21st Century Expressions of The Second Sex will showcase selected works by leading female regional artists, created in the world in which women artists must live. The pieces may span the decades of a career or reflect new work produced specifically for the show.

Opening Reception:
Friday, April 1, 2011 from 6 pm –10 pm

Special 8pm Performance
Sneak Preview of scenes from Insomnia: The Waking of Herselves by Cleveland Public Theatre

Closing Reception:
Sunday, May 8, 2011 from 11am – 2 pm
Special Mother’s Day Brunch

Convivium33 Gallery 1433 East 33rd Street
216.881.7838 

Gallery Hours: Daily by appointment
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: 10am-1pm
Saturday and Sunday: 10am- 2pm

Exhibit dates: Saturday, April 2 –Sunday, May 8, 2011

Featured Artists

Anna Arnold received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1983. She is a prolific entrepreneur artist who has produced paintings, sculptures, ceramics and jewelry for more than 25 years and has exhibited in over 200 gallery and museum shows across the United States including the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, the California Afro American Museum in Los Angeles, the Alternative Museum in NYC, the Chicago Public Library, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Arnold earned a Master’s degree in Art Education at Case Western Reserve University in 2010. Her works are in the collections of the Progressive Corporation Art Collection, the Western Reserve Historic Museum, the Cleveland Public Library, Akron Art Museum and the Center for Art and Religion, Washington, DC. Arnold lives in Cleveland, OH.

Cathie Bleck received her BFA from the University of Illinois in 1978. Bleck worked as a successful, internationally respected illustrator prior to publishing of a monograph of her artwork called Open Spaces in 2006, which quickly launched her career into the gallery world. Solo exhibitions followed in Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City as well as two museum shows in 2008. Bleck attracted The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT who offered her a mid career retrospective and The Butler Museum in Youngstown, OH extended her solo exhibition of New Works entitled Becoming Human. In 2007 Bleck was awarded the prestigious honor of designing, in her clay-board technique, the U.S. State Department’s Earth Day Image. Other commissions include Sony Records, Time, Esquire, New York Times, LA Times, Warner Bros., Random House, Simon & Schuster, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Forest Service. Bleck lives in Cleveland Hts., OH and New York City, NY.

Rian Brown is an Associate Professor of Cinema and New Media at Oberlin College where she teaches video production and video art. Brown has a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and a MFA from University of California San Diego. Her short films, Presence of Water and The Settler and Death of the Moth have shown at numerous film festivals and museums including the L.A. Hammer Museum of Art, New York Shorts Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Women in the Director’s Chair and many others. In 2009, Rian co-founded Ice Lens Pictures and is currently in production on a multi-channel video shot in Antarctica called, BLUE DESERT: Towards Antarctica. Rian is married and is the mother of two young boys. She divides her time between Turin, Italy and Oberlin, OH.

Brittany Campbell was born in Columbus, Georgia and spent most of her childhood in Lancaster, OH. In 2009 she received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in Fiber and Material Studies with a minor in Film Video and Photographic Arts, as well as an emphasis in Visual Culture. Brittany’s video works have led to many accolades including the “Best Live Action” film award for Troubled Water, presented at the 2008 E.M.I.T. show at the Cleveland Cinematheque. Currently, Campbell is a Technical Assistant at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Fiber and Material Studies. She lives in Cleveland, OH.

Kristen Cliffel graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1990 with a BFA in Ceramics. Her works are in many Cleveland area public and private collections including University Hospitals, Metro General Hospital, Lutheran Hospital, and Hahn, Loeser and Parks LLP. Cliffel has completed residencies at The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada and the Kohler Company in Wisconsin. She has received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship and has been a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant Nominee. Kristen is married and the mother of two. She lives in Cleveland, OH.

Liz Maugans is a co-founder and Managing Director of Zygote Press, Inc. She received her BFA in printmaking from Kent State University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1992. Maugans is an adjunct instructor of printmaking at several Northeast Ohio colleges and universities including the Cleveland Institute of Art and Lorain County Community College. Maugans is included in the collections of the BF Goodrich and The Verne Riffe Center for Government and the Arts. She received an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship in 2000, participated in the Andy Warhol Leadership Institute for National Arts Media and Culture in 2010 and received an Artist-in-Communities Grant from the Ohio Arts Council for her Drawing It Out program. Maugans lives in Bay Village, OH with her husband and three children.

Helene Morse received her BFA in 1976 from the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA. Helene has been a practicing artist for more than 30 years. Her daily work is focused on her conservation business, restoring china and porcelain and her studio art, which consists primarily of private custom commissions. Helene considers being a mother her most important role and the source of her creativity. Her family life is the inspiration for her sculptures, which she describes as figurative interpretations of everyday life. Morse lives in Cleveland Heights, OH.

Angelica Pozo is a nationally recognized ceramic artist and author of Making and Installing Handmade Tile published by Lark Books in 2005. Her newest book, Ceramics for Beginners: Surfaces, Glazes and Firings, released August of 2010. A New York City native born of Cuban and Puerto Rican parents, Angelica came to Cleveland in 1984. Pozo received her MFA from the University of Michigan and her BFA from SUNY College of Ceramics in Alfred, NY. Pozo has worked on numerous public art commissions, including those for RTA Airport Station, Gateway’s “Marketplace Bench” outside of Quicken Loans Arena, plus tile/mosaic murals at Cleveland State University Law Library, Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University College of Social Work. Her work has been widely exhibited. Among Angelica’s awards are an Ohio Arts Council and an NEA Regional Arts Midwest Individual Artist Fellowship. She also has work in the permanent collection of the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. Pozo lives in Cleveland, OH.

Bellamy Printz was born and raised in New York City. Printz received her BA from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her MFA from University of Washington, Seattle. Printz has exhibited her work internationally, including a PULSE exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland (now MOCA) and recently at the William Busta Gallery. She has received several grants from the Ohio Arts Council including an Individual Artist Fellowship in 1999. Dedicated to her craft of printmaking, she co-founded Zygote Press in 1996, and is the current Board President. Printz is a Curator for the Cleveland Clinic Art Program. She lives with her family in Cleveland, OH.

Chris Seibert is the Director of Education at Cleveland Public Theatre. As director, she works collaboratively with Cleveland inner-city teens, children in public housing, and adults in recovery to create original performances based on the participant’s life experiences. Through the Council of International Programs USA, she recently traveled to Istanbul, Turkey as part of a contingent of Cleveland-area arts professionals working with Turkish artists in the development of arts program for marginalized urban youth. Seibert is a 2010 Creative Workforce Fellow. Seibert is performer, director, and playwright primarily working in the devised theatre method. She has appeared in a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional performance venues including Daley Plaza, Navy Pier, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), The Cleveland Play House and Cleveland Public Theatre. Seibert lives in Cleveland, OH

Audra Skuodas was born in Lithuania during World War II. She was 3 years old when she fled with her parents to Germany, and was almost 10 when they immigrated to the US. Skuodas received her BFA and MFA degrees at Northern Illinois University. She has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Oberlin College. Skuodas has exhibited at numerous May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art as well as having been included in the Cleveland Museum of Art second Invitational. She has held one person shows in NYC and in 1989, what is now MOCA Cleveland held a major exhibit of her work. Skuodas is a 2010 recipient of a Cleveland Arts Prize in Visual Arts. She is married to artist John Pearson and they have two children. Audra lives in Oberlin, OH.

Susan Squires attended Miami University, Oxford, Ohio where she studied psychology and art. Squires received her BFA from Cleveland Institute of Art in 1983 with a focus on painting and drawing. Subsequently, Squires studied art and art history in Italy with the University of Georgia and the University of Texas. In 2000, she participated in a five week Printmaking Residency in Dresden, Germany through a grant from the Ohio Arts Council and Zygote Press. Since 2002, Squires has exhibited extensively in our region and has shown with the Arte e Pensieri Gallery in Rome, Italy. She also has work in Spoleto, Perugia and Pisa, Italy. Susan travels extensively and currently resides in Cleveland Heights, OH.

Barbara Stanczak was born in Germany during WWII. Her art education began in 1957 at an arts and crafts school in Germany. Stanczak embarked for America in 1960 on a student visa. She studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1960-1963, majoring in Painting and Sculpture while simultaneously taking classes in English and the humanities at Cincinnati’s Xavier University, where she fell in love with her husband, artist Julian Stanczak. In 1975, Barbara earned a BFA in German Literature and Art Education from Case Western Reserve. In 1976 she joined Julian as a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Art where she continues to teach today. In 1990 she received her MFA in Art Education, Art History, from Case Western Reserve University. Barbara has exhibited, extensively in our region and is in the collections of Anderson Gallery at the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown OH, Central Cadilac Headquarters, Cleveland, OH, The Cleveland Art Association, Cleveland, OH, The Hausertonic Museum of Art, Bridgetown, CN and the Taft Collection, Pepper Pike, OH. In addition to her fine arts and teaching career, Barbara has been the curator for Julian’s One-Man shows 23 times since 1974. She lives in Seven Hills, OH.

Garie Waltzer was born in New York City and received her BFA in painting and MFA in photography from State University of New York/Buffalo. An early proponent of the marriage of technology and art, her large color electrostatic collages have been included in many exhibitions, publications and corporate and museum collections. She is a recipient of numerous artist grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. Waltzer developed the photography program at Cleveland’s Cuyahoga Community College where she chaired the department and taught until 2004. Waltzer lives in Cleveland Heights, OH.

Trudy Wiesenberger is the Founding Curator of the Art Collection at University Hospitals in Cleveland. Since 1988, Wiesenberger, who previously worked as an instructor at the Cleveland Museum of Art, has assembled a patient-friendly collection. Trudy is a recipient of the 2010 Martha Joseph Cleveland Arts Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts. Wiesenberger has served on many non-profit boards and committees including the Print Club of Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Institute of Art and she is the founding board President of the Contemporary Council, The Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art now known as MOCA Cleveland. In the past Wiesenberger has exhibited her work at the Intown Club, St. Paul's Church Gallery, Hawken School, and Notre Dame College. Soon to retire after 23 years at University Hospitals, she will again focus on her collage work and printmaking at Zygote Press in Cleveland and at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, Colorado. Wiesenberger lives in Lyndhurst OH and Scottsdale, Arizona.

During this exhibition, there will be a special sneak preview of scenes from
Insomnia: The Waking of Herselves,
the world premiere play opening at Cleveland Public Theatre in April, 2011.
Convivium 33 featured artist Chris Seibert will be joined by her colleagues:

Holly Holsinger is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Cleveland State University, specializing in acting, voice, and movement, as well devised theatre techniques. Ms. Holsinger was named Cleveland’s Best Director 2010 by Scene Magazine for her production of CSU’s In The Blood and recently received the first Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. Holsinger has been a Cleveland theatre artist for the past seventeen years and has created/performed in over ten original plays including Blue Sky Transmission and her solo piece Frankenstein’s Wake, both of which toured Off-Broadway. She received an MFA in Acting from the University of California.

Anne McEvoy has been on stage at the Bang and Clatter, Beck Center, Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Dobama Theatre, Ensemble Theatre, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Karamu, and Kennedy's - Playhouse Square.

“One is not born, but rather becomes a woman,” declared French author Simone de Beauvoir in her 1949 work, The Second Sex. Sixty years later, in November 2009, the book was newly translated and re-released and it remains as compelling as ever. On the theme of a woman’s metamorphosis, Beauvoir wrote, “Then from woman’s point of view I shall describe the world in which women must live; and thus we shall be able to envisage the difficulties in their way as, endeavoring to make their escape from the sphere hitherto assigned them, they aspire to full membership in the human race.”

A December 2009 ARTNews feature, The Feminist Evolution by Phoebe Hoban echoed the words of Beauvoir and underscores the timeliness of Convivium33 Gallery’s latest show. “Museums are exhibiting an increased sensitivity to collecting and presenting works by women- through new acquisitions, solo shows and a stronger focus on artists who were previously neglected. But true gender equality, critics maintain, remains elusive,” Hoban wrote.

Curator Alenka Banco aims to explore a woman’s voice during the different stages of life through art. Similar to Beauvoir’s ‘Facts and Myth’s’ in book one of The Second Sex, there is a chronicle for womankind not unlike stations of the cross, journeying from girlhood, through puberty and sexual initiation, to maturity and old age. 21st Century Expressions of the Second Sex “reveals art as an individual reflection of womanhood”, explains Banco. The exhibit includes artists of various ages at different points in life, and depicts works produced in a variety of media.

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