Anyone who stepped into the South Campus Gateway Thursday night between 6:00 and 9:00 encountered vibrant live music performances, art galleries exhibiting a wide range of styles, dancing and numerous other forms of entertainment. The “Arts in the Alley” hosted a night of arts-themed enjoyment; from adamant art critics to curious filmgoers, there was something for anyone interested in enjoying a night exploring the arts.
Three art galleries opened their doors late to patrons: the Ohio Art League, the Arts Initiative at Ohio State and ARTillery. Each gallery featured an up-and-coming artist with their own style. The Ohio Art League showcased “Industrial Lichen,” by member Michelle Stitzlein, a sculptor located in Baltimore, Ohio. Stitzlein incorporated atypical materials into her showcase, transforming roofing metal, model train tracks, piano keys and numerous other scraps of material that would ordinarily become waste, into a variety of shapes, resembling elements of nature such as butterflies and flowers.
The second gallery, the Arts Initiative at Ohio State, hosted artist Tom Kelly’s exhibition, “Vestiges.” Kelly, an abstract artist, incorporated materials such as rubber, stone and fabric into his pieces. The majority of the artist’s paintings were black and white themed, scattered with other neutral tones. Many of his works were modeled after the works of the Greek poet Sappho. Few of Sappho’s writings remain, but Kelly took these fragments and built his paintings off of them, each image representing a particular piece of poetry.
The final gallery, ARTillery, displayed the not-so-adorable plush dolls of Stephanie Livingston in “The Plush Apocalypse.” Each plush doll was modeled after a zombie, characterized by grotesque, misshapen faces, broken teeth and blood. Yet the bright patterns and colors and the soft material of these dolls keeps them from becoming frightening – they were essentially just macabre teddy bears. In a timely fashion, Halloween and zombies play an integral role not just in Livingston’s work, but in her life as well.
“I’m going to be a Zombie again for Halloween!” she said.
The entertainment did not end with the galleries; at 8:00, H.P. Mendoza’s comedic film “Fruit Fly” was shown. The 93-minute movie follows a woman’s attempt to find her biological mother. “Fruit Fly” explores the identities of homosexuals, women and Asians, as well as the biases against them, in a raunchy and colorful way.
Many of the surrounding restaurants were still open as the night wound down, providing the perfect ending to a night of “Arts in the Alley.”
