Located in the Short North, the (Not) Sheep Gallery’s annual exhibit, “The Masks We Wear” launched Sept. 17 and is on display through Oct. 31. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Assistant Photo Editor
Forget the N95 respirators or the dainty, blue surgical coverings; a local art gallery’s latest exhibition is more interested in the metaphorical masks people wear.
“The Masks We Wear” is an exhibition that launched Friday at the Short North’s (Not) Sheep Gallery. The exhibition will feature a variety of different artists’ work with pieces that question what identity means to a person, Caren Petersen, director at the gallery, said.
“Whether we hide behind physical masks or socially acceptable masks (i.e., makeup, dress, etc.) or change our identity and belief system to fit in, we are hiding our true identities,” the gallery’s website reads.
This is the second annual running of the show, and Petersen said she particularly likes that it aligns with the themes of (Not) Sheep Gallery as a whole — the idea of having to present yourself as someone different than who you actually are.
Although the show is always set to coincide with Halloween, this year the exhibition is particularly relevant with the mask mandate in effect due to COVID-19, an aspect Petersen said she hopes will be talked about by attendees.
“With COVID now, I think it’s particularly important to talk about masks because it hides our expressions, it hides part of our identity,” Petersen said. “It changes the way we interact with people, the way we shop, the way we go to places, everything we do.”
The idea of wearing masks goes much deeper than just the physical masks people put on. Petersen said she hopes this show can inspire attendees to look beyond the surface impressions people give and think more about who they really are.
“I think if there’s one thing we can take away from this is that underneath all masks are human beings, and that we really need to stop just looking at the surface of everything and take some time and really think about what we’re looking at,” Petersen said.
Christine Kosiba, a featured artist in the exhibition, said she hopes her work has a bit of an opposite effect of what Petersen expressed — she wants people to see the masks and consider how they see themselves. She said she wants her work — a sculpture of a wolf wearing sheep’s wool — to encourage people to think about those metaphorical masks, and which ones we could lose or which ones make sense for us.
Petersen said there are as many ways to think about and interpret the pieces in the exhibit as there are styles of masks people can wear, but to her, it really comes down to the question of what people would be as human beings if the masks they wore hid all of their surface features.
“The Masks We Wear” will be on display until Oct. 31 at (Not) Sheep Gallery located at 17 W. Russell St. Admission is free. The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. as well as by appointment.
