
The Sculpture Center is excited to congratulate the selected artists for The Sculpture Center’s W2S Emerging Artist series 2019.
The artists exhibiting in the W2S Emerging Artist series 2019 were chosen by The Sculpture Center’s exhibition committee through an open call for artists of Ohio and its greater region practicing within the first 10 years of their professional careers. The following up-and-coming sculptors of our region will show new work created specifically for their exhibitions in the Main Gallery and Euclid Avenue Gallery of The Sculpture Center in 2019:
Kelley O’Brien & Ryan Dewey
On View Friday, Jan. 25, 2019 (Opening Reception) to Friday, Mar. 15, 2019
Phillip Scarpone & Adam Shirley
On View Friday, Mar. 25, 2019 (Opening Reception) to Friday, May 24, 2019
Kelley O’Brien earned her Bachelors of Architecture from The University of Tennessee (2011) and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2014). Currently she is the co-director of The Muted Horn Gallery in Cleveland, and her work focuses on the death and rebirth of natural and man-made ecosystems and social movements.
Ryan Dewey studied cognitive science at Case Western Reserve University, earning his Masters (2012) with emphasis on the interaction of human attention, visual rhetoric, emotions, and the organization of space. This undergirds his research-driven approach to sculpture, installation, text and performance and forms a philosophical grounding for his post-disciplinary work with topics of climate change, land-use and infrastructural systems.
Phillip Scarpone earned his BFA from the University of Delaware (2010) and MFA with distinction from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia (2015). He teaches sculpture as an instructor at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art, and his studio practice concerns the paradoxical power of objects, sensory experience, and the intersection between public and private spaces.
“I’m very excited to be chosen for the W2S program and to work alongside an institution with a long history of supporting emerging, mid-career and established artists working in the realm of sculpture,” Scarpone said.
Adam Shirley earned his BFA from the College of Creative Studies (1993) and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2010). Still life paintings serve as both starting point and frame of reference for his continued investigation into the relationships that exist between two and three dimensional objects, material and scale. He is a studio artist and adjunct faculty and metalshop technician at the College for Creative Studies.
“I am excited and grateful for having been selected for inclusion in the W2S solo exhibition series at The Sculpture Center,” Shirley said. “I believe the opportunity for exhibiting my work to an expanded regional network will provide invaluable experience and have a meaningful impact in the evolution of my practice.”
The Sculpture Center’s exhibition committee also selected two alternate artists, Ella Medicus and Emily Moores.