gestures in these scenarios, Blanchard and Lareau bring to public light the internalized, personalized struggles of the protagonist. Blanchard says of his work, "I explore what and why it is to be excluded or included, comfortable or awkward, in or out. Inspiration is drawn from personal experience and observations or my own mind and body. Sometimes humorous, other times somber or even pathetic, my work always aims to engage and entertain."

Nathan Lareau seeks out elements of music that exist in the physical world using various methods of visual and acoustic mapping by instruments that he invents and constructs.  These are not exclusively “musical” instruments, but also instruments in a scientific sense, used as collectors of symbiotic acoustic and visual data. This data is the raw material and stimulus for the construction of multi-sensory compositions. The combination of all elements- the physical, visual, aural, interactive, improvisational- presents what visitors may consider ordinary as something extraordinary, something worth further investigation and delight.

about the artists
Sam Blanchard, born and raised in central Ohio, is an artist who skirts the lines between sculptor and performer. He is among a genre of artists for whom the process and the result are one in the same. Currently living in Grand Rapids, MI, Blanchard is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Kendall College of Art and Design. He was previously Lecturer at Ohio University and Instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He has exhibited his work in Michigan, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Blanchard was also the curator of Primary at the Kendall Art Gallery in Grand Rapids, MI in 2008.
He holds a MFA from The Rhode Island School of Design (2004) and a BFA from Ohio University (2002).
Artist’s website

Nathan Lareau’s interest in the combination of music and visual art stems from his studies at Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI (BFA in sculpture, minor in music, 2005), where he learning to think in strategies of jazz. This allowed him to consider the relationship of music to art and to form his own improvisational approach that permits instant translation of sensual observation into musical language.  He sees music as something shaped by our physical surroundings, something that is able to extract data from real life. Native to the Grand Rapids area, Lareau now lives in Athens, OH (MFA in studio art, Ohio University, 2009).

Smith Townsend Collaborative: The Triumph
Euclid Avenue Gallery

Overlap both permeates and inspires the works of Smith Townsend Collaborative. Overlap is present in the early stages of their work together in their ideas, concepts, and languages. It is then continued in the creative process as their energies are combined to bring those overlapped ideas to fruition, as well as in the materials used to create the work. With this in mind, Brandon Smith and Travis Townsend state, "There is a moment when once disparate ideas become literally attached through the ropes of metaphor and material. There are many and varied things that the individual pulls through all of their lives. These things occupy the moments and space between great actions." The Triumph, to Smith and Townsend, is the moment when we see the overlap between the individual and society, as they combine their efforts to figuring out what to try next when technology fails.

about the artists
Brandon C. Smith is an adjunct faculty member at Eastern Kentucky University and has been a visiting artist in Italy and Ecuador as well as at Pittsburg State University, Tennessee Tech University, and Lindsey Wilson College in St. Columbia, KY. He received his MFA from the University of Cincinnati in Painting (2004) and his BA in Art Education at Eastern Kentucky University (2000). Recent solo shows include Pulling Cows: Residual at the University of Redlands and at Pikeville College, both in 2008.
Travis Townsend is an Instructor at Eastern Kentucky University and taught previously at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN, Penland School of Crafts in Penland, NC, and Peters Valley Craft Center in Layton, NJ. He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA (2000) and his BS from Kutztown University, PA (1996). Recent solo exhibitions include Renovated Flightless Devices at the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, OH (2007) and Sculpture + Painting at New Arts Program in Kutztown, PA (2007).

Travis Townsend is an Instructor at Eastern Kentucky University and taught previously at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN, Penland School of Crafts in Penland, NC, and Peters Valley Craft Center in Layton, NJ. He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (2000) and his BS from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania (1996). Recent solo exhibitions include Renovated Flightless Devices at the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, OH (2007) and Sculpture + Painting at New Arts Program in Kutztown, PA (2007).

To see the next exhibitions in the W2S Series please click the following:

March through April

Gallery Hours: Wed & Thu: 10am - 4pm, Fri: 10am – 7:30pm, Sat: noon - 4pm, or other weekday times by prior appointment
Always Free and Open to the Public. Groups and Tours by Appointment.

For more information call 216.229.6527 or go to info@sculpturecenter.org.

The Sculpture Center is a not-for-profit arts institution dedicated to the advancement of the careers of emerging Ohio sculptors and the preservation of Ohio outdoor sculpture as a means to provide support for artists and to effect the enrichment, education, enjoyment, and visual enhancement of the Cleveland community and greater region.

The Sculpture Center gratefully acknowledges generous support from Toby Devan Lewis, the Kulas Foundation, the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Bernice and David E. Davis Art Foundation, studioTECHNE|architects, The Nathan and Fannye Shafran Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, American Greetings, and individual donors to Friends of The Sculpture Center, and from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and the Ohio Arts Council.

The Bernice and David E. Davis Art Foundation and studioTECHNE|architects generously provide the spaces for The Sculpture Center’s programs.