Gallery Installation Images

“One year after HUD took possession of the Alexander County Housing Authority, people still live with roaches, rats, mold and despair”

-Molly Parker

Isaac Smith, “People Still Live Here,” 2017

 "The fronts of every house in Wilkins’ miniature pictures are seen from enough of a distance so that no matter how close you come to the actual picture, the details remain slightly blurred and fuzzy, though still clear enough to show varying degrees of decrepitude or abandonment. Especially interesting is how the photos are uniformly presented, all seeming to float under glass on wide-margined matts framed with very plain (pine?) wood. Like so many preserved museum specimens of extinct life, or fossils, the pictures have become objects - reliquaries of urban entropy. There’s something distinctly poetic in how they exude a saddening narrative about the historic diminishment and shrunken dimensionality of a once promising place. It’s a story certainly not unique to Cairo, Illinois."

- Tom Wachunas

Details Images of “Erasing The City,” John W. Carlson

ARTIST STATEMENTS HERE:

John W. Carlson - Artist Statement

Aerial views are necessary for mapping, geological studies and a survey of the archaeology of a specific geographical location.  At the same time these photos are distant and impersonal which makes it easy for a viewer to deny the existence of reality and dismiss what they 'cannot see'.

My intention in attaching objects from the ground in Cairo to the canvas, shards of tile, concrete, brick, brass plumbing and wallpaper excavated from the destruction of the homes, will be the archaeological proof of the existence of the population that once inhabited this place.

Bio: Always artistically gifted, John began his career as an artist by attending Cleveland’s Cooper School of Art. Inspired by the works of Egon Schiele, Franz Kline, Edward Hopper and Lucien Freud, John strived to find a balance between expressive drawings and boldly executed paintings.

John often combines traditional oils with alkyds, charcoal and graphite. Working mostly on large canvases, he freely applies his medium without sacrificing subtle emotional details. This method allows him to control the negative space, which is vital to the ambiguity that runs through all of the work. What appears to be a gentle gesture to some can appear violent or passionate to others.

John had been accepted into numerous juried shows including the prestigious Butler Midyear Show at The Butler Museum of American Art and recently juried into The Ohio Arts Council Riffe Gallery First Juried Show in Columbus OH. In July of 2015 he was the first non-photographer to show paintings in The Cleveland Print Room. A gallery dedicated to the photographic arts He was nominated for the Cleveland Arts Prize in 2009 and in 2004 his charcoal drawing “Viewpoint” was purchased by the Erie Art Museum and entered into their permanent collection. John's work, "Visitation" was purchased and entered into The Massillon Museum's permanent collection in 2017. His work can be found in collections across the United States and in Europe.

John also had a passion for education. He taught classes at BAYarts, and worked with students of the Cleveland Public Schools as well as giving workshops and private instruction primarily in figure drawing and painting. He was also dedicated to mentoring visiting international artists in Cleveland as part of the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion Initiative.

John was co-founder of the American Emotionalism Movement (AEM) with his artistic collaborator, Shari Wilkins. The AEM Manifesto, written in 2016 sought artists to join in delivering a “depth of sensation” to the viewer through works in painting, photography, poetry or music that elicits emotions and feelings without revealing too much intent through usage of words or language.

John died suddenly in Cleveland on December 20, 2020 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was 66.

Ruddy Roye - Artist Statement

When Living Is a Protest series.

Sixty years ago, marching was considered an act of protest. Thankfully, I have been able to grow up on the backs, sweat, and blood of those who made strides and steps in the direction that enabled me to do something other than pick cotton and chop sugar cane. 

However, this life is not without its scars-- memories and vestiges of the toll “the struggle” had on a race of people. In 2015, I walk around Brooklyn, Mississippi, Memphis, Manhattan, and Ferguson reading the tales of those living is a testimony to this ongoing struggle. 

This series is my attempt to show a six-month glimpse into what it means to live in “the struggle.” From photographing everyday life in places like Memphis and Mississippi, to documenting the tumultuous protests from the streets of Ferguson and New York City, I show you the faces of those whose lives are spent living in protest. 

Bio: Revealing the reflections of my eyeball…. Radcliffe Roye is a Brooklyn based documentary photographer specializing in editorial and environmental portraits and photo-journalism photography. A photographer with over thirteen years of experience, Radcliffe is inspired by the raw and gritty lives of grass-roots people, especially those of his homeland of Jamaica. Radcliffe strives to tell the stories of their victories and ills by bringing their voices to matte fibre paper. 

TIME Magazine’s INSTAGRAM (@ruddyroye) Photographer of 2016, Jamaican-born, Brooklyn-NY based Photojournalist Ruddy Roye, member of the VII photo agency , Ruddy’s work is widely sought after for exhibitions all over the world. Most recently he was featured on the New York Times Lens Blog and regularly contributes to National Geographic, Time Magazine and the New York Times. Time Magazine writes, "As a black photographer who has spent the last few years shining a light on the difficulties of other black men, women and children across America, he brings to his work an unwavering determination that can border on activism. In fact, his Instagram profile is clear about his aim: he’s a humanist; an activist. A photographer with a conscience.”

Clarence Wilkins - Artist Statement

Born in Cairo, Illinois in 1938, self-taught photographer, Clarence Wilkins’ contribution to Displaced is arguably the most intimate and distinctive point of view. Taken from the age of fourteen to eighteen, his photographs of Cairo predate the racial unrest that was to irrevocably change Cairo.

Bio: Born in 1938 in Cairo, Illinois, Clarence A. “Nick” Wilkins bought his Argus C3 35mm camera for $75.00 in 1951. A self-taught photographer, Wilkins and his friends joined the Cairo Camera Club in their early teens. It was in small-town Cairo that he adapted the acute attention necessary to form his lifelong love of film photography and news film editing, over the years refining his own visual and conceptual vocabulary that emerged early on.

In 1956, at the age of 18, Wilkins, along with his best friend boarded a Greyhound Bus to NYC for three months of training at a radio/television school as they desired to work in Los Angeles in the film industry. Subsequently, Wilkins landed a job as a film editor at NBC affiliate station WKYC in Cleveland in 1962. As an editor for the local news, The Today Show, and the NBC NIGHTLY NEWS, he covered stories from Pennsylvania to Michigan to West Virginia. Wilkins won an Emmy for his film editing in 1973. Ten years ago, his daughter, Shari Wilkins, began uncovering his B&W negatives and Kodachrome slides, discovering the subtle beauty of his eye in the work. With no venue to have them shown, she scanned and filed them away.

Shari Wilkins - Artist Statement:

Promised Land, shot primarily on miniature instant film, portrays images of homes built in my father's hometown of Cairo, Illinois at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers and is a mythological place in my family's collective memory. Cairo's rich and complex historical past has made this city famous, written about around the world. After a twenty year absence, I visited Cairo and was struck by the abandoned town that I visited often as a child. I set out to find my grandmother's home as my first step in documenting some of the remaining homes, some abandoned, some not, capturing the beauty of this southern river town that lost its luster long ago.

Bio: Shari Wilkins is a Cleveland-based photographer and mixed media artist who focuses on alternative photographic processes. Wilkins holds bachelor of arts degrees from Kent State University and Cleveland State University, with a master of arts degree from Ursuline College. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in Ohio and New York City. Wilkins founded the Cleveland Print Room in 2013, creating a community darkroom and photographic gallery.