Sticks and Stones

The Cincinnati Arts Association’s Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts debuts its tenth exhibition season with two thought-provoking exhibitions that address political and social issues: Sticks and Stones, a contemplative site-specific installation by veteran Cincinnati artist Gary Gaffney; and Forged Souls, Weathered Soles, a provocative mixed media installation by multi-talented and acclaimed Cincinnati artist Brian Joiner.

For more than twenty-five years, Gary Gaffney has made significant contributions to the Cincinnati arts community, both as an innovative artist and accomplished and respected faculty member of the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Working in a variety of artistic approaches—including drawing, painting, assemblage, installation and public sculpture—Gaffney’s contemplative works are consistently thought-provoking and challenging to the viewer. An ongoing project of the artist is a series of interior installations created from painted and manipulated tree limbs and found objects. A similar transformation of natural forms involved the placement of inscribed rocks with thoughtful messages situated prominently in exterior public settings. Gaffney will combine these two approaches in Sticks and Stones, a new site-specific work for the Weston Art Gallery’s street-level exhibition space that takes full advantage of the atrium’s high visibility and daily public interaction, to express states of human awareness and being while delivering a subtle message of social consciousness.

Gary Gaffney earned a bachelor of fine arts in printmaking from the University of New Orleans in 1974 and a master of fine arts in drawing from the University of Cincinnati in 1977. His work has been exhibited extensively in regional, national and international venues including the Cincinnati Art Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati), Miami University Art Museum (Oxford, OH), and Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans). His work is represented in numerous private, corporate and museum collections. Since 1978 he has served as a professor of art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.