The Galleries at CSU

Tuesday, February 23 – Saturday, April 3

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Click here for a 360 virtual tour:
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=fTFKsFSuNfE

Tuesday, February 23 – Saturday, April 3

HERE THERE BE MONSTERS
By Laura and Gary Dumm

GARY DUMM

I have loved cartoons and comics ever since I was a child. My mom taught me to read using comics as well as books. I learned that I could get attention from other kids in grade school by showing them my drawings. Later, in high school, I found that was also a way to draw attention from girls. The practice of drawing is who I am. Combining words with pictures is a challenging but fun way to make a living. I have worked with a lot of talented writers (but especially Harvey Pekar on “American Splendor”), who’ve inspired me to hone my craft every day. Telling a story with art is what I aim to do with every image I’ve created. Presently I am working with my wife Laura on our series of large and colorful environmental and socio-political paintings. But I will forever continue to work on comics in glorious black-and-white.

LAURA DUMM

Color is my first love and nature is my second. My goal is to create paintings that give the eye many places to explore and the brain many things to think about. I thrive on images and/or shapes partnered with a bright color palette. One viewer said of my paintings, “You cover every inch of that canvas! There is always something new to look at!” Presently my husband Gary Dumm and I are collaborating on the large painted series of environmental and social issues that are exhibited here at the Galleries.

GLIMPSES
By Evie Zimmer

EVIE ZIMMER

This body of work provides a glimpse of my creative journey over the past seven years; a glimpse into a place somewhere between reality and fantasy. My earlier work is a reflection of an emotional response to the world around me. The formal elements were used to create complex designs based on geometric distortion. The heightened acerbic color reflected a state of anxiety and chaos.

Over time, nature crept into the geometric patterning eventually infiltrating and becoming the focus of my work. The omission of background and the circular motif reference the tondo, an architectural design element of the Renaissance. The softened color palette combined with the circular movement exudes a calming aura offering the viewer an entrance to a meditative state.

Wonderlust, my most recent painting, represents an evolution; a quest to continue exploring the mystery of human nature in contemporary society.

360 virtual tour: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=fTFKsFSuNfE

Did you know that Here There Be Monsters artists Laura and Gary Dumm already have a permanent presence on the CSU Campus? Their 60-foot mural A Love Letter to Cleveland can be found on the third floor of Rhodes Tower outside CSU’s Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections. This is also the home of the Cleveland Memory Project, a collection of photographs, news clippings, and correspondence that documents this region’s rich history. This pandemic-proof collection is digitized, searchable, and available free online to everyone from history buffs to journalists to scholars. The Cleveland Memory Project can be used to bring the mural to life with photographs and stories of the real-life people, places, and events depicted in the mural.