Notre Dame Holds Group Portrait Exhibit

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio—13 October 2005-- A group show entitled Making Eye Contact, Expressive Portraits in the 21st Century will open in the college’s Performing Arts Center Gallery on November 4th at 7 p.m. A reception from 7 to 9 p.m. is free and open to the public and the exhibit remains on view until December 8th, 2005.

The exhibit will feature the work of five Cleveland artists who use the human face as the starting point for their paintings. Each artist approaches the subject from a different perspective creating a lively exchange of glances, expressions, and gestures in the show. Colors range from bright, tropical hues in the work of Anna Arnold to subtle muted tones in the paintings of Baila Litton. Arnold and Litton along with artists Doug Max Utter, Misha Kligman and Steve Ziebarth will be represented by nine to twelve paintings each. The portraits cover a spectrum of expressions and styles from abstract to semi-representational. Each artist approaches the theme from a subjective point of view using color, texture, appropriated images and photographs to achieve highly personal interpretations of the human face. Their use of sweeping brushstrokes, bold shapes, and layers of pigment provides us with a new type of portrait. Both Anna Arnold and Steve Ziebarth use a high key color palette to charge their portraits with an emotional energy. While Litton, Utter and Kligman use layers of pigment, layers of imagery and sweeping boldness to startle the eyes into returning to the canvas again and again. The portraits are less about the person represented then they are about the artists’ response to the subject.

The face has held special fascination for centuries. Infants at an early age are attracted to the human face. Eyes, nose, mouth and hair are the elemental features that make us human. Throughout the ages portraits have held a central role in numerous historical periods. Early portraits were more representational and emphasized certain features or symbols depending on the cultural setting. Portraits were used to connote power, civil and religious authority, divine rule, or feminine beauty. Who can forget the features of Pharaoh Rameses II, Caesar Augustus, Pope Julius II, or Marie Antoinette? Artists have made their livelihood faithfully rendering the features of the wealthy and powerful throughout the ages until the widespread availability of photography in the 19th century signaled the demise of the representational portrait. Truth could be rendered more instantly through the lens of the camera. It was not until the 20th century that artists again began to see the portrait as a vehicle of expression. Artist like Alice Neel, Francis Bacon, and Georg Baselitz made us look at the human face and the body through the eyes of the expressionist. These painters were not interested in the outward appearance but rather in expressing the content of the human soul. The face, hands, gesture become metaphors for human emotions, states of being, and the human condition itself. Eyes stare back at us, mouths form silent screams, and hands are limp with despair.

Each of the five artists in Making Eye Contact continues in this expressionist tradition. They ask us to look beyond the basic features of eyes, nose, and mouth. The outer cultural trappings of clothing, jewelry, symbols of power and prestige have been supplanted by raw color, smears, smudges, encrusted pigment, wax and photographs. They reveal more about the inner life then they inform of the external world. They call us back to the essences of our humanity. They remind us of our essential commonality, not the external materiality of this life we lead.

Notre Dame College is located at 4545 College Road in South Euclid. The gallery is open Monday through Friday, noon to six p.m. or by appointment. Contact gallery director Rachel Morris at 216-373-5320 or rmorris@ndc.edu for more information.