The Critters Build a Critiquing Community
The first critique in July 2023.
One of the main things artists mention as missing from their personal practice is critique; critique is essential to the growth and development of any artist. And we aim to fill that niche. The Critters is a critique group put together by feverdream as a place where local artists can give and receive constructive feedback from other artists in an organized fashion. We always include a special guest artist who emerging artists may not have the opportunity to interact with otherwise.
Back in July, we had our first Critters critique, and since then we’ve stuck to a schedule of meeting every other month. It’s been a blast every single time, and we wanted to take the time to shine a light on some of the fantastic local artists we’ve had as guests for critique!
Nolan Meyer is a local painter and the first resident of feverdream’s Residency Program.
Drawing inspiration from music, the internet and video games, his paintings tend to capture pop culture moments. They often have distorted aspects and amusing, eerie details that draw you in. Viewing his work, you’ll likely see at least one cultural reference that’s familiar, but vastly different from how you’ve previously experienced it. Meyer’s process typically begins with an online image or meme, and then he drafts his design in Photoshop. He sketches and paints his piece from there, he says. His overarching artistic philosophy tends to address how humans have communicated visually across time, “drawing that through line from an older painter like Caravaggio, and then also the guy with a funny name with a bunch of numbers in it on Instagram.” Ideas about politics, news and culture today are often accessed through online imagery, like infographics or memes, whereas historically, creators would comment on those subjects through mediums like painting (canvascle.com).
<< Tony Ingrisano is a visual artist whose work is concerned with abstractions of visual information and the relational veracity that is lost in transformation. Using land and transit maps, airport runways, electrical grids, infrastructure and architectural plans, infographics, etc. as a point of focus and departure, Ingrisano’s work pulls from extant non-verbal visual languages to create new ways of seeing and communicating. The resulting drawings and paintings sprawl across divergent subject matter, observe a deep reverence to color theory, and are rooted in process (tonyingrisano.com).
He is currently the Co-Chair of Painting at the prestigious Cleveland Institute of Art.
<< Lane Cooper’s work is developed from photographic sources. Acting as metaphor, it focuses on an experience of the world in which reality is like a dream that evades grasp, refusing to solidify or become fixed - a vision or a fevered dream or perhaps an apparition, something that sits just on the edge of consciousness. She works in series from sets of related materials. Included in these materials are historic photographs, films, literature and philosophy. From these sources she produces paintings, videos, drawings, installations and performances, with painting providing the focus and filter of her practice. Much of her work features a “strong female lead.” The paintings are built up in layers and are evocative of disrupted digital images, sitting between depiction and abstraction. The experience shifts depending on proximity. As one comes closer to the surface, there is a high degree of tactility and the substance of the paint become more evident while the image falls away (lanecooperart.com).
She is currently the Co-Chair of Painting at the prestigious Cleveland Institute of Art along with Tony Ingrisano.
>> Aawful Aaron is a Cleveland-based multimedia artist and entrepreneur. A multi-dimensional creative working primarily in mixed media, Williams blends the aesthetics of contemporary design, traditional painting, and street art to examine topics of social significance related to identity and culture.
Williams is the CEO and principal designer of Aawful Aaron, an emerging apparel brand and creative agency. His work has been exhibited in cultural institutions, including The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, The Cleveland Public Library, and various Midwest retail and community spaces (aawfulaaron.com).
Katy Richards creates fleshy oil paintings that are concerned with the materiality of paint as well as the physicality of the human body. She is inspired by underwater and sea life, and paints from experiences as well as reference photography. Her work is in the Progressive Art Collection, and many other private and public collections. Richards teaches painting and drawing at Kent State University and received a BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (hedgeartgallery.com).
Mike Meier is a painter whose work examines how violence reverberates in the American psyche through media, art history, and popular culture. Meier has exhibited in numerous galleries and non-profit art spaces in Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, and Spartanburg, South Carolina. Notable solo exhibitions include Man Out of Time at FORUM Artspace (Cleveland, OH) and TGIF at Waterloo Arts (Cleveland, OH) which included 12 paintings and 200 drawings made throughout the Covid 19 quarantine (cia.edu). He is currently an Assistant Professor of painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
If you want to attend any of The Critters meetups click on our Events tab! That is where any and all feverdream events are posted, including every Critters events! There you can learn more, buy tickets, see the schedule, etc.
