Curator's statement

By Sarah Sims

The creative process permeates an artist’s body of work in the reuse and development of themes and motifs. For viewers, it is often more intriguing and informative to trace continuities and transformations across an artist’s output than it is to examine a solitary work of art. In an effort to showcase the creative process, this exhibition presents a selection of work from each of four artists: Hannah Bigeleisen, Sandra Petrie, rachel shelton, and Timothy Skehan. These artists translate images or ideas from one artwork to the next, so that for the viewer, a stream of consciousness may be visualized. Additionally, the juxtaposition of these bodies of work facilitates a comparison of differing creative methods used by contemporary emerging artists.

In her lithographs, Bigeleisen does not reuse specific images but rather employs various approaches to investigate the sky as a central, overarching theme.  Each step in her process gives the viewer an alternative possibility for understanding its space and form. In the architectural drawings of Petrie, her creative process is immediately apparent in the structures’ progression from preparatory drawings through increasingly complex compositions. shelton’s work also extends from an initial motif: the mountainscape. Experimentation in new media and on different scales transforms the appearance and meaning of this image. In Skehan’s photographs we readily recognize absence as a recurring subject and motif, but looking closer at each image, his documentation and simulation of removed information intersect, and the viewer is forced to reexamine his processes.

Seen within the context of their respective groups, each artwork represented here becomes a portion of a narrative. Our examination and understanding of one piece inspires and informs the next, and thus the artists’ creative processes are revealed and the meanings of their creations are further illuminated.

Sarah Sims' bio:

Sarah Sims is a second-year graduate student at Case Western Reserve University.  Her primary interests are in 15th- and 16th-century Italian art and contemporary issues in museum studies.  After receiving her bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Kansas in 2007, Sarah worked in the registrars department at the Chicago Conservation Center.  In the past two years she has held internships in the conservation, curatorial, and education departments of the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Denver Art Museum.  Sarah will obtain her masters degree in art history and museum studies from Case this May and will thereafter pursue a career in museum education and outreach.

Special thanks to Pamela Jaffe, Kathleen Cerveny, and Scott Tennant at the Cleveland Foundation; Dr. Olszewksi and Debby Tenenbaum at Case Western Reserve University; Bruce Checefsky, Casey Burry, Karen Myers, and Julie Mason at the Cleveland Institute of Art; Shawn Godwin for his guidance and expert installation of the show; and to each of the artists for sharing their talent through this exhibition.

Click below for artists’ bios, statements, and sample works: