Show Statement

Statement: This exhibition brings into focus interconnections within everyday life through color, movement, and bold patterns. Relationships in nature, society and form itself are explored as each series of work bring a unique response to concept of connections through each artist’s distinctive lens and practice.

About the Artists

Jonah Jacobs:
A local treasure within Cleveland’s art scene, Jonah Jacobs, explores themes of beauty, complexity, and eco-consciousness to create works that are simultaneously thought-provoking and visually stunning. Born in Denmark, and a graduate of Antioch College, he is also an Army veteran who served in S. Korea and in the 82nd Airborne Division, gaining invaluable experience and insight into different perspectives and ways of thinking.

Jacobs’ large-scale pieces combine thousands of individual geometric shapes to create mesmerizing forms that reference fractal patterns, bio colonies, and other complex systems. Jacobs merges creativity with science in an innovative way, to create artworks that explore ideas about order, chaos, growth, decay, and life cycles – the pervasive yet elusive forces that shape our world. Jacobs also treats every exhibition as an opportunity to teach and inspire others how to create artwork that is more environmentally friendly by utilizing unexpected materials for his large-scale art installations, such as cardboard, egg cartons, yarn, quinoa, oatmeal, dryer sheets, and other textiles to name a few.

Avani Patel:
I was born in Mumbai, India, and when I was 11 my family moved to Pennsylvania. I graduated from Tyler School of Art with an MFA and have a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. My cultural upbringing significantly influenced how I came to define my identity as an artist. I fell in love with garment designs, vibrant colors, the sound of music, and the spectacle of both theatre and film when I was a little child living in India. They were all supplely related to one another, effectively representing daily life’s rhythm. My work’s inspiration comes primarily from many cultures. I get inspiration for my artwork from the diverse expressions of various culture in theater, music, and performances, nature, everyday surroundings.

New York, Providence, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Chicago, Dubai, Panama, Portugal, and Mexico are just a few places where my paintings have been displayed. The American Embassy in Panama invited me to hold workshops there in 2005 where we made collaborative art pieces using art materials we may find in our daily lives. In 2005, Laura Bush and Collin Powell also extended an invitation to me to participate in the White House reception honoring artists in American embassies.

In 2008 and 2009, I contributed to the public project America’s Chinatown Voices at Columbus Park in New York City, which was put on by the Asian American Art Center. In Chinatown in New York City, some 100 panels depicting the lives of Asian Americans in the city were on view to the public. Two of my paintings were honorably displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 2002 to 2008. I’ve participated in residencies with Triangle Workshop, Chashama Visual Arts, and Snug Harbor Cultural Center. Currently, I spent the last 20 years living in Brooklyn, New York.