YSU McDonough Museum of Art: Sanctuary & Resort Exhibition
to
McDonough Museum of Art 525 Wick Avenue, Akron, Ohio 44502
Sanctuary
September 7 – October 26, 2018
Public Reception, Friday, September 7, 5-7pm
John Guy Petruzzi, an Ohio artist and YSU alumnus, explores issues of climate change, declining biodiversity and habitat loss through a series of intense watercolors. “On synthetic paper water evaporates slowly, allowing ephemeral pools, laden with organic tension, to be suspended and preserved. A disharmony ripples through these fragile compositions, not unlike our natural world, centering on a collective experience of transformation, loss, mystery, and awe.” The spectrum for programming is broad as Petruzzi’s work is connected to painting dating back to prehistory that has played a distinctive role in the discourse on extinction. His local source is the Mill Creek Wildlife Sanctuary, a 264-acre former fish farm that now offers a unique diversity of wetland habitats - beloved among a large population of birders and citizen scientists.
RESORT
September 7 – October 26, 2018
Public Reception, Friday, September 7, 5-7pm
RESORT is a traveling exhibition of works by artists Andrew Ellis Johnson and Susanne Slavick that offer a compelling exploration of the barriers to asylum in the ongoing global refugee crisis. “Our world is constantly moving and our divisions continue to multiply. There are lines between those in control and those who are controlled, barriers between the visible and the invisible, chasms between the displaced and the settled.” Being a refugee is not a choice. Those of us who are settled may never know the anxiety, risk or terror of those uprooted, the profound loss of what is left behind, and the daunting uncertainties ahead. Art alone cannot resolve the refugee crisis, but through their work, Slavick and Johnson hope to induce an empathic unsettlement that might lead us to reconsider our responsibility for and reception of immigrants and refugees.