Winter Exhibition Artist Spotlights: Leah Davis, Adam Maloney, Tyler Spohn

Leah Davis, Adam Maloney, and Tyler Spohn

This Winter, 1628 is collaborating with Visionaries and Voices (V+V) to present Rephrase: An Exploration of the World Through the Lens of Pop Art. V+V is an inclusive art studio located in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is comprised of a community of friends and supporters who provide creative, professional, and educational opportunities to artists with and without disabilities. The body of work in Rephrase is centered around the response to visual culture and popular culture icons.  This group exhibition references and honors artists who have been deeply affected by something from our visual culture and bring new meaning through “rephrasing” these icons and ideas through their unique perspective and process.  Rephrase is a group show featuring 19 local V+V artists.

 

Here we are highlighting three such artists from Rephrase:

 

Leah Davis reminds her viewer that love, as the old saying goes, is not always in the details. The simplicity of Davis’s iconic drawing style, a contemporary graphic approach to color, line, and arrangement, gives her visually demanding work a charming personality. Repetitive patterns of smiling fish, flying birds, and hungry giraffes command her compositions. Davis primarily works with 2-dimensional media such as acrylic, watercolor, and markers, but from time to time will transfer her signature style into hand-sewn pillows or paper mache and ceramic sculptures. Regardless of medium, her use of color is unwavering, naturally leaning toward cheerful hues in complementary color schemes

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Detail of Fish, 2012

Adam Maloney is a Cincinnati-based artist, who describes his art “romanticized pop art, or pop romanticism, oftentimes in the form of guerilla art.” Besides drawing on paper and canvas, Maloney often works on everyday found surfaces and uses “cheap retail store bought materials.” His work tends to concern terrorism, classic 1980’s video games, and wholesale pop culture eroticism featuring the everyday girl next door beautiful woman. Frenzied and archaic two-dimensional compositions express simple themes and ideas in his work. In January 2002, Maloney was in a near fatal car accident and describes his relationship with art after the event as such: “Self-induced art therapy has been the key factor in my recovery thus far, giving me a means of both dealing with my disability, venting my anxiety, and the ability to make a meaningful contribution to society.”

Euphoric Odalisque, 2012

Tyler Spohn produces immaculately detailed gouache paintings emanating from popular culture.  He removes any unnecessary elements, often omitting backgrounds in favor of solely representing his subjects. Value is flattened into solid color, giving his work a graphic quality similar to Wayne Thiebaud or early 20th century commercial artists. A quiet observation and attention to subtle features are revealed in his line work.  When Spohn embraces a certain overarching subject, it is seen out over months to its logical conclusion.  For instance, he started a series of paintings of coins, which then led to painting a separate piece of each type bill in our currency.  This focus and intention is intoxicating and emanates from Spohn’s life and work.

Zoo Animals in the Jungle, 2019

All exhibit pieces are for sale. If you are interested in seeing the exhibition virtually, click here. If interested in purchasing or displaying art in the 1628 Coworking gallery, please contact us at art@tamaras.wpenginepowered.com.

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