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| “Good Things To Life: The Art of Roy Bigler” |
“Good Things To Life” memorializes Roy Bigler, a gifted Cleveland-based artist whose sudden death last year at the age of 58 was a great loss to the Northern Ohio art scene. This exhibit, featuring the art of Cleveland sculptor, conceptualist, and social activist Roy Bigler, also presents a selection of works made in his honor by artists who knew and admired him, including Jane Baeslach, Jeff Chiplis, Joe Circincione, Donna Coleman, Howard Collier, Blake Cook, Terri Durst, Bruce Edwards, Jim George, Carolyn Getson, Christian Gollub, Lisa Kenion, Suzan Kraus, Michael Loderstedt, Dennis Long, Cynthia Penter, Mark Palombo, Elysha Ross, Louis Ross, Kim Schoel, Tom Stevens, Mary Jo Toles, Mindy Tousley, Douglas Max Utter, Laila Voss, Maria Winiarski, Beth Wolf, and Zsivko. Roy Bigler received his BFA from Kent State University in 1984. He went on to participate in a number of important group shows in the Cleveland area at SPACES, The Cleveland Sculpture Center, Dead Horse Gallery, and many others. He also was featured in eight solo or two-person exhibits held at the Southside Gallery, Cleveland Independent Art, Spaces, and John Davis Gallery in Akron. Roy Bigler’s gift was to recognize and to differentiate among subtle differences of meaning and placement, both in the visual arts and in music. Before he attended KSU, he had already earned a certificate in piano tuning at the age of twenty-two. He continued to practice that trade, and his rare talents as a professional gallery installer provided a steady income. He was a key member of several gallery teams, working at Dead Horse Gallery (Lakewood), Cleveland Independent Art (Cleveland), and for many years as the Assistant Gallery Director at Gallery East. Roy Bigler’s assemblage sculptures sample and recombine lost realities, bringing dream-like new life and significance to disconnected fragments. Buttons and bones, cowry shells, honey combs, or antique labels are typical elements in these small works (usually less than a foot square). In the piece titled “Pearl” vintage mother of pearl buttons are still affixed to their original card. In several other works tiny bones and other artifacts are securely fastened in rows. These seem to hint of an arithmetical/metaphysical notation, like sums of personal and public signs; they might be transactions with the past or messages to another world. Some larger, looser combinations invite the viewer into their mix of symbols and evocations and are similar to the Fluxus boxes that Bigler admired. But more often his wall-hung small boards, plaques, and shadow boxes are tightly bound, wrapped in layers of thread, string and wax, or varnish. Most of these are sealed and open up to reveal their true outlines or contents only in the privacy of the inviolable individual mind. |
| Roy Bigler, Year mixed media assemblage sculpture |
| Roy Bigler, Super Chestnuts mixed media assemblage sculpture |
| Good Things to Life: The Art of Roy Bigler will be on view in Gallery East in the EEC Building of the Tri-C East campus of Cuyahoga Community College, 4250 Richmond Road, Highland Heights, Ohio, from December 8, 2015 to January 28, 2016, with an opening reception on December 8 from 6pm to 9pm. A closing auction will be held on January 28, 2016, from 6pm to 9pm. |
| to see Christian Gollub's pieces from the exhibit, please click here |