Arron Foster, whose solo exhibit opens April 13 at the BOX Gallery, is an interdisciplinary artist whose creative research involves the production of artists’ books, prints, drawings, videos, animations and installations.
The BOX Gallery in downtown Akron is hosting two solo exhibitions: “Another Time has other Lives to Live” featuring Arron Foster and “Ache” featuring Emily Brannan. A meet-the-artists opening reception will take place Friday, April 13, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the BOX Gallery. The exhibitions will be on display through Saturday, May 12.
Foster is an interdisciplinary artist whose creative research involves the production of artists’ books, prints, drawings, videos, animations and installations. He received a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts Printmaking and Art Education from East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. and a master’s degree in Fine Arts Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.
His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally with recent shows at CICA Museum, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, The New York Center For Book Arts, New York, Mary R. Koch Arts Center, Wichita, Kan., The Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Ga., and the John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto, Ontario. He is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Print Media at Kent State University.
In his exhibit, Foster explores the transitory nature of life and our world and reflects on how our perceptions of change and time mediate our lived experiences. His interest lies in creating visual images to conceptualize the relationship between time, change and consciousness. His work often moves between abstraction and representation so that narratives and associations to actuality are implied but left open-ended. His work also involves a site-specific installation of prints and print-based videos that use landscape imagery as a metaphor for change and temporality.
Sculptor and installation artist Emily Brannan’s solo exhibit, which opens April 13 at the BOX Gallery in downtown Akron’s Summit Artspace, centers around her experience with ovarian cysts and seeing her friends become mothers while struggling with possible infertility.
Brannan is a sculptor and installation artist graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts degree in Sculpture and Metalsmithing from the University of Akron this spring. Her work has been exhibited in the Akron area, including a site-specific installation that she and her peers created alongside artist in residence, Julie Schenkelberg, at the Emily Davis Gallery.
As a member of the Akron Coalition of Sculptors, she and other affiliates worked with the West Hill Neighborhood Organization to create a public sculpture. She is a recipient of The Folk Charitable Foundation Venice Biennale International Travel and Study of Art Scholarship. She works as the Sculpture Studio Assistant at the Myers School of Art.
In her exhibit, Brannan displays her fascination with the female reproductive system through abstracted figural forms made of various materials. Almost animalistic in nature, her work centers around her experience with ovarian cysts and seeing her friends become mothers while struggling with possible infertility. To replicate the feeling of discomfort, each sculptural form is encased and inflicted by materials such as pink insulation batting, steel wool, synthetic hair and fiberglass filaments. These fibrous materials can embed themselves into the skin and create a sharp pain and burning sensation much like the pain experienced with an ovarian cyst.
The BOX Gallery is open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Additionally, The BOX Gallery is open on Thursday, April 19, 5 to 9 p.m. for Third Thursday and Saturday, May 5, 5 to 9 p.m., for the Akron Artwalk. Admission is to the BOX is FREE and open to the public.
In 1978, Artists of Rubber City (AoRC) was founded by a group of University of Akron art students looking for places to display their work and for a way to stay connected. AoRC is a member-based visual arts nonprofit with the mission to advocate for contemporary artists and Ohio art. The BOX Gallery is an artist-run gallery owned by the Artists of Rubber City. It opened in October 2009 on the third floor of Summit Artspace, 140 E. Market St. in Akron. Gallery exhibition proposals are open to the public and can be acquired at the gallery or at ArtistsofRubberCity.org. Accepted artist and curator proposals have the opportunity to be featured in two exhibition spaces: the Big BOX and the small box.
