Seven Ohio University alumni and adjunct faculty, Terry Kolb Davis, April Felipe, Cassidy Brauner Jarrahi, Mateo Galvano, Courtney Kessel, Elisa Smith and Basil Masri Zada, created an art exhibit, “One In/And Seven.”
The show opened on Aug. 27 at Majestic Galleries, 20 Public Square, Nelsonville. It is able to be viewed Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
“One In/And Seven” features artworks that are diverse in form, ranging from cyanotype prints on fabric to ceramics. Despite the variety of artwork, Felipe, one of the featured artists who made three-dimensional pieces for the exhibition, felt like the art was cohesive in its display.
“When you're working in group shows, people are coming from different points of view and kind of marrying all of that together,” Felipe said. “I really loved how well the work(s) spoke to each other. That was kind of a beautiful thing.”
The seven artists, who had not all collaborated artistically before, were united by their education from the OU School of Art and Design and their roles as adjunct faculty at OU.
“One of the amazing things about this show is that it is not only all alumni, but we're all adjuncting,” Felipe said. “Adjuncting is such a wonderful, but also oddly ambiguous, thing to be in. I think one of the beautiful things about adjuncting at a place you were a student is that you really understand the full experience. And it's kind of wonderful that not only are you a professor, but also this show allows us to be seen as the artists that we are.”
In creating a title for the exhibit, the seven creators considered their roles within OU, their artistic endeavors and ways in which they could represent the artwork using few words.
“‘One in/and Seven’ can be a little bit of a mouthful, but I think the idea is that collectively, yes, we are all ‘the adjuncts,’ or the additional help, but we are playing roles that really are integral to the school running,” Brauner Jarrahi, a multimodal photographer, said. “But, we are individuals as well. We are collective and we are individualized, which I think was important for us to be like, ‘We're a person and we're also part of this collective, and look how many of us there are.’”
The exhibit is on display in Majestic Galleries in Nelsonville. The gallery is located just a couple of buildings away from the historic Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville’s public square. Connaught Cullen, executive director of Majestic Galleries, said before it housed art, the Majestic was a movie theater and then a pizza place. During the early 2000s, a group of artists remodeled the Majestic’s interior, transforming it into a cooperative artists’ space.
“We are bringing contemporary art to a rural setting in Appalachia,” Cullen said.
“One In/And Seven” found a home at Majestic Galleries because of a three-year contract that the galleries had established with OU’s School of Art and Design. The final show in the three-year contract was supposed to occur during 2020, but, due to the pandemic, it had to be postponed until this year.
Attendees must wear masks to the gallery. “One In/And Seven” will remain on display until Sept. 17.
