Ian Swanson : All Visible Objects – Opening Reception

For his multi-media installation “All Visible Objects”, Ian Swanson presents a collection of works informed by his personal experience of home, memory, solitude, fate, and faith. Borrowing liberally from established tropes, he is candid in his seizure of symbolist tradition and openly concedes with an animistic insight into the life of [...]

Chris McGraw – A War A Rose Opening reception at Northend Studios

A War A Rose, objects connected disconnecting- while ideas dissected destroy the united. Get lost in the exploration of the infinite and you will always find 10,000 beating hearts, blooming outward towards peace.
This is Christopher McGraw’s first solo show in Detroit. The artist is exhibiting work about the beauty of war- [...]

A neighborly conversation:

Aaron Timlin on the left and Brandon Walley on the right

A neighborly conversation:
Today’s topic, a Robocop statue in Detroit w/ Aaron Timlin and Brandon Walley

We here at thedetroiter.com would like to create a new segment that promotes discussion about great debates that come up in the art scene here in Detroit. We want [...]

“Christopher Samuels & Ian Swanson @ PCCA” review by Cedric Tai

Chris Samuels and Ian Swanson are back together again, this time at Paint Creek Center for the Arts. The main gallery has quite a few quirks to its architecture, but these two artists pride themselves on being able to activate challenging spaces, and this show was no exception.  It felt like a church, where most [...]

Andrew Thompson, “From Room to Room” review and interview by Michaela Mosher

In grade-school, the bathroom was a dramatic place. Here you separated men from women and adults from children.  Bathroom stalls are still scrawled with the beginning lawlessness of young minds.  The memories of your grade-school hallways are warped and twisted, visually and mentally.  They seem to close in upon you, the stairways smaller; more dark [...]

Beautiful Creatures: An engaging and playful journey – by Gabrielle Pescador

Beautiful Creatures, curated by Billy Hunter and Jeanne Moore Hunter of Mosaic Productions, features regional artists Sandra Cardew, Mary Fortuna, Gwen Joy, Madeleine Barkey, Glenn Barr, Teresa Petersen and Robert Mirek, showing sculpture in a different vein, portraying the figure and organic form with a playful [...]

Martha Friedman delights at MOCAD

Slices of a pimento (olive) loaf, waffles, eggs, and cow tongue are the ingredients of a promising artist. These items have all fallen on the discerning eye of Brooklyn-based sculptor Martha Friedman. While her work is initially jovial, it has a deeper subtext that challenges and delights the viewer.
Her latest show, Rub, runs through December 30, [...]

Brian Barr’s Intro to Painting Class Moves Confidently

I am very satisfied with the relationship between the Russell Industrial Center and the College for Creative Studies classes that rent out space for a short period of time. It’s the end of the semester and that means the students’ final projects are being activated in satellite spaces from CAVE and other spaces in the [...]

Pop Up Detroit by Gabrielle Pescador and Juan Javier Pescador

Pop Up Detroit combines the talent of established and emerging artists providing a vibrant and fluid perspective on the new landscape of art in Detroit. An eclectic selection of paintings, photography, sculpture and mix media-installations gives life to the walls of a semi-abandoned, yet majestic building with a singular trajectory in the history of Motown.
One [...]

The Art of Fresco

    Recently, for the first time in 77 years, a fresco has been painted in the Rivera Court of the DIA.
Hubert Massey facilitated a fresco painting workshop, demonstrating this process. The original documentation of Rivera working in the DIA was [...]