The Ashes

The Cincinnati Arts Association's Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts announces three new exhibitions: The Ashes, an ambitious and contemplative site-specific installation by David Rohs; Earth in Upheaval, a new series of intricate and enigmatic collages by Jenny Honnert Abell and Michael Scheurer; and Anthem, an imaginative and exuberant installation of quilted assemblages by Denise Burge that pushes the boundaries of quiltmaking to new extremes.

During his still relatively young artistic career, David Rohs of Cincinnati, has actively engaged art on many fronts, incorporating painting, sculpture, video, sound and performance into his multi-layered and thought-provoking installations. As a veteran of the alternative art scene in Cincinnati, Rohs has regularly exhibited and participated in a series of consistently strong installations and performances at Semantics, Sanctum Sanctorum and Warsaw Project Space.

In his most ambitious project to date, Rohs will create The Ashes, a contemplative, site-specific installation housed within the street-level exhibition space of the Weston Art Gallery. Consisting of a 12' x 12' x 12' room, The Ashes will contain an archetypal scale model city that is slowly engulfed throughout the course of the exhibition by descending volcanic ash generated by a ceiling-mounted ash scattering machine.

Visitors will witness the slowly dissolving city by viewing through a tunnel at two ends of the structure or via a video projection on the exterior of the room. The gradual accumulation of ash and the resulting disappearance of the city suggest a sense of loss and lamenting, and speak to the artist’s larger interest in the many layers of preceding civilizations that comprise our culture and in the relentless forces of change that continually impact our lives.

A native Cincinnatian, David Rohs received a bachelor of fine arts from Northern Kentucky University in 1989 and a master of fine arts from Ohio University in 1993. Since 1999, he has worked as a graphic designer at the main branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. In addition to his multimedia art installations, Rohs fronts the alternative music group Chalk as a musician, lead singer and songwriter.