Michigan art exhibition showcases Bobcat talent

OU Redux: Forty Years Down the Road features the artwork of nearly two dozen Ohio University alumni.

Grace Koennecke, BSJ ’25 | August 8, 2024

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Art, with its many different mediums, allows not only for creative expression but also a chance to connect with other artists and build community. To that end,  Judith Racht Gallery in Harbert, Michigan, is honoring the work of 20 Bobcats in an exhibition titled OU Redux: Forty Years Down the Road .

Pete Maloy, BFA ’86, is a commercial photographer, adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago and one of the artists involved in the exhibition. He says the process of bringing it together came from a desire to show his students the importance of creating a tight-knit art community, like the one he had while in Athens.

a blue and gold ceramic teapot on a gray gradient background

“Spring garden teapot” by Christy Knox, MFA ’86, ceramic pot. Knox majored in ceramics and has been a full-time potter for 40 years, taught workshops across the country and been published in two books on ceramics.

a print of a brown pig with three yellow chickens on its back, all on a hot pink background

“Hitch(ed)” by Allyson McDuffie, BFA ’86, MFA ’88, archival pigment print. McDuffie majored in studio art and printmaking and now primarily works in printmaking, drawing, painting, mixed media, photography and digital drawing. She co-owns Kin Gallery and Studio with her wife in Boulder, Colorado.

a photo of a white woman at dusk wearing sunglasses, a white kerchief covering her blonde hair, a black coat with brown fur lining and black heels; she is holding a large white plate with a purple plastic octopus on it

“Beverly and Kathleen” from the "Data Dump" series by Brian Benedict, MFA ’84, photography. Benedict majored in photography and in the last 20-plus years has worked for Eastman Kodak Co. and Fujifilm USA. Now semi-retired, he continues to produce images and commercial graphic design.

black and white abstract painting with touches of red, green and yellow

Untitled work by Calvin S. Moore, MFA ’85, gouache collage on paper. Moore majored in printmaking; today he lives in a Chicago suburb works primarily in drawing, sculpture and printmaking.

black and white photo of a gull flying over the shoreline at the beach

“The Flight” by Mark DeBernardi, BFA ’88, photography. Debernardi majored in photography and is currently a mixed media artist and art educator based in Evanston, Illinois.

a colorful canvas depicting a white man with blond hair and camoflage-style shirt and hat carrying a deer with antlers on his back and smoking a cigarette

“Clark Fork Haunting” by Curt Walters, MFA ’85, mixed media on canvas. Walters majored in photography and currently resides in Arizona, where he creates art inspired by his surroundings using debris found in the desert and paper pulped from junk mail.

Two years ago, Maloy joined forces with Bill Zuehlke, MFA ’86, who works for Judith Racht Gallery and has shown his art there several times, and Racht herself to start building the exhibition. Maloy and Zuehlke originally planned to include just three fellow alumni in the project, but that number unexpectedly expanded after word-of-mouth trickled down about the gallery, demonstrating the undeniable Bobcat spirit that the University leaves on those who attend. 

an abstract art print primarily in black and white with blue and red accents

“Separation” by Mark Hackworth, MFA ’84, intaglio print. Hackworth majored in printmaking and painting and has since explored other mediums, including printmaking, painting, drawing and photography. He currently owns and operates Pigeon Coop Press, a collaborative printmaking studio in Athens.

a panoramic landscape with uneven borders depicting a power plant and green field set against a cloudy sky

“Cooling Tower Zimmer Power Plant, Moscow, Ohio” by Chuck Heiney, MFA ’89, photography. For more than 30 years, Heiney has operated Chuck Heiney Photography; he is also an adjunct professor at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, where he resides.

a colorful abstract photo with shades of blue, yellow, green and red

“Under the Dock, Provincetown” by Paul Teeling, BFA ’86, photography. After studying photography at OHIO, Teeling branched into mixed media while retaining a focus on digital and film photography. He co-owns Telos Gallery in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

an abstract painting in orange with lighter orange textured dots overlaid

Piece from “Far End of the Spectrum” series by Bill Zuehlke, MFA ’86, acrylic on canvas. Zuehlke majored in painting and now works in mixed media and metalwork sculpture; he is based in Niles, Michigan.

a dark brown giclee print depicting three missiles

“Idol Remnants 1E” by Pete Maloy, BFA ’86, giclée print on canvas. Maloy used his photography degree from OHIO to make a career in commercial photography; he also has taught photography at Columbia College Chicago for nearly 20 years. His art now focuses on digital collage.

an impressionistic oil painting of green trees against a blue sky

Piece from “Plein Air Landscape” series by E. Charles Rolwing III, MFA ’86, oil on canvas. Rolwing majored in photography and now is a Chicago-based painter with a focus on symbolism and embodied motion.

Maloy says he’s looking forward to reuniting with his classmates from across the country and exploring each artist’s work during the exhibition. He also hopes the presenting artists come to the exhibition to find new perspectives.

“I teach at Columbia College, which is in the South Loop in Chicago, and that's a very, very different college experience than Athens, Ohio, in the foothills of the Appalachians on the Ohio River,” Maloy says. “I try to explore with my students, sometimes, what kind of community, what kind of commitment do they all have? Do they have what we had? It's hard for me to gauge and to see it, and I’d love for artists to come and see that [and] develop their own.”

a sculptural composition of sticks painted white with brown tips on a light brown shelf

“Portable Forest-walking box” by Kirsten L. fisherPrice, BFA ’91, mixed media. fisherPrice majored in studio art; her mixed media objects and works on paper employ some encaustic and furniture finishing techniques. Her studio is currently in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

a brown ceramic jar with three feet and a lid

“Fired Cone 6” by Margaret M. Hutzel, BFA ’87, ceramic jar. Hutzel majored in ceramics and is a part-time studio potter in Athens. She also serves as co-leader of an applied research team with OHIO’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service.

an abstract, unevenly circular sculptural piece in black and red with a white border

“Golim” by Raymond Bugelski, MFA ’84, acrylic on MDF. Bugelski majored in photography and currently works with at Majestic Steel USA in Cleveland, Ohio. His mixed media works reconfigure found objects into intricately constructed wall sculptures.

a fabric puppet wearing a multicolored crown and clothing with blue eyes, large red ears and a long red and white striped nose

“King of the Village” by Patty Mitchell, BFA ’87, MFA ’91, photography. Mitchell majored in photography and is an artist and social entrepreneur specializing in collaboration between artists with and without developmental differences. She is the founder and executive director at Passion Works Studio in Athens.

an irregular square of metal with five X shapes inside a frame

“Quilt Series: 5 Panes” by Susan Griswold, BFA ’87, metalwork sculpture. Griswold majored in ceramics and is now a freelance art handler, rigger and welder in Portland, Oregon, operating under the name St Johns Sculpture.

cityscape scene depicting several buildings and a large construction crane against a blue sky with fluffy white clouds

“Oculus NY” by Thomas Lanham, MFA ’85, photography. Lanham majored in photography and today is a museum project registrar based in Columbus, Georgia.

a cartoonish sketch of a person in profile with the words

“Keeboom” by Terrance Wharton, etching on paper. The lone non-alumnus in the exhibition was a dear friend of Pete Maloy’s until Wharton’s death in 2021. “I just couldn’t do the show without a piece of his,” Maloy says. This piece “is a perfect representation of Terry and our time at OU. It was an appropriation from the men’s second-floor bathroom stall [in] Seigfred Hall … circa 1983.”

a sculptural piece featuring 11 stacks of varying heights composed of brown coffee cup lids

“422 weeks-2016 workdays-8.11 years” by Tony Sutowski, MFA ’87, collected object sculpture. Sutowski majored in sculpture at OHIO and now has extensive experience with foundry metals. Based in Iowa City, Iowa, he works in various mediums; for this exhibit, he constructed towers made of disposable coffee cup lids.

OU Redux: Forty Years Down the Road opened July 27 and will run until Aug. 17. Judith Racht Gallery is open from 6 to 8 p.m. daily.

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