Artist Talks: Curated Storefront and Akron Soul Train

The talks will conclude in a panel Q&A with all of the artists. You will hear from Stephen Tomasko and Gabe Gott of Akron Soul Train and Ian Brill and Peter Christian Johnson of Curated Storefront.
Please register for free to reserve your seat with the link below.
This event will be held in the Akron Art Museum Auditorium.

Artists from Akron Soul Train:
Stephen Tomasko is represented in public and private collections, both nationally and internationally, including the permanent collection of the Akron Art Museum. His work has been exhibited widely in regional group exhibitions and the subject of solo gallery exhibitions in Los Angeles, Australia, and France. Since the mid-1980s, Tomasko has made images of America, including bodies of photographs with diverse subjects ranging from jubilant celebrations of flowering gardens to the dynamic, strange beauty of county fairs. Today, he makes art full time in Bath, Ohio. Stephen was an Akron Soul Train fellow in September 2017.

Gabe Gott lives in Akron, Ohio, with his wife, Sarah, the unwitting caretakers of a home for retired house pets. During the day, he works as a team lead/trainer for a market intelligence company based out of Chicago, but during his free time writes fiction and poetry. He has published a novel, Escapes (2014), two flash fiction chapbooks, The Ever-Present Moment (2016) and Dispatches from the Information Age (2017), and a poetry collection, Live Organ Transplants (2017). Gabe was an AST fellow in March 2018.

Artists from Curated Storefront:
Ian Brill
Born in Canandaigua, New York raised, since infancy, in Manhattan’s East Village, Ian Brill has resided in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania since September 10, 2001. Ian’s research has been a life-long focus on design, specifically pertaining to the impacts of the physical world on the human condition.

Ian’s work focuses on the accumulation of form through process. Through the creation of interactive, performative and multi-sensorial environments, he considers boundaries of becoming (versus being) and our immersive relationship with technology. His installations, performances and writing have been presented internationally, at conferences, festivals museums and galleries. Currently, he teaches at Penn State University (PSU).

Peter Christian Johnson is currently Assistant Professor of Art at Kent State University after serving more than a decade as the head of the ceramics department at Eastern Oregon University. He earned his MFA from Penn State University and a BS in Environmental Science at Wheaton College. Peter has been a Visiting Artist at Alberta College of Art and Design, Australian National University, the University of Florida, Montana State University, as well as numerous other institutions. He has been a resident at The Archie Bray Foundation, the LH Project and the Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts. His work has been exhibited in Canada, Australia, Korea, and throughout the United States.

Peter’s work explores transformation, focusing on both structure and material. It uses the kiln as a vehicle for deconstruction. The porcelain grid systems begin as digital renderings and are meticulously fabricated by hand. These structures become the architecture over which to stretch a fluid skin that is allowed to warp or collapse the structure under the strain of the firing. They expose the relationship between soft and hard, the fluidity of a membrane, and the moment of intersection between these contrasting elements. They strive to pair labored construction with unpredictability, and capture the entropy embodied in the process. In their collapse they speak to the passing of time and the virtue found in brokenness.

image: Joe Levack/Studio Akron

Please register for free to reserve your seat.