Image of various artwork from Solo Together exhibit

LowellArts Gallery

January 7 to February 18, 2023

About the artists

Wietze Adema, from Grand Rapids, MI, is an oil painter who has lived in the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States.

Candice Chovanec, from Grand Rapids, MI, is a painter and graphite artist, and currently an assistant professor at Michigan State University.

Sue Cortese, from Holland, MI, is a fiber artist using the Japanese dyeing method of shibori.

Mercedes Ebbers, from Caledonia, MI, uses acrylic paint, watercolor paper, and found textural items to create her 2D mixed media art.

Cynthia Foley, from Cadillac, MI, is a mixed media collage artist. She recently retired as an art teacher at Cadillac Public Schools and is looking forward to spending more time making art.

Mary Lamson-Burke, from Kent City, MI, creates beauty from anxiety with her ceramic works.

M. Joy Lemon, from Kentwood, MI, spent two years focused on drawing with graphite, charcoal, and chalk, while working with Bargue plates, plaster casts, and still life set ups.

Sally Rose, from Mt. Pleasant, MI, taught fibers for 33 years at Central Michigan University and has exhibited nationally and in Canada, Germany, Hungary, Korea, and Switzerland.

Mary Sundstrom, from Fruitport, MI, is a painter, illustrator, jeweler, and sculptor greatly influenced by the natural beauty of Michigan.

Kelly Vander Kley, from Mattawan, MI, has a passion for printmaking and uses a collection of rehabilitated antique printing presses to make her art.

Nate Young, from Douglas, MI, adapted and manipulated a program not intended for drawing to create sketches and renderings to create his digital art.

SOLO Together

SOLO Together is an exhibition of the work by 11 exceptional artists from Michigan. A body of work from each artist is on display that highlights the unique perspective of each artist. A wide range of styles and media are represented including: painting, mixed media, collage, linocut prints, digital car sketches, charcoal drawings, abstract quilts, handmade paper sculpture, and ceramic sculpture.

SOLO Together Artists: Wietze Adema, Candice Chovanec, Sue Cortese, Mercedes Ebbers, Cynthia Foley, Mary Lamson-Burke, M. Joy Lemon, Sally Rose, Mary Sundstrom, Kelly Vander Kley, Nate Young

Gallery Hours January 7 to February 18: Tuesday through Friday 10:00am-6:00pm & Saturday 12:00-5:00pm

Wietze Adema

Urban Expressions

Bio
Wietze Adema has lived in the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States. Born in the Netherlands, his family immigrated to Canada, where he became a naturalized Canadian citizen. After graduating from Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he obtained US citizenship. In 1987 he received his MFA from Western Michigan University.

Statement
“My art is based on a need to express reality I see and feel around me. I’m under no illusion to reveal ‘Truth’ but only to translate the truth of my observation and experience into painterly expression. The creative process and intuitive impulses that drive us are mysterious and unique for each artist. In my search for clarity, from the general chaos around me, I usually turn to landscape or urban scape as metaphor, using photos, sketches, or memory. My hope is to give a personal expression that is both powerful and revealing.”

Image of artwork by Candice Chovanec. Abstract art with blue and black stripes, over yellow with a red circle at the top.

Candice Chovanec

Iterations

Bio
Candice Chovanec was born in Catania, Sicily, and lived most of her life in Southern California and central Ohio. In 2008, she completed her BFA in Drawing and Painting from Laguna College of Art and Design. In 2017, she completed her MFA from California State University. Candice has won numerous awards and shown in group exhibitions throughout the United States. Candice is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Arts & Letters and Integrated Arts & Humanities at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan where she has taught since 2019.

Statement
“Using shape, line, gesture, and geometry, I am exploring my connection to memory, ritual, and sacred spaces. Starting with a question and searching for the answer through a 2-Dimensional arrangement of form. Iterations is a quest to visually articulate the moments of euphoria that come with experiencing the natural and manufactured world as a being with five senses. As the series has grown, they have begun to reference each other to create new works that are disconnected from my original motivations. They become questions of arrangement and expressions of personal aesthetic rooted in a desire to find balance within motion, and fluidity within geometric form.”

Sue Cortese

Bound By Tradition

Bio
Sue Cortese is a fiber artist who lives in Holland, Michigan. Her work starts out as white fabric, which she then manipulates, dyes, and stitches together. She enjoys all the different processes involved, including both hand quilting and machine quilting

Statement
Bound in tradition are works created using indigo dye and shibori. Shibori is a Japanese method of dyeing using pressure to create resistance, allowing the fabric to remain white. There were many different styles of shibori used to create the fabric used in these pieces. One of Sue’s favorite shibori techniques/styles is the kumo or spiderweb.

Image of artwork by Mercedes Ebbers. Indigo dye print on fabric.

Mercedes Ebbers

Introspection in Art and Design

Bio
Mercedes Ebbers enjoys painting and teaching both abstract and realistic art from her studio in the Grand Rapids area.

Statement
“My work represents colors, textures, movement, and abstract images found in nature. My medium is acrylic paint, watercolor paper, and found textural items.”

Cynthia Foley

Persona Place: refuge or entrapment

Bio
Cynthia Foley received a BA from Albion College and an MFA from Michigan State University. She recently retired as a K-12 art educator with Cadillac Public Schools and is looking forward to spending more time making art.

Statement
“To obtain my images, I compile fragments of cut paper. Drawing from observation, I record objects, faces, animals, with direct eye-to-hand rendering. With pen and scissors, I draw myself into another creature and look outward. I begin each work with a specific configuration in mind, but always experience surprise in the process, as the outcome changes considerably from my start-up idea.”

Mary Lamson-Burke

Fragmented Augmentation

Bio
Mary Lamson-Burke is a West Michigan artist and art teacher.

Statement
“As a highly sensitive person, my thoughts can turn intrusive and can consume my inner life leading to a place of constant anxiety. The thoughts that only I know can consume me and stop me in my tracks. I need to physically work through my thoughts and feelings so they do not overtake me. To process these thoughts, I have turned time and time again into making. Making has provided me a way to manifest my thoughts physically. It is within the process of art making in both a cognitive and physical way that I feel most myself. My fullest expression of who I am and what I want to say. To create a sense of space between the cycle of narrative within me and my physical existence. I return time and time again to themes that remain a constant curiosity in my life; nature, relationships, change, and multiples manifest over and over in new representations. The constant that remains is my desire to make, to express, to have art be my way to live most fully. Like life, the themes are constant but the physical expression of them changes."

M. Joy Lemon

A Study of Light and Form

Bio
M. Joy Lemon is currently studying in the classical method through the Sadie Valerie Online Atelier. She took a sabbatical from painting in 2020 and spent the next two years focused on drawing utilizing graphite, then charcoal and chalk while working with Bargue plates, plaster casts, and still life set ups, all through direct observation. She is now tackling the painting curriculum with the initial focus on indirect painting followed by direct and alla prima. M. Joy Lemon also has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Grand Valley State University.

Statement
“This is a body of work created in the classical realist style and completed from life with a focus on observation, luminosity, and expression. While working through these drawings by means of direct observation and reflection, I aimed to develop something interpretive, not a mere copy. I also wanted to capture the feeling of light, the beauty of it as it washes over a form and is absorbed, reflected, and illuminated within. Using various forms of drapery, natural objects, and vessels in a still life, I am able to create arrangements that allow for an exploration of the value structure of any given subject and the place to hone my skills while also assimilating knowledge gained from master artists of the past and present. Overall, in these drawings I see an expression of quiet stillness based on the luminosity and solidity of the forms.”

Sally Rose

Handmade Paper Vessels

Bio
Sally Rose combined studies at the Institute of Design in Chicago with world travels before completing a BFA from Colorado State University and an MFA from Indiana University. She taught fibers for 33 years at Central Michigan University and has exhibited nationally and in Canada, Germany, Hungary, Korea, and Switzerland. Her work is included in the Lark Books 500 series 500 Paper Objects: New Dimensions in Paper Art.

Statement
“Questions fueling my art practice are process-oriented experiments. The pandemic exaggerated the need to look to nature to hang on to some semblance of being right with the world. Natural materials such as bark, grape stems, and seaweed are combined with high shrinkage paper pulps to form vessels that intrigue.”

Mary Sundstrom

In Another World

Bio
Mary Sundstrom is a West Michigan painter, illustrator, jeweler, and sculptor. Mary is greatly influenced by the natural beauty of Michigan. As a naturalist, she is influenced by the creatures and plants living among the bayous that surround the Grand River near where she lives. Her playful artwork represents what she sees and imagines in the landscape. She connects patterns to clouds to buds and reflections with shapes and motion. When Mary is not creating or mushroom hunting in the woods, she is the Exhibitions Director at the Holland Area Arts Council. Here she designs and curates, exhibits and public art projects.

Statement
“Pattern is the word that plays through my head as I sketch small thumbnails that turn into oil paintings. My favorite subject matter are the plants, objects, and reflected shapes that are of the water and sky, but I appreciate the moist and muddy landscape the most. I am interested in the wet edge of the pond that teems with squiggly life. I want you to crawl in the muck with me to get the frog’s eye view. My subjects play and interact with each other in the picture plane. Sometimes I create a silent, but riotous ‘plant party.’ This party is decorated with balloon shaped clouds and garlands of wild rice or berries. This is the lighter side of my work. The darker side of my paintings are about my disappointment in the human race, how we have nearly destroyed our environment. I imagine the ‘plant party scenes’ took place before humans ever were or after humans have vanished and the landscape returns to what it was before.”

Kelly Vander Kley

American Idioms

Bio
Printmaking is a passion for southwest Michigan artist and educator Kelly Vander Kley. The struggles and successes of life and growth on her rural farm often inspire her work. Creation feeds her soul. She hopes to inspire others through thought-provoking and visually balanced images.

Statement
Every line is created with intention and hand carved into plates using tools that leave a permanent impression. Lines, shapes, and textures are carefully and thoughtfully planned. Kelly's small editioned prints in the American Idioms collection evoke a playful and thoughtful tone featuring everyday themes and symbolism that share ideas or moments in time. Prints are made using a collection of rehabilitated antique printing presses nestled in a 187-year-old Michigan farmstead.

Image of artwork by Nate Young. White sports car with black windows.

Nate Young

Innate Design

Bio
As a committed advocate for design thinking, Nate Young’s strategic leadership has been instrumental in developing and supporting companies throughout his diverse career. He brings over 35 years of experience to teams locally and internationally, facilitating a collaborative culture of intense creativity and idea-sharing. He began his career in the automotive industry, gaining leadership roles at Prince Corporation and Johnson Controls (later JCI); he is the founder of TWISThink, a Michigan-based product design and development firm. He returned to his alma mater, the ArtCenter College of Design, to serve as Executive Vice President and Provost. In 2009, he founded the NewNorth Center for Design in Business, a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing innovation within client organizations. It was there that Newell Brands sought out Nate’s expertise in 2013 to align multi-disciplinary design teams to work with a corporate portfolio of 200 brands. He has served on the advisory board of the Design Management Institute and the ArtCenter Board of Trustees. He is currently on the board of Southwest Michigan First.

Statement
“When I was a young boy, I played with my collection of Matchbox cars for hours at a time, it was the beginning of what was to become a lifelong passion. By the time I was in junior high school, I wanted to learn to draw the cars that I could see in my imagination. Many hours were spent fantasizing that I owned a car company that would build my cars and sell them to an expectant market. My imaginary car company was called Monzona. I believe the word was a strange conjugation of the name of an Italian race track in northern Italy called Monza, and the word ‘one.’ In 2007, I adopted the word as the name of my design consulting business which is still active today. The portfolio of sketch/renderings in this exhibit are created digitally. I have adapted and manipulated a program not intended for drawing to do just that. It certainly has its limitations, but I like that I don’t need a special monitor, digital pen, or software to express my thoughts. I also like that it gives my renderings a unique look, sort of a graphics-meets-CAD poster look. Drawing concept cars and various approaches to transportation remains both a professional pursuit and a hobby. Drawing fuels my curiosity, observational abilities, and visualization skills as a designer. The majority of drawings here are just for the fun of exercising my skills, some were work for hire. Someday, I just may have to build one of these.”