Current Exhibition
Nowstalgia
August 11 - October 8, 2023
Opening reception: August 11, 6 - 9 pm
Kaiser Gallery presents Nowstalgia, an exhibition where artists help us escape the uncertainties of everyday life, drawing inspiration from past decades and infusing them with a futuristic style that feels unique today. Their art captures the chaos of Internet culture, reminds us of a simpler time, and inspires us to move forward.
What is Nowstalgia? It is everything and anything—combining retro-indulgent fantasy with today's instant consumerism lifestyle. Driven by our need for connectivity and escapism, the nowstalgia trend permits us to re-imagine the past, creating a collage of nostalgic references.
Featuring the works of Ewuresi Archer, Khrystyna Bodnaruk, Donald Halpern, Toby Griffiths, Patsy Coffey Kline, and Cale Ours
August 11 - October 8, 2023
Opening reception: August 11, 6 - 9 pm
Kaiser Gallery presents Nowstalgia, an exhibition where artists help us escape the uncertainties of everyday life, drawing inspiration from past decades and infusing them with a futuristic style that feels unique today. Their art captures the chaos of Internet culture, reminds us of a simpler time, and inspires us to move forward.
What is Nowstalgia? It is everything and anything—combining retro-indulgent fantasy with today's instant consumerism lifestyle. Driven by our need for connectivity and escapism, the nowstalgia trend permits us to re-imagine the past, creating a collage of nostalgic references.
Featuring the works of Ewuresi Archer, Khrystyna Bodnaruk, Donald Halpern, Toby Griffiths, Patsy Coffey Kline, and Cale Ours
Ewuresi Archer
Ewuresi Archer is a Painter and Printmaker based in Cleveland, OhioShe is a Ghanaian American artist who graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2022 with a BFA in Painting and an emphasis in PrintMaking.
Archer utilizes fluorescent colors and patterns in her work to celebrate Ghanaian culture; She puts her Ghanaian culture on a pedestal while bringing awareness to the fact that her culture and a western culture coexist. Painting with a highly saturated, glowing color palette and scrappy, energetic marks and patterns, She depicts everyday activities such as pounding fufu, getting a haircut, along with portraying images of foods that are important to Ghanaian culture. As someone living far from the culture she grew up in, Archer always finds herself thinking about and missing little parts of the culture. Her distortions recreate for a viewer the feeling of wanting something just out of reach. Archer depicts all these things as a way not only to invite a viewer into her culture, but also a way to allow herself to appreciate this culture she was very removed from growing up.
Archers' work has been shown in multiple group exhibitions such as Day Glo Show at Waterloo Arts in Cleveland, OH, Waking Dream at River House Arts in Toledo, OH, Snickers That Turn to Livable Joy at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, OH, I Am My Best Work, at The Painting Center in New York, NY and she co curated a two person show Cut From The Same Cloth at Kaiser Gallery in Tremont, OH. Most recently, she won 1st Place Prize at The First Annual Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize show.
Ewuresi Archer is a Painter and Printmaker based in Cleveland, OhioShe is a Ghanaian American artist who graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2022 with a BFA in Painting and an emphasis in PrintMaking.
Archer utilizes fluorescent colors and patterns in her work to celebrate Ghanaian culture; She puts her Ghanaian culture on a pedestal while bringing awareness to the fact that her culture and a western culture coexist. Painting with a highly saturated, glowing color palette and scrappy, energetic marks and patterns, She depicts everyday activities such as pounding fufu, getting a haircut, along with portraying images of foods that are important to Ghanaian culture. As someone living far from the culture she grew up in, Archer always finds herself thinking about and missing little parts of the culture. Her distortions recreate for a viewer the feeling of wanting something just out of reach. Archer depicts all these things as a way not only to invite a viewer into her culture, but also a way to allow herself to appreciate this culture she was very removed from growing up.
Archers' work has been shown in multiple group exhibitions such as Day Glo Show at Waterloo Arts in Cleveland, OH, Waking Dream at River House Arts in Toledo, OH, Snickers That Turn to Livable Joy at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, OH, I Am My Best Work, at The Painting Center in New York, NY and she co curated a two person show Cut From The Same Cloth at Kaiser Gallery in Tremont, OH. Most recently, she won 1st Place Prize at The First Annual Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize show.
Khrystyna Bodnaruk
Khrystyna Bodnaruk is an award-winning Ukrainian artist based in Cleveland, Ohio whose paintings have been exhibited nationally and in Spain. Fusing academic principles with a distinctive and contemporary style, her figurative works convey the inner world and the characters of her subjects. In addition, Bodnaruk endeavors to reflect a "haunting feeling of melancholy and lyricism". She most often creates with oils on canvas.
Khrystyna Bodnaruk is an award-winning Ukrainian artist based in Cleveland, Ohio whose paintings have been exhibited nationally and in Spain. Fusing academic principles with a distinctive and contemporary style, her figurative works convey the inner world and the characters of her subjects. In addition, Bodnaruk endeavors to reflect a "haunting feeling of melancholy and lyricism". She most often creates with oils on canvas.
Toby Griffiths
Toby Griffiths is a multimedia artist from Cleveland, Ohio. In 2014 he received his BFA in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Originally trained as a painter the use of a camera for gathering reference material for painting led him to additionally expressing himself via photography. His journey through painting and photography ultimately produced a profound appreciation for film making. Toby Griffiths has recently produced his first short film Deep Yang Principle, and believes motion pictures to be his artistic destiny.
The Virtual series revolves around the creation of virtual space, the simulacrum, history, and mystical traditions. It is an exploration into a simulated space that functions as a storehouse for memory and imagination. The virtual spaces created are linked together through the use of single point perspective, associating the images with the mathematical use of perspective in the development of renaissance painting. These virtual spaces operate as stages, platforms, or realms in which the physical objects that inhabit them represent eternal platonic forms and types. The series intermingles and juxtaposes the “spiritual” ideal of modern and ancient art, and in doing so contrasts ideas of the “sacred” and the “profane”. In the self awareness of its construction the Virtual series inspires the viewer to consider the mechanisms of artifice and artificiality as an analogy of the current state of the rapidly evolving digital information age.
Toby Griffiths is a multimedia artist from Cleveland, Ohio. In 2014 he received his BFA in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Originally trained as a painter the use of a camera for gathering reference material for painting led him to additionally expressing himself via photography. His journey through painting and photography ultimately produced a profound appreciation for film making. Toby Griffiths has recently produced his first short film Deep Yang Principle, and believes motion pictures to be his artistic destiny.
The Virtual series revolves around the creation of virtual space, the simulacrum, history, and mystical traditions. It is an exploration into a simulated space that functions as a storehouse for memory and imagination. The virtual spaces created are linked together through the use of single point perspective, associating the images with the mathematical use of perspective in the development of renaissance painting. These virtual spaces operate as stages, platforms, or realms in which the physical objects that inhabit them represent eternal platonic forms and types. The series intermingles and juxtaposes the “spiritual” ideal of modern and ancient art, and in doing so contrasts ideas of the “sacred” and the “profane”. In the self awareness of its construction the Virtual series inspires the viewer to consider the mechanisms of artifice and artificiality as an analogy of the current state of the rapidly evolving digital information age.
Donald Halpern
Mission: Make the world better. About: As a second-generation American from European refugee parents I come from a long history of prominent artists throughout Eastern Europe. Education: New Jersey Public School System BS Indiana University MBA The Ohio State University CSCC Culinary Arts Exhibitions: All my work is sold direct to collectors, with over 40 pieces in private collections. I do not advertise, and I am not represented by any galleries.Artist Statement
I'm Don Halpern. Friends call me DONDO. I'm an inventor, product designer, and artist. With numerous utility and design patents for functional products that I have created and launched, and a background in fine arts, my passion is integrating the aesthetic and the practical aspects of design by repurposing existing materials and items, into beautiful, environmentally-positive, one-of-a-kind functional art, furniture, and accessories.
Exploring my work you will notice that I apply advanced technologies (like 3D printing, laser cutting/engraving, and computer graphics), as well as traditional techniques, to simple everyday materials and objects in ways that typically aren't done. Even the most mundane things, when reimagined or transformed in novel ways, can be elevated to the highest levels of beauty and functionality. It is my strong belief that art should revive resources, not consume them. As such, my art is a redeployment of previously consumed materials, giving new meaning and value to the unwanted waste and banalities cast-off by an over-consuming society. My work comes with no prejudice or bias. I put everything out there with all its vulnerabilities to enhance the lives of those willing to let it in, and sometimes to my own peril at the hand of my harshest critics.
Mission: Make the world better. About: As a second-generation American from European refugee parents I come from a long history of prominent artists throughout Eastern Europe. Education: New Jersey Public School System BS Indiana University MBA The Ohio State University CSCC Culinary Arts Exhibitions: All my work is sold direct to collectors, with over 40 pieces in private collections. I do not advertise, and I am not represented by any galleries.Artist Statement
I'm Don Halpern. Friends call me DONDO. I'm an inventor, product designer, and artist. With numerous utility and design patents for functional products that I have created and launched, and a background in fine arts, my passion is integrating the aesthetic and the practical aspects of design by repurposing existing materials and items, into beautiful, environmentally-positive, one-of-a-kind functional art, furniture, and accessories.
Exploring my work you will notice that I apply advanced technologies (like 3D printing, laser cutting/engraving, and computer graphics), as well as traditional techniques, to simple everyday materials and objects in ways that typically aren't done. Even the most mundane things, when reimagined or transformed in novel ways, can be elevated to the highest levels of beauty and functionality. It is my strong belief that art should revive resources, not consume them. As such, my art is a redeployment of previously consumed materials, giving new meaning and value to the unwanted waste and banalities cast-off by an over-consuming society. My work comes with no prejudice or bias. I put everything out there with all its vulnerabilities to enhance the lives of those willing to let it in, and sometimes to my own peril at the hand of my harshest critics.
Patsy Coffey Kline
Patsy Coffey Kline was born in Manchester, Kentucky and raised in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area. She received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a major in graphic design and minor in photography, graduating in the top ten percent. Shortly after graduation Kline moved to Tremont where she began a graphic design and marketing firm that supplied gratis services to area nonprofits such as Cleveland Public Theater and Near West Theater. In 2002 she opened her first gallery, Gallery U Cleveland, in the Colonial Marketplace Arcade, downtown Cleveland.
Since 1996 she has focused on curating multi-sensory art exhibitions which include everything from live original music, DJ’s, stilt and luminous dance, to videography, juggling, and card and poetry readings. Kline has facilitated nearly 200 events spotlighting Cleveland and internationally known artists.
Kline is interested in creating a conversation about what holds important in our shared contemporary culture and experience. Trying to prompt an exchange that removes the traditional boundaries imposed by the institutional system or other accepted norms in order to question what it is that brings us together and share intimacy. At the heart of Kline’s work is the idea of establishing relationship; creating new bonds and strengthening old; of the profound difficulty in connecting, repairing, loving. Kline’s work asks one to wonder if those difficulties are not what we need to overcome in order to love, if they are what make love so meaningful. Her work investigates whether minimizing those contradictions and difficulties, is to minimize love itself. Her installations are at first therapy; then art takes over. “It’s the right method for me, turning things to my advantage in order not to suffer from them,” states Kline.
Second image: Patsy Kline, “Filters, Fronts, and Facades”, 2022
Patsy Coffey Kline was born in Manchester, Kentucky and raised in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area. She received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a major in graphic design and minor in photography, graduating in the top ten percent. Shortly after graduation Kline moved to Tremont where she began a graphic design and marketing firm that supplied gratis services to area nonprofits such as Cleveland Public Theater and Near West Theater. In 2002 she opened her first gallery, Gallery U Cleveland, in the Colonial Marketplace Arcade, downtown Cleveland.
Since 1996 she has focused on curating multi-sensory art exhibitions which include everything from live original music, DJ’s, stilt and luminous dance, to videography, juggling, and card and poetry readings. Kline has facilitated nearly 200 events spotlighting Cleveland and internationally known artists.
Kline is interested in creating a conversation about what holds important in our shared contemporary culture and experience. Trying to prompt an exchange that removes the traditional boundaries imposed by the institutional system or other accepted norms in order to question what it is that brings us together and share intimacy. At the heart of Kline’s work is the idea of establishing relationship; creating new bonds and strengthening old; of the profound difficulty in connecting, repairing, loving. Kline’s work asks one to wonder if those difficulties are not what we need to overcome in order to love, if they are what make love so meaningful. Her work investigates whether minimizing those contradictions and difficulties, is to minimize love itself. Her installations are at first therapy; then art takes over. “It’s the right method for me, turning things to my advantage in order not to suffer from them,” states Kline.
Second image: Patsy Kline, “Filters, Fronts, and Facades”, 2022
Cale Ours
Cale Ours is a Cleveland based multimedia artist who primarily generates work within a photographic medium. Utilizing vernacular images, alternative photographic processes, A.I. generated imagery, and analog color photography, Ours aims to explore ideas surrounding masculinity, subcultures, and the concept of photographic truth. Ours is currently working towards receiving a BFA in photography+video from the Cleveland Institute of Art and has had the opportunity to have work exhibited within the schools 75th and 77th annual Student Independent Exhibition.
Artist Statement
Concepts regarding sentiment, time periods, and context are integral to my work. With occasional forays into explorations of masculinity and subcultures. I am beyond fascinated with our own past and how we can use it to speak on ideas that still plague us societally. Photography as a medium is wholly based around visual context and how we as people consume media and navigate the world. There is a major shift in how an image can be read depending on if it is presented through a medium of its time or a modern ink-jet print. It can either be bathed in its original context or removed from it entirely.
My work focuses on utilizing machine learning to blend images of the current and the past. All in an attempt to create a fictional approximation of the past, and then present it through analog mediums, all to embed the work within a believable context. The ideas explored through my work typically are expressed via found photos, alternative photographic processes, A.I. generated imagery, and analog color photography. All the forms of creation I use are utilized in an attempt to invoke feelings of the past while the imagery depicted through the mediums are surreal in nature. I am attempting to use mediums such as polaroid prints to ground something artificial using the context that medium carries.
The work I create is commentating on the concept of photographic truth. We as people have grown to be distrusting of photographic images, we hesitate before we believe what we see more often than not. But when looking backwards, we tend to be more forgiving and believing of old darkroom prints, film slides, and polaroid images. We don’t doubt the imagery presented because people don’t inherently believe there were as many ways to alter ‘the truth’ of what was captured back then. I am striving to make audiences contextualize the images presented based on the works medium and what the audience themselves are bringing to the work. Hopefully to then make them question ‘the validity’ of what is being shown and how it applies to us today.
Cale Ours is a Cleveland based multimedia artist who primarily generates work within a photographic medium. Utilizing vernacular images, alternative photographic processes, A.I. generated imagery, and analog color photography, Ours aims to explore ideas surrounding masculinity, subcultures, and the concept of photographic truth. Ours is currently working towards receiving a BFA in photography+video from the Cleveland Institute of Art and has had the opportunity to have work exhibited within the schools 75th and 77th annual Student Independent Exhibition.
Artist Statement
Concepts regarding sentiment, time periods, and context are integral to my work. With occasional forays into explorations of masculinity and subcultures. I am beyond fascinated with our own past and how we can use it to speak on ideas that still plague us societally. Photography as a medium is wholly based around visual context and how we as people consume media and navigate the world. There is a major shift in how an image can be read depending on if it is presented through a medium of its time or a modern ink-jet print. It can either be bathed in its original context or removed from it entirely.
My work focuses on utilizing machine learning to blend images of the current and the past. All in an attempt to create a fictional approximation of the past, and then present it through analog mediums, all to embed the work within a believable context. The ideas explored through my work typically are expressed via found photos, alternative photographic processes, A.I. generated imagery, and analog color photography. All the forms of creation I use are utilized in an attempt to invoke feelings of the past while the imagery depicted through the mediums are surreal in nature. I am attempting to use mediums such as polaroid prints to ground something artificial using the context that medium carries.
The work I create is commentating on the concept of photographic truth. We as people have grown to be distrusting of photographic images, we hesitate before we believe what we see more often than not. But when looking backwards, we tend to be more forgiving and believing of old darkroom prints, film slides, and polaroid images. We don’t doubt the imagery presented because people don’t inherently believe there were as many ways to alter ‘the truth’ of what was captured back then. I am striving to make audiences contextualize the images presented based on the works medium and what the audience themselves are bringing to the work. Hopefully to then make them question ‘the validity’ of what is being shown and how it applies to us today.