UC Clermont hosts sculpture ‘Drawings’ exhibit

The exhibition “Drawings,” featuring sculptural sketches by artist Ed Smith, is on display in the Park National Bank Art Gallery at UC Clermont College July 10 – Aug. 27.

Currently gallery director of Marist Venice Biennale Program and professor of art at Marist College, Smith has been a visiting artist, lecturer, artist-in-residence, professor and distinguished visiting artist at American University, Boston University, Dartmouth College and a number of other prestigious institutions. Smith is a member of the National Academy, a Guggenheim Fellow in Sculpture and Drawing and a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. His work is represented in public and private collections in the United States and abroad and has been reviewed in the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, The Baltimore Evening Sun, Art News, the Miami Herald and many other outlets.

Smith describes his work as “primarily involved with mythic and heroic aspects of the artist and man.” He uses drawing to help discover and articulate sculptural images, sometimes doing hundreds of drawings to “find” an image. Wax models are then made and translated into unique small bronzes — sometimes up to 30 different variations for one sculpture.

“After these bronzes are cast I begin the larger sculptures with still more drawings,” Smith said. “The constant work helps me to understand and personalize the image, to give it meaning and resonance. They are reminders that heroism is still possible and that ideas spring from labor.”

The Park National Bank Art Gallery is located in the Snyder Building on the UC Clermont College campus in Batavia at 4200 Clermont College Drive. Gallery summer hours are Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m., and Friday, 8 a.m. –4 p.m. For more than 20 years, the spacious 1,000-square-foot gallery has offered visual art exhibits open to UC Clermont students, faculty, staff and the general public.