'Transmute' A Group Exhibition of Photography Featured in Park National Bank Art Gallery at UC Clermont

Transmute, a photo exhibition curated by Saad Ghosn, will be featured in the Park National Bank Art Gallery at UC Clermont College from Oct. 1–27. The exhibit is part of FOTOFOCUS, a month-long biennial festival of photography celebrated in Cincinnati and the surrounding areas. An opening reception on Thursday, Oct. 2, 4:30-5 p.m. will feature a meet-and-greet with the photographers, who will make comments and answer questions, before by the reception.

The exhibition features the works of three Cincinnati photographers, Matt Dwyer, William Howes and Michael Wilson. Even though quite different in their esthetic approach and subject matter, these photographers will each address a transformation of a given state — a transformation caused by time, nature or man’s own act.

Matt Dwyer’s pictures represent images he took of trash sludge, hydraulic oil and various chemicals of the trash industry — images he transmuted into beautifully recreated abstract and colorful "landscapes." “Working on industrial size trash compactors, cleaning their clogged garbage and fixing their broken parts, I daily dreaded coming to work in the sludge of other people’s trash,” he says. “I eventually began to photograph what I saw, capturing the colors, textures and angles of my job sites. I was changing the horrifying into something beautiful.”

William Howes takes pictures of old abandoned houses reclaimed by time and neglect. Their original beauty is transmuted into the spontaneous beauty caused by abandonment and decay. When first built, these structures were cherished and admired. Now abandoned, they try to survive on their own, awaiting the moment when they will disappear forever.

Michael Wilson’s pictures of delicate tendrils of grapevines are beautiful testament to life and growth. Wilson captures their graceful and fragile shape, yet one that knowingly provides strength and support to the entire plant. “These slender and whimsical shapes are to me like small hints, clues and reminders that growth is molded by the resistance and support of that which surrounds,” he said. The fragile tendrils he portrays are transmuted by nature into solid anchors, essential for life.

The Park National Bank Art Gallery is located in the Snyder building on the UC Clermont College campus in Batavia at 4200 Clermont College Dr. Gallery hours are 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday-Friday. The gallery is closed on weekends.

About Park National Bank Gallery — UC Clermont College offers visual art exhibits in Park National Bank Art gallery for students, faculty, staff and the general public. Our beautiful and spacious 1,000-square-foot gallery is ideally suited to a variety of art exhibits. The gallery is situated in a highly visible area in the Snyder building, room S140, on the UC Clermont College campus in Batavia, Ohio.
 
For more information about the Community Arts at UC Clermont College, visit http://www.ucclermont.edu/community_arts.html.