The Galleries at CSU

On the Corner Off

September 3 – October 9, 2010
CSU Art Gallery, Main Gallery

An exhibition of paintings produced since 1997, by Cleveland State University professor of painting Ken Nevadomi.

Statement by the artist:

To be a painter you have to love the idea of painting. Everything (in art) flows from that. To sculpt, draw, make a performance piece, or a movie, ‘loving the idea’ is an important, if not the most important component. Next to that is the challenge of what to paint. An idea can be an elusive thing that must be expressed before it gets lost and disappears in memory. In the search for ideas, hunting, exploring, looking, seeing, thinking, imagining, come into play. The things we see in the world and the images we see in our minds eye feed us.

The series of woven paintings from 1997 to 2007 represent a continuing interest in weaving two paintings together and arriving at a third painting, or a fourth or fifth painting, because the woven works can be rearranged indefinitely. Also, I like the idea of the hidden painting that is covered up as the paintings overlap. I noticed, and it was pointed out to me, that the canvases, prior to being cut and woven, had their own impact as an artwork in their own right. So I decided to leave some of those works intact.

The second group of paintings represent ‘bar culture,’ I guess one could say. In a few of the paintings, sun light streams through large windows giving the people in the bar a Caravaggio-like appearance. That, and the layout of the bar, the energy of the people in that environment, and the feel of the variations of emotional activity, seems to call for expressive energy on the canvas. That’s what I was looking for.
Besides loving to paint, it also should be fun.

Ken Nevadomi
Cleveland, August 2010