Happy Hour with the Artists!
Cranbrook Academy of Art graduates Melika Abikenari (’21), Tiffany Danielle Elliott (’19), and Luke Warren (’20), whose work is currently on exhibit at The Sculpture Center, discussed the development of their work and the challenges of being an artist in the midst of a pandemic. This talk was moderated by Artist and Cleveland Institute of Art Associate Professor of Foundations, Jimmy Kuehnle.
Check out the Artist Talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OMIM9fzbK0
Melika Abikenari’s work explores the systems of repression she endured as a child and adult in both the private and public spheres, in the home and by the state, including police, schools, and various other actors and institutions. Her work, both practical and theoretical, is the nature and function of memory, how it is constructed and reconstructed, which is to underscore its contingent and persisting character.
Artist Tiffany Danielle Elliott is interested in human connections and disconnections, with one another and within the relationship of body to object and body as object. She is fascinated by our intense desires and requirements to document ourselves. Her work in the exhibition THE digital COMPANION explores what happens when we begin to understand ourselves and others as digital, physical and immaterial objects.
Luke Warren’s creative research deals with harmful ideologies and mythologies surrounding portrayals of gender in film. His piece Dirty Harry, 1971 is part of a photographic series that pulls from his background in film studies, investigating toxic masculinity in “iconic” protagonists from cinema.
Moderator Jimmy Kuehnle works in various media and has exhibited his projects nationally and internationally. His recent work features site-specific inflatable installations in museums as well as public performance treks through rural and urban cities in the U.S. such as Chicago, Detroit, Austin, St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Antonio, Dallas, and New York as well as international performances in Japan, Italy, and Finland. He is an Associate Professor of Foundation at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
