Review: 43rd Student Show The Galleries at CSU

This is my second review of a Cleveland State U. student exhibition. Like last year’s show, the quality is student-grade but compares well with student shows at higher profile schools, like the Cleveland Institute of Art. The biggest difference between the two is that students at the latter produce more formal conceptional pieces.

Also like last year’s show there is a dearth of oil painting and just a bare smattering of acrylic paintings. Most of the show–by far–is given over to photography. The lack of drawing and painting I view as a bad thing.

Dunaya Abrahim’s linocut titled Lost Adolescence is a standout from among a number of good prints, any of which I could have selected. The students that like to draw gravitate to printmaking.

Lost Adolescence by Dunaya Abrahim

The piece stays a little too earnestly on the surface and the subject is simultaneously vague and predictable. But the image is memorable and the artist’s strong dramatic sense overcomes some otherwise trite ideas.

Danielle Miller, last year’s standout, shows some nice acrylics. White Lies is filled with wit but lacks the evocative mood seen in last year’s painting.

White Lies by Danielle Miller

This year’s high-point is Linda Ewing’s Seated Figure. This simple-looking figure sketch (pardon the awful photo) is the product of a hand that is playful and intelligent.

Seated Figure by Linda Ewing

[Photos are mine but the art work is copyright the respective artists.]