Allie Burton, Margeaux Lim, Romain Mayambi, Sara Mulhauser, Claire Long, and Brad Davis
Nature can be many different things. It is the environment around us, the ecosystem sustaining us, and the instincts woven into our very being. Nature can help create a culture, a cuisine, a religion; but in its fullness, it is also full of contradictions. It creates in the same breath that it breaks down. It inspires awe as it does fear. It is the deepest ocean in the same way it is the farthest star. Our relationship with it is similarly complex. It is key to our survival, yet we destroy it. It fosters our wellbeing, yet we isolate ourselves from it. It is untamable, yet we still try to contain it. Somehow all of these things can be true.
And somehow, the art created in its name can address all of these things. From the Hudson River School capturing the sublime beauty of untouched America, to the Land Artists creating ever-changing works from mud, stone, and grass, nature has been the subject and the tools of artists since the dawn of time. Whether realistic or heavily stylized, representational or abstract, artists have always been attracted to depicting nature and their own personal or cultural relationship with it.
This fall, 1628 is thrilled to be showcasing 27 primarily local and regional artists in Deeply Rooted, Deeply Held, which speaks to the continuation of this millennia long dance between artists and the world they find themselves in. It explores our extraordinary planet and our connection to it – the emotions it inspires, the comfort (or danger) it brings – and urges us to appreciate and protect it, to closely hold what has been rooted within us for so long. Featured in this show are artists Allie Burton, Margeaux Lim, Romain Mayambi, Sara Mulhauser, Claire Long, and Brad Davis.
Allie Burton is a self-taught artist who finds her inspiration in the beauty and complexity of nature. After finding her love for painting in recent years, she has poured much of her time into learning new techniques and experimenting with her style. She enjoys creating colorful floral and landscape acrylic paintings from her home art studio in Loveland, Ohio. Her current works are impressionistic and reflect the joy and life nature can bring to your home.
“Each unique piece I create brings brightness, joy and hopefulness to the space it holds, which I feel emulates the sensation we experience when we ground ourselves with nature. I am inspired by the natural cycle of flowers and landscapes and am always reflecting on the life they give as their own is taken. I am always finding ways to bring the bright colors that exist naturally on our earth to my artworks in a way that exudes happiness.”
Margeaux Lim is an interdisciplinary artist with an environmental agenda who wants to sever the barrier between thing and person. When we start to view life less as a hierarchy and more horizontally, she believes we can start treating our surroundings with more respect. Through her art she asks questions like, when and how do we decide an object is deemed useless? What happens when we can’t get the next best thing? An object may be thrown away or forgotten, but this does not mean it stops existing. Through Margeaux’s practice she focuses on how we exchange energy and how that energy can have a symbiotic relationship.
“As an artist with an environmental agenda, I aim to sever the disconnect between human and environment due to our anthropocentric culture. By creating symbiotic cycles and activating the senses I recreate a simulation where I as the artist have a hand in the functions and curation of an environment. My involvement is not pernicious, but instrumental to the overall cycle of this man-made landscape.”
“My name is Romain Mayambi, I’m originally from DRC Congo, my family and I moved to the United States about 7 years ago. I picked up my first camera freshman year of college. I was very fascinated by fashion and wanted to document what people were wearing. I would walk around my college campus and ask strangers if I could photograph them; some were kind and some, not so much. As time went on I started to try out different styles of photography. I eventually started to do both portrait and street-style/fashion photography. I made connections with people around the city and have made long lasting friends through photography.
“I use photography to express myself and share what goes on inside my mind. I capture my subjects in vibrant colors, around trees or flowers which helps bring the photos to life. I find it to be very therapeutic and I can’t imagine my life without it. I hope to continue creating and connecting with artists from all around the globe. My goal is to inspire others with my work and to create a community where creatives can share stories.”
Sara Mulhauser Printing for over thirty years, Sara Mulhauser is inspired by color, shapes and movement in landscapes, clouds and car racing. Living in Iowa for eighteen years Sara developed a love of rolling hills and clouds throughout the landscape. Having graduated from Drake University in 1995 with a Master of Fine Arts and the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1992 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts; Sara is still in awe of mother nature and uses her personal mark making language to create lively dramatic pieces.
For over two decades Sara’s muse has been nature and human’s mark on nature. Sara’s art visualizes, through abstraction, the many facets of terrains; primarily by abstracting the rolling hills, bright colors and shapes from all angles. Sara’s use of insulation foam as a base for her sculptures and a plate for her prints symbolizes the man made aspect of the world and its indestructibility in nature. The vibrant shapes, forms and colors symbolizes nature that is forever fluid and moving and growing. Sara’s piece shown here is in a new medium for her and represents the formation, movement and energy of clouds.
Claire Long has been immersed in art her whole life. Her mom was an accomplished sculptor/painter and her father was an amateur photographer with his own darkroom. As a child, Claire demonstrated clay sculpture with her mother at art fairs and was always encouraged to create. She is continually inspired by nature and her love of travel. Claire shares a studio at Loveland’s Studios on Main and is part of the Woman’s Art Club of Cincinnati and the Brush & Palette Painters. She has several animal paintings that are reproduced and sold at Gorman Heritage Farm. Claire is energized by art and, now retired, is thrilled to focus on her life-long love of art and share that joy through her work.
“Growing up in Connecticut, I have always loved the amazing show of colors on the trees around every corner. The crisp air rustled the leaves, whispering for us to come outside for play and adventure. Though I married and moved away, I longed for visits home to stand amongst the trees and feel the quiet peace that you only find in nature and around loving family. I took this photograph of our backyard the week that I was moving my parents to a retirement home in Ohio. They were leaving their beloved home of 50 years on an acre that they had developed into a nature preserve. They felt privileged to have “given back” their land. Though I still have my memories and this photo, I also take great joy in knowing that I have transplanted several seedlings of these same trees into our yard in Cincinnati, making my new city feel more like home.”
Brad Davis is a painter from Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned his BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2016, and his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2018. His paintings are typically centered around the urban environment and seek to transform its banality through careful and personal reconstruction. Davis is a resident instructor at Manifest Drawing Center, and an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning (DAAP) and the Art Academy of Cincinnati. His work is currently being shown with Sugarlift Gallery (New York, NY), Abend Gallery (Denver, CO), and F.A.N. Gallery (Philadelphia, PA).
Multiple pieces in this exhibition are for sale. If you are interested in purchasing any artwork from the show, please contact us at art@tamaras.wpenginepowered.com.